Are the Whales Control bitcoin price?

[Pmalek]

we all know no one can controls the bitcoin price because bitcoin isn't like bank, stock and valas.

What is valas? Is that some non-English term for fiat and traditional currencies or what are we talking about?

So even if a single person held a huge chunk of Bitcoin, that wouldn't give him special powers over the protocol.

I think that what OP was asking with this part is whether owning a huge chunk of Bitcoin would give that individual enough power to move prices according to their will. The short answer is no. The long answer is that collusions are certainly possible if it suits the interests of all involved parties, particularly if that interest is making even more money.

But a few whales can't do much even if they had ulterior motives. You would need to create a domino effect where your actions cause a significant part of the holders to either dump or buy more if you want the market to go a certain direction. It's a bit easier If you have big media behind your back that scares the unknowing population with bitcoin bans, the death of bitcoin, strict regulation, and more harmful stories. 

[Kakmakr]

Well, this is a debate with no certain answer... because only a few people can answer that. If you had the trading information of all the Exchanges and you can link the personal information with the bitcoins that are traded, then you will be able to give a correct answer.

Most regulated Exchanges have that information, but they do not divulge that personal information to the public. The average price are determined by the trading price on bigger Exchanges, where these Whales are playing.  

[ethereumhunter]

we all know no one can controls the bitcoin price because bitcoin isn't like bank, stock and valas. but if the whales owned 51% of bitcoin, can do it?. if happen, does decentralization not exist?

For now, the whales cannot control the price of bitcoin, even though they own 51% of bitcoin because the current price of bitcoin is already very high. But if it was a few years ago when bitcoin prices were low, they could still do it. Today, because so many people know about bitcoin and take part in the search for profits, the price can go anywhere. In addition, the whales may currently remain focused on making profits and there may also be some who spread negative news to panic people so they are frightened and sell their bitcoins.

[Woodie]

With bitcoin bordered around speculation and the herd mentality that most of us have because of trying to ride the wave of whatever is thrown to us does point in the direction of whales having that influence.

Whales being the big guys of the markets if they choose to buy a lumpsome of coins the charts do equally show this big green candle which gives the general direction the market will be taking and everyone else will want to be buying at his point...I guess price does  follow the whales.

[Leviathan.007]

A whale cannot control the bitcoin price or change anything by itself because even if they sell or buy a huge amount of bitcoins it still will affect the market for a short time and in the long term even if some other whales do the same thing still they cannot change lots of things because the whale does not own a big share of the market and consider the information we have from bitcoin wallets they won't be able to do such thing.

[Ziskinberg]

Well, this is a debate with no certain answer... because only a few people can answer that. If you had the trading information of all the Exchanges and you can link the personal information with the bitcoins that are traded, then you will be able to give a correct answer.

Because usually, we assume that whales can manipulate the market and in fact, it was right. They can move the market using their money, that's their power. However, it was not enough to control everything in the market for they are not just the ones who could influence it as there are a lot of factors that can change the direction of the price trend.

Most regulated Exchanges have that information, but they do not divulge that personal information to the public. The average price are determined by the trading price on bigger Exchanges, where these Whales are playing.  

We can't urge them to give any information.
It is privacy and we indeed respect it.

[usekevin]

The whale had a full control over the price of the bitcoin. Whales are the people who come to the market before the new traders get into the website,So they will have huge money as compared to normal people in terms of bitcoin.So they sell when the market is green,the green market will give profit to the traders and the whales the most.Whales use both the chances to get profit by the long term holding bitcoin as compared to normal margin traders.

[davis196]

we all know no one can controls the bitcoin price because bitcoin isn't like bank, stock and valas. but if the whales owned 51% of bitcoin, can do it?. if happen, does decentralization not exist?

You should learn more about Bitcoin.
Manipulating market prices is one thing, performing a 51% attack over the Bitcoin Core blockchain is another thing(which has nothing to do with the first thing). A successful 51% attack will crash the Bitcoin price down to a few pennies. Perhaps this is what you mean by "control over the Bitcoin price".
Saying that Bitcoin has nothing to do with banks and stocks is partially true. From a financial point of view, Bitcoin actually has something to do with stocks. Both Bitcoin and stocks are financial assets, both are being traded on the financial markets(crypto markets are financial markets after all), both have supply and demand, both have market price/value.

[Mauser]

we all know no one can controls the bitcoin price because bitcoin isn't like bank, stock and valas. but if the whales owned 51% of bitcoin, can do it?. if happen, does decentralization not exist?

Every buy and every sell order is going to influence the Bitcoin price. The larger the orders the large the price impact, that is why whales can definitely influence the price in their favour to a certain extent. This doesn't mean that decentralisation doesn't exit. Bitcoin is a decentralised network that doesn't rely on one main framework controlling everything. When you speak of the "whales" it sounds a bit like it's a group of people that all work together, this is obviously not the case. I think there is a difference between whales from North America, Asia or even Europe. They all are living in different currency regions and will trade on their own personal needs. In my opinion it's not only the whales, but also the HODL investors who are influencing the Bitcoin price heavily. Without the strong HODL community not giving into the selling pressure the price of Bitcoins would have dropped much lower than it did this year.   

[Minecache]

we all know no one can controls the bitcoin price because bitcoin isn't like bank, stock and valas. but if the whales owned 51% of bitcoin, can do it?. if happen, does decentralization not exist?

For now, the whales cannot control the price of bitcoin, even though they own 51% of bitcoin because the current price of bitcoin is already very high. But if it was a few years ago when bitcoin prices were low, they could still do it. Today, because so many people know about bitcoin and take part in the search for profits, the price can go anywhere. In addition, the whales may currently remain focused on making profits and there may also be some who spread negative news to panic people so they are frightened and sell their bitcoins.

The current bitcoin price is high, but if you compare bitcoin to gold, it is very small, the total bitcoin market capitalization is only close to 400 billion USD, and the gold market is more than 11 trillion. It can be seen that bitcoin is very small compared to the rest of the financial market, so manipulation is inevitable and if someone owns 51% of bitcoin, they can do whatever they want, not just control the price.

Sharks manipulate the bitcoin price in order to make profit, that's the way the sharks play.

[tjtonmoy]

Many will have a different opinion on this. But everyone will agree on one thing. BTC can not be fully controlled by one person, even if he owns 51% of the total supply.
To me, one person (a whale) can not have acquired 51% of the total supply. There are multiple whales who are holding a big amount, and that's not a lie.
But BTC being untraceable, you can never be sure who are those holders. You may know few, but there's always those who stays in the shadow. Waiting for the opportunity.
If the whales makes any move, they are willing to buy or sell, keeping the balance between market movements.
It is only possible if one person can acquire 51% or more and decided to manipulate the market. Then among other 49% holders, some will see this as an opportunity to fill their bags and hold again.
market manipulations can be seen in many small crypto platform which is controlled by whales. The pyramid scheme. But for BTC that's nearly not possible.
Maybe one day, but not today.

[jokers10]

For now, the whales cannot control the price of bitcoin, even though they own 51% of bitcoin because the current price of bitcoin is already very high. But if it was a few years ago when bitcoin prices were low, they could still do it. Today, because so many people know about bitcoin and take part in the search for profits, the price can go anywhere. In addition, the whales may currently remain focused on making profits and there may also be some who spread negative news to panic people so they are frightened and sell their bitcoins.

Control can be either absolute or relative, so whales don't need to do all market transactions by their own. It is about forming a wave: you need to have enough assets to makes others to believe trend is changed to which you need, media will help to strengthen that trend and you'll get your profits after that. The bigger market the bigger profits.

[Adbitco]

When talking of whales is about series of them and this doesn't relatively mean a single holder could do that and from what I understand it would be very hard for a single holder to have about 51 percentage of bitcoin. Then let say about market price or increase, this may not possibly occur as the demand is more than the supply it would be very difficult for bitcoin market or price to dump despite holding 50 to 51 percent of the total supply instead would increased potentially.

[Piesel]

Since the Bitcoin network is on the proof of work algorithm it becomes impossible for a few sets of holders call whales to take control, but the whales can also impact the market a bit their can't force the market to a halt as long as proof of work is concern miners are the engine room and as long as the is a minner with the highest harse rat to process transactions won't the Bitcoin network there will be reward so there is not sole controller of the market.

[crunck]

we all know no one can controls the bitcoin price because bitcoin isn't like bank, stock and valas. but if the whales owned 51% of bitcoin, can do it?. if happen, does decentralization not exist?

Many people still think that the bitcoin price today is mainly determined by supply and demand, it is true that the price of bitcoin is also determined by supply and demand, but most of the market is being manipulated, not determined by demand. A market without any regulations would be an extremely favorable place for whales to roam. It only takes 1 Fuds to spread and the price of bitcoin fluctuates unpredictably, but many people still believe that the market works on demand.

[franky1]

Many will have a different opinion on this. But everyone will agree on one thing. BTC can not be fully controlled by one person, even if he owns 51% of the total supply.
To me, one person (a whale) can not have acquired 51% of the total supply.

ok lets tin foil worse case.
(excluding satoshi stash plus possible lost/locked coins ~18m circulation left)

lets use DCG as a example that has fingers in many exchanges
https://dcg.co/portfolio/
coinbase says (sept 30th 2022) ~2m coins
so thats 11% of circulation of coins in just 1 exchange

add in kraken and other exchanges in the portfolio. the DCG does have a substantial heap of coin at its fingertips
ill let you guys calculates the reserves of all those listed in portfolio

[The Cryptovator]

First and probably most important, I want to emphasize that control and influence are not equated. Nobody can control Bitcoin's price, and if it could, it wouldn't have dropped to its current level. When whales are holding a bag, they all want to be pushed. However, they can sometimes influence the market through manipulation. It does not last long and is not always under control. It is decentralized and will remain so in the future.

[Casdinyard]

we all know no one can controls the bitcoin price because bitcoin isn't like bank, stock and valas. but if the whales owned 51% of bitcoin, can do it?. if happen, does decentralization not exist?

The whales of the market certainly have some agency over the market outcomes and that's why they are mostly frowned upon. They can pump and gas an altcoin to the stratosphere and dump it all of a sudden in the name of profit. A lot of projects with good backgrounds and multiple applications that could've been very useful to bitcoin and the cryptocurrency industry as a whole died down because of the intervention of whales. They'd artificially inflate the price and drop it when they think the time is right. Although in the case of bitcoin it is widely different. Its decentralized nature and its scarce supply makes it so that no one fully controls the price of the cryptocurrency. Although bagholders do exist and they have hefty amounts of bitcoin on their vaults, it's not so affecting that their movements would be detrimental to bitcoin's future.

[borovichok]

First and probably most important, I want to emphasize that control and influence are not equated. Nobody can control Bitcoin's price, and if it could, it wouldn't have dropped to its current level. When whales are holding a bag, they all want to be pushed. However, they can sometimes influence the market through manipulation. It does not last long and is not always under control. It is decentralized and will remain so in the future.

Bitcoin is very presentable and can be easily traded therefore anyone with a well proper information about it can even noticed. There are numerous ways these whales influence the market either buying in bulk or selling in bulk inother to entrapped surviving traders and investors in the space. Whales are top spot and future traders in the market and they're always available to make good use of  solid chances given in the space. It's presently in dip but there's every tendency that it will pump, we should also give listening ears to the regular crypto news which always pop out daily.

[Agbe]

we all know no one can controls the bitcoin price because bitcoin isn't like bank, stock and valas. but if the whales owned 51% of bitcoin, can do it?. if happen, does decentralization not exist?

Yes nobody can control it likewise the whales but the whales influence the price of bitcoin. The whales can not control your wallet and that is the decentralized exchange system we are talking about on bitcoin. They can only influence the price not the coin. So bitcoin is still decentralized in all time. Why it is decentralized  because of the p2p nature of bitcoin.