[justzisguyuknow]

It seems like yes the day-to-day fluctuations may be at the whim of the large wallets, but how can they actually be in control of the price over longer periods?

Or if they can, then given that it's in their interest for the price to keep rising long-term, why not hold and go along for the ride?

[RyanZAG]

They want to slowly sell off their stock so as not to affect the price too much. If they sold nothing, they'd make no money off bitcoin and eventually when they did want to sell, the effect would be so huge as to crash the entire currency. So to maximize their return from their bitcoins, they need to constantly sell off bitcoins. Not too much to affect the price too badly, but not so little that they aren't cashing in appropriately on their investment.

[ifdefdebug]

Most whales don't want to sell off their stock. Simplified spoken, they want to sell one coin for 7100, then buy one coin back for 7000 and cash out those 100 bugs (or cash out 50 and reinvest the other 50). They use their huge volume to try to influence the market their way.

But I guess most whales are in competition against each other, rather than cooperating. And that would be a good thing.