There are, especially pioneers.  Also there are publicly known Bitcoin whales like

Micree Zhan - is the Co-Founder of the Bitcoin mining company, Bitmain Technologies. Zhan is rumored to own the second largest wealth of Bitcoin. Zhan currently lives in Beijing.

Chris Larsen - is one of the early trailblazers of cryptocurrency. Founder and former CEO of Ripple, Larsen is the second confirmed wealthiest Bitcoin billionaire. Despite his recent criticisms of the cryptocurrency industry, Larsen is estimated to be the wealthiest person to build his entire fortune on crypto. His net worth is estimated to be over $6 billion.

Changpeng Zhao - When you found one of the largest cryptocurrencies exchanges in the world, it would make sense that you are also one of the leaders in the Bitcoin space. Changpeng Zhao founded Binance in 2017 after spending years working on Wall Street. Zhao has a large online presence, and has become popular for it.
Zhao continues to be a thought leader in the crypto world, with his own cryptocurrency now the third largest. Zhao’s net worth is estimated to be around $1.9 billion, almost all of which from cryptocurrencies, primarily Bitcoin.

Source: https://blog.coinsource.net/who-owns-the-most-bitcoin/


They are people who have insight and belief that Bitcoin will be adopted and will grow in price.  They are businessmen or entrepreneurs, investors that wanted to take advantage of the potential profit Bitcoin offers.


In every action there is always a reaction, definitely, there will be consequences to their action, one of example is BIR pursuing them for crypto taxes, possible huge money lost if Bitcoin fail. ( But it is doing great atm)

Bitcoin whales must be more careful with their money than the rest of investors, because they are the preferential target of hackers. That is not an exclusivity of bitcoin whales, though. Every individuals who hold large sums of money or properties become an easy target for thieves. In crypto environment it's just worse, because people here have easy anonymous access to anyone, doesn't matter their location. Days ago it was an early bitcoin developer who had his btc wallets hacked. It's a clear example of clever hackers watching whales and early devs/adopters' steps.

That's very true and recently he introduced zero trading fees just to get back his customers that had boycott the exchange and also to attract other traders. On twitter I see him recently discrediting self custody saying it isn't safe and I believe what he's trying to do is make his followers think them storing coins on his exchange is the best way since now they won't have to worry about protecting their Bitcoin but just hold Changpeng Zhao  responsible.

CZ just like other centralized CEO are anti Bitcoin because they all what their own coins to get all or most of the attention to grow. I won't be surprised if exchange does nothing about the Op Case If he reports. They only go after the big cases so they get media attention and coverage to look like the good guys and attract more customers.

Not only on some known markets but also in cryptospace on where there are really that whales who do possess tons of money which they could really give out that kind of effect in the market if these whales would really be deciding to move as one which the financial capabilities or capacities of these people could really move out the market according to their likes.They do want to aim for more profits and this is why
manipulative acts is  really that something common to happen but its impossible to tell and point out and this is where it is really that totally unpredictable on where the price moves.
Some of time where technical analysis do works but it could mess up on an instant basing up with whales decisions.

For me, crypto whales are real. They're the reason why the market price moves. We can't move the price just by trading with our money because that is just cent compare to them. We people who invested in a cryptocurrency will really benefit from them in the way we can gain so much profit when the price goes up they are the ones who can only do a massive move in the market's price. But this doesn't mean there's no risk for us, as they can do massive increase of price, they can also make the go down deeper because they hold a lot of money in that currency, in other words, they can manipulate the market.

I suspect that the police in many countries have a lot of Bitcoin and USDT in their hands. Are these people considered predators?
I think this should be counted, but they may only have one action, which is to find a way to sell Bitcoin.

The cryptocurrency market is still new, there is no regulation or regulation of the legal authorities, so it can be said that this place is a favorite place for the big players we call whales.

Almost all financial markets have price manipulation, but in larger markets like forex or stocks, manipulating the price is very difficult because the volume of transactions is too large and requires a huge amount of money to manipulate, so almost not many people can do it. But with this small crypto market, everything becomes a lot easier, so they will always take advantage of this opportunity.

Due to the transparency of blockchain real whales won't hold all their money on a single address. They know anybody can watch these addresses and they don't want to start panic whenever they move their coins and they don't want to share with the whole world that they gave coins to someone or bought something worth a lot of money.

Newbies end up watching big addresses that belong to exchanges and people like Michael Saylor and other big whales will keep on doing what they're doing without anybody noticing because they have 20 separate wallets with 10 million dollars in each of them. 

Are there truly crypto whales and what are your takes on them?
It is interesting to note Bitcoin whales, on average, are much different than in traditional investment markets. Many of our wealthy BTC siblings were quite young - and nervous - when they suddenly became rich. Greed and Fear rule the markets: Next time you see the Crypto markets going completely nuts, in either direction, you might be watching some of our insecure whales freaking out again.