@hd49728. We cannot confirm if there are whales from Wall Street and traditional finance who are presently manipulating the market, however yes, it is very headshaking that despite all of the bullish announcements and occurrences since the victory of the Donald on November, the cryptospace market will not pump similarly to the pumps of 2017 and 2021.
We can not confirm this conspiracy theory but Bitcoin market and its price has moved very strangely in this market cycle and very different than past cycles. I don't think there are bigger reasons than manipulations from Wall Street corporations and companies for this big market change. There are other reasons and contributors but I believe the biggest contributor for this market big change is from Wall Street.
This might also be caused by the maturation of the cryptospace market and the effect of this is lower volatility. I speculate that trading on the next bull market might be similar to trading on traditional markets.
It's one of exisiting contributors because when the market becomes bigger, more matured, has higher trading volume, and Bitcoin has bigger market cap, price will be less volatile and its growth in a market cycle will naturally become smaller.
However, the way Bitcoin price moves very tightly with stock market does not give me any thinking than Wall Street effects.