You can be a whale while not owning an exchange at all.
My source is word on the street throughout as I was monitoring closely (756K coins @ $.329). Might be wrong but the traps were too perfect and too consistent for it to be a group of whales.
Cardano is my next play. After this madness calms down. Moved to Ethereum for now. Then it dipped.

. Should have stored in BTC but ETH I'd so hot right now. As is Cardano.