Nice analysis, I agree with you on it.

Amateurs Traders(new Participants) as always fooled by whales. Amateurs are the one who trade with emotions, sentiments, FOMO, panic etc and loose money. Whale try to use these factors and trap them. The current BTC price action is perfect example for it, looking at the inverted H&S pattern amateurs get in on longside and with this price action going aganist them and pattern not heading towards the target they sell of and take losses and later feel bad to see the price going and hit the target.

I think the whales are using this retracement to flushout last of seller before a huge move towards 17k target. we see this trend again and again over the years.