A lot of people want to know whether Bitcoin price is manipulated by cartels.
There are so many Bitcoin conferences these days and Bitcoin owners could know each other from these events. Yes it is absolutely possible that they collude and manipulate the price to gain profits in the futures market.
However, what make it hard to collude is, they may have conflicting interests and may not do what they have agreed to do.
To the question in your title, my Magic 8-Ball says:
Hi! I'm a bot, and this answer was posted automatically. Check this post out for more information.