Not sure if that's the case because as we seen with the SBD pump lately it's much easier and cost effective to raise the price of Steem through pumping SBD.
There are 240M STEEM but only 4.5M SBD remember that.
Let's say they did pump 80M into STEEm right now, the price would drop to 2$ if they decided to cash out so I don't see how profitable it would be for them to do so. It must be something else.
You pretty much answered your own doubts. Yes there is 240M Steem and 4.5M SBD, meaning, big whales can profit much more if STEEM is pumped since they have much more STEEM than SBD, you do understand some whales have few M of Steem? Meaning it is in their best interests for Steem to go up, and not SBD.
Who has few M in SBD? We both know the answer.
Now do 1 more math equation, if they cash out while Steem is 6$ and cash back in when it hits 2$, do you think that is a profitable move or a non profitable?
I'm not doubting if it's profitable or not just saying it would be much easier and cost effective to do the same thing with pumping SBD instead of STEEM.
Much less money needed + better returns.