Yes, the "trending" sort order is by steem power of upvotes.
Since a prtion of author rewards are paid to comments, you can gain steem power by commenting well on popular posts.
You don't think that a whale's comment should be more important than a newbies, great. Sort by "new."
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It just seems to fly in the face of what people expect to see from the top post. Sorting by new qould arrange it chronologically, again, not helpful. I don't think anyone's comments on someone else's topic should be more important, no. They can use their power to create a post and make it trend should they decide.
This site won't have any value with just whales. It needs common everyday users and comments are arranged in a very misleading way from an established structure.