Whales are not selling like people opine.

You can see who is doing what on the cex's?

The liquid hive on the exchanges is not being held by folks that need food, or other consumable crap.
Authors with high ke ratios are not holding it on the exchanges to trade.

Minnows tried to attack me and run me off.

I would guess that they were less than minnows, most of them.
I don't see it all, all of the time, so if you had a link, or account name, I could look at the conversation on my own.

I can't help but think I have these L2 projects to thank for my ability to get into HIVE at such a cheap price.

I thought we would be unobtainium by now, but nope.
Watch what happens when the price starts going up again, folks start coming out of the woodwork, but it is harder to earn hive.
Gaining even what I have was impossible at the highs.
Now is the best time to be posting.

The power curve that was built in is incredibly steep in places.

And, just for the record, I got no real beef with 'the whales', they were in the right place to profit, they should get their profits.
But, when the manipulation starts, that changes the equation up some.

I would be shocked if any of 'the whales' were still operating on anything but house money.
At least, the ones that bought in early.