Does not need whales to function, ever.

Yes and no. I sold a large part of the stake I once had, and then bought more using outside investment in the past couple of years. The current value of post rewards paid out is about $30 million per year. Without people buying in, with an inflationary system where people earn rewards that are often sold to cash out, the value of HIVE (and reward payouts) would crash, and no one would be happy.

Yes it is conceivably possible, without whales, to have a large number of small investors, say a million new investors per year each putting in $30 each, but I don't see that Hive or Steem has ever been successful in attracting that level of participation.