I believe this is part of another big money pump-and-dump scheme. Bitcoin and other crypto currencies are used to launder money for banks and hedge funds.

Look at the correlation of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies. They all move the same way. Blockchaincenter.net

We're talking movements in the billions of dollars in these large price swings across many currencies simultaneously. Most of us using crypto are moving at most a few thousand dollars per transaction in a single currency like BTC. How could the average user ever create price swings this big?

I don't believe they can. The only entities with these kinds of resources are banks and hedge funds.