So in my eyes they were thinking to maximize their profits but did exactly the opposite …
Price of BTC has a bigger impact on Steem price than anything at this point in time.
So, the logical path in the current setup is to hoard as much as you can. Even if Steem only hits $7 when BTC reaches another ATH, that's 20x returns.
If I were a whale who is not confident about Steem's future, that is exactly what I would do: piling tokens. Shitcoin can still moon every now and then.
Hell, if I just sell 1000 Steem when the price reaches $1-2, I would profit.
The free 25% flags will hopefully drop some hammer on the bs on trending and massive self-voters. I'm pretty sure the whales will war with themselves first.
According to the stats I'm informed of: most people don't downvote.
You literally only have a handful of people downvoting more than the few times shown on the chart and most of those names are from anti-abuse initiatives of some sort. Or, they are people being flagged by the said groups putting out their retaliation flags.
Most whales seldom downvotes, they are more interested in stacking coins.