This was a very rare event, kinda the perfect storm. Yes I believe it would take a party with alot of money to buy up all those dumpers at 3,000 and then come in heavy as soon as they stopped selling and pop the price.. But there are other forces that played into this pop..With all the bad press in china there would have been alot of shorts entering the market, expecting that with each additional exchange closing, the price would continue down. Easy money for the shorters... but last time BTC was at 3,000 it gapped up and never looked back, so there are many buyers dying to get a repeat move up at that spot. Then after a little manipulation from some deep pockets the price gets an unexpected pop and all the shorters who were getting short from 3600 and down, were quickly getting squeezed, and when you surprise may people who have used borrowed coins like that you get a short squeeze, plus the buyers coming in because of remembering that history. Its really a series of conditions that made for a huge wave of buying. Now that most shorters got hurt, they are a little scared to short again and the price stabalizes up here for a bit.. But nothing has changed, the news is still bad, and this could easily move lower again..
Ok so what im saying, is if you and 30 of your friends tried to move the market right now, it wouldnt be that easy, but with the perfect storm, at the perfect loacation, crazy things can happen.