Cryptocurrencies have very thin order books. The market abuse you refer to is best thought of as "market makers" at work.

A market maker will tend to take a leveraged short position during times of thin liquidity (they make money because price falls), and then use their coins to execute huge sell orders, spooking the market. Buyers pull their buy orders out of fear. Holders will see the evaporating liquidity and panic sell. The market price slips further and further down. Little do people know: The market maker has his buy orders down low. This meticulously controlled panic causes the price to dump exactly to the floor, filling the market maker's buy orders. Once filled, he will likely allow price to stabilize where it is. This is achieved by using buy and sell orders in both directions to effectively pin the price. Once confidence is restored, and people start buying and selling normally the market maker will close his leveraged short position. This action causes him to buy back coins to give back to his lenders; the point here is that he buys back the coins he sold on the fall. This creates huge buys, causing the market participants to panic once again, only this time it's fear of missing the boat driving buying. Once the organic buying is waning, the market maker will support the price with his or her own money, and pin it in place once again. Once they determine market sentiment, they either dump or pump.

All markets attract this sort of behavior; and markets with such a small market caps make it easy for even baby whales to make a big splash. The market makers are patient, and are here to make money, so they need a healthy market. They have no interest in harming the project nor it's investors.

Just don't play their game. If you're going to play their game, don't play competitive mode, play co-op and bet with them. Every participant, including the market maker, dreams of the moon.