RE:The price HAS to stay below $3 until financing is completeIt's a fair question.
But the answer is an unequivical NO. The price does not have to be below sale price. It would be impossible to ever approve a deal then unless the stock was halted.
So the price of the stock has nothing to do with a deal closing. HIVE could easily restructure the deal tomorrow if they wanted to or simply leave it as is.
I don't think this supression action has anything to do with the deal. It's either a whale suppressing the price to accumulate in anticipation of big pump or whale in an bad short position attempting to keep the price down long enough for a crypto dump or simply long enough to DCA their cover.
Imagine it's a whale with a short position and a lot of money. This stock's trading volume is low enough that someone trading with a few million could easily manipulate the price.