"If anything, the seller that came in at 0.0026 was trying to drive the price down, not the other way around."

The seller who sold at .0026 did so on hundreds of thousands of shares.  I don't recall if that was more than one trading house of not, but if was in different blocks.  Then minutes later there is a 10k share trade at 7/10ths of a second before the bell?  Sill looks manufactured to me.