We know they got Hector's million plus shares and alledgedly some shares from the weak hands here like MoneyK.

They might have a couple of million shares by now.  If its someone like Newmont I'm sure the acquirer is quite frustrated and disappointed with the net take from the shake outs.

I do have another theory about the price spikes.  Its based on what I imagine is said in negotiations for the entire company.  Say Ernesto says he wants $3/share.  The acquirer laughs and notes that the company market cap according to the stock price is a minuscule fraction of that.  Ernesto laughs back and says something like "The market is super thin and the noted share price is only available to extremely small investors.  Its a price that applies only for those wanting thousands of shares not millions of shares.  Go ahead, try to get millions of shares from the market.  You will soon see that the price rockets to higher levels so this thin-market price is irrelavant to buy out price negotiations."

So the interested majors goes out to test this assertion and soon realizes that Ernesto is correct about the irrelevance of the market price in a buy out talks and so they soon abandon the exercise.  Maybe this is what happenned in 2021 also.