Reverse Panic!
Most times panic is associated with falling prices, but in reality, it comes in two flavors.
There's the seller panic - which most of us are well aware of and needs no explanation.
Then there's buyers panic. This can even happen with multi-billion corporations, typically after big news. This is when you see a $100 stock jump $10 or $15 in a day.
In micro-caps, it's really interesting to watch. Let's say (for whatever reason) you're a larger investor and owning $100,000 of something you need to own - even if it gains 10X is meaningless - because of the size of your portfolio. A good analogy would be to ask how much time and effort would you spend to invest $0.25. Even if it goes up 10x (woohoo) to $2.50 - it's meaningless.
Well, let's dream someone needed (for whatever reason) to own $2 million worth of WTER the morning of May 2nd. That day's volume was 4,500 shares or $4,410 at $0.98. It would take 500 days to fill the order at that rate!
(In short seller jargon that's called 'days to cover')
Then if he/she looked back at March they would have seen there were days when it traded 2,800 shares, 1,000 shares and even a day when the volume was zero.
That's when buyers panic sets in. No one wants to drive a stock up with their own buying. No one.
So what a size buyer to do? You don't put up a bid for 2 million shares and hope someone who got scared by someone calling it a scam will hit your bid. In reality, that kind of behavior would send any and all sellers into hiding.
You can try to 'quietly' buy 100,000 shares a day...
While this happens quite regularly, it's a total imaginary with regards to WTER. And caveat emptor in 'big buyer' situations is what happens when the stake is fully acquired?
