There is no short selling here. It's the collateral shares that are being dumped. And I think that the volume is very real. The simplest explanation is usually the right one. Even though most shareholders want to believe something else.
harms I wonder if the big volume of trading without the pps changing significantly was caused by day-trading for tax reasons. Now that the pps is much lower than it has been in the past it may make sense for some shareholders to sell their shares to enable them to pay less tax and to rebuy their shares the same day at a different pps. Otherwise I think you provide an interesting perspective regarding the DTC. I remember there was some discussion about this topic some 15 - 20 years ago on another board regarding a US company with the ticker JAWS.