Key Takeaways
- Bitcoin closes of May with its best month on record. However, prices have fallen -3% to kick off June.
- Elon Musk and Donald Trump enter a heated exchange, drawing attention to ongoing public scepticism toward the current administration.
- Chart of the week: Short-term holder on-chain behaviour shows selling.
After a stellar end to May, it’s understandable that some investors are feeling uneasy seeing Bitcoin retreat from its highs and trade closer to $100k USD again. So, is this early June sell-off something to be concerned about?
And why is it happening right after Bitcoin just wrapped up its best month on record?
Well, it’s likely the overnight drama has deepened the market’s lack of confidence in the current administration, dragging BTC down with it.
Elon and Trump spat
Tensions between President Trump and Elon Musk have hit ‘you can’t sit with us’ levels. This all started with Musk lobbying against Trump’s so-called ‘big beautiful bill’ on tax and spending. This has now spilled over into a social media tennis match. Here’s a few quotes:
Reason to doubt the current administration in the U.S. is something the market could do without as we’ve seen the NASDAQ and S&P 500 slump. Bitcoin and broader crypto markets fared similarly, with Bitcoin a hairline away from falling back under $100k USD and many altcoins nursing double digit losses for the week.
It’s just another hallmark of 2025 – a very difficult year for investors. The idea that we live in a timeline where social media posts drive the market is a clear sign of how sentiment and narrative can take away from the fundamentals (like institutional growth, government regulation and ETF performance) which have recently been driving the market to new all-time highs.
So while we wait for the social media jousting to disappear, we can turn to some solid data to understand what we could expect from here.
Chart of the week – Short-term holder on-chain behaviour shows selling.
On-chain data can be used to get a granular understanding of what is actually happening on the blockchain. There’s no Mean Girls behaviour here.
Today, we’re looking at Short-Term Holder (STH) Cost Basis, which captures the average acquisition price of coins held for less than 155 days.
This can provide useful insights into the behaviour of traders chasing prices over the past 6-ish months, compared to longer-term holders who are likely a bit less sweaty during market uncertainty.
The data shows that prices are falling back toward the blue line, which represents the cost basis of short-term holders. The key idea is that short-term holders typically are late to the party are more likely to sell than long term holders.
As investors work through this period in the market there is a chance we could see further selling from short-term holders.
Price moving down towards this blue line will add pressure on short-term investors – which may force them to exit recent buys to avoid larger losses. This positioning shift could happen quickly, as we’ve seen in the past on the chart, and set a cautionary tone in the medium term.
It’s also worth noting that major fundamental news is on the horizon in the U.S. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meets in 12 days to discuss interest rate cuts and broader monetary policy. This is especially important as new employment data is due later this week – data the FOMC is watching closely for any signs of macroeconomic weakness.
For market bulls, a shift toward looser monetary policy might finally give us a headline strong enough to steal attention from all the political drama.
💱 Swyftx Flows
The buy-to-sell ratio for unique Swyftx orders is nominally >$20,000 AUD (rolling data over the last 7 days, captured at 09:00 am AEST).
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