Six Headwinds. One Week. BTC Below $60,000.
The opener called the STRC story Monday. By Thursday the machine wasn’t just switched off, it was under investigation. BTC broke below $60,000 for the first time since October 2024. Six separate forces hit the market simultaneously this week; here is what each one was and what it means going forward.
The opener called the setup. The market delivered a worse outcome.
Monday’s opener laid out two things to watch. First: STRC’s share issuance was already shut off because the price had fallen below $100 — above $100, Strategy can sell new shares and use that cash to buy Bitcoin; below $100, that tap closes. Second: PCE on Thursday, the government’s inflation report and the main thing the Fed watches when deciding whether to raise rates. What nobody saw coming was how many other things went wrong on top of those two.
STRC did not just break down. It came under investigation.
On June 24, Rosen Law Firm opened a securities investigation into Strategy and Saylor over whether the company issued materially misleading business information. No class action has been filed, and most investigations at this stage don’t result in one — but the timing makes an already-difficult situation harder.
CryptoQuant pointed out Strategy now owes roughly $1.2 billion a year in dividends across all its preferred instruments, against about $1.4 billion in cash — a $200 million cushion that gets tighter every month if Bitcoin keeps falling and Strategy can’t raise fresh cash. June 30 is when Strategy can announce a new STRC dividend rate; a raise could bring new buyers at the discounted price.
STRC was the headline. Five other forces pulled the same direction.
PCE, the government’s measure of what Americans pay for goods and services, came in at 4.1% year over year for May, up from 3.8% in April. Core PCE, which strips out food and energy to show underlying inflation, came in at 3.4%. In line with expectations, no upside surprise, but no relief either — PCE gave the Fed no reason to soften its stance. 9 of 18 Fed officials still expect to raise rates before year end, and markets are pricing an 86% chance of a September hike. Until inflation comes down meaningfully, that pressure doesn’t go away.
SpaceX completed the largest IPO in history on June 12, raising roughly $86 billion, then came back Monday to borrow another $25 billion — upsized from a planned $20 billion on $90 billion of investor orders. Combined, that’s roughly $111 billion pulled from the capital pool in two weeks. When a company issues bonds it’s borrowing from investors, and those investors need dollars; in a market where capital is finite, $111 billion flowing into SpaceX paper is $111 billion not sitting in crypto or other risk assets.
Earlier this month the US and Iran signed a peace deal that included Iran reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway roughly 20% of the world’s oil flows through. When it was closed during the conflict, oil spiked, inflation rose, and the Fed had more reason to hike. This week Iran’s military posted a warning on X telling ships to use only routes it approves — a sign it isn’t fully letting go of control. The deal’s 60-day window expires mid-August; if Iran keeps creating friction in the strait, oil and inflation stay elevated and the Fed keeps its foot on the brake.
US spot Bitcoin ETFs saw five consecutive days of net outflows this week. When ETF flows are negative, the institutional buyers who drove the rally from $59,000 to $73,000 in Q1 are pulling back, removing a consistent source of buying pressure under Bitcoin. Five days in a row is not noise.
Thursday’s break through $60,000 triggered nearly $1 billion in liquidations, roughly 80% from long positions — BTC and ETH longs accounted for about $400 million and $200 million respectively. Forced liquidations aren’t discretionary selling: when a leveraged position gets automatically closed, the sell order hits the market regardless of what the holder thinks about long-term value. That mechanical selling amplifies the move down the same way it amplified moves up.
Not just crypto. Everything was under pressure.
The same forces that hit BTC this week moved gold, oil, and equities.
WTI Crude: oil fell below $70 this week, almost wiping out all the price gains from the Iran conflict — actually good news for the bigger picture, since cheaper oil means lower inflation, and lower inflation means the Fed has less reason to raise rates. The peace deal is working on that front: Saudi tankers started moving through the Strait again for the first time since March, and more than 20 tankers have already made it through. But Thursday the Iranian military posted on X warning ships they can only use routes Iran approves. Oil bounced back toward $72 on that news before settling near $70.77 — a two-way move in one day that says everything about where we are: the deal is real, but Iran isn’t done asserting control.
Gold: held above $4,000 for most of the week, trading around $4,039 on Thursday. It’s been under pressure since the hawkish FOMC on June 17 but hasn’t broken down the way crypto has — the same dollar and rate dynamic applies, but gold has been more resilient. Down roughly 20% from its January record high, but holding its ground.
Equities: a volatile week with multiple reversals. Tuesday the Nasdaq and S&P fell after Bank of America warned rates could go higher, with Asian markets also weak. Wednesday markets gave up gains late. Then Micron reported blockbuster earnings after hours, revenue quadrupling year over year on AI chip demand, and Thursday morning that lifted chip stocks with the Russell 2000 and Dow leading higher. Then Apple announced sweeping price increases on MacBooks and iPads, blaming a global memory chip shortage driven by AI data center buildout; Apple fell roughly 6%, wiping about $275 billion in market cap in a single session, and Microsoft followed with Xbox price hikes. The S&P ended mixed Thursday, Nasdaq dragged lower by big tech weakness while the Dow and Russell held gains. The STRC and MSTR story added to the pressure on the Nasdaq specifically, since both are listed stocks whose collapse dragged sentiment across risk assets.
$10.6 billion settled. Max pain was irrelevant.
Friday’s quarterly Deribit expiry settled at 8am UTC with BTC at $59,300, roughly $15,000 (about 25%) below the $74,000 max pain level. When price is that far from max pain going in, there’s no realistic force pulling it there — no squeeze, just the 80% out-of-the-money open interest expiring worthless.
Traders who want to maintain exposure don’t just walk away — they roll into the next contract, and that’s already visible in where new open interest is building on Deribit. On the upside, the Dec 25, 2026 $120,000 call holds 7,526 BTC of open interest and the Jul 31, 2026 $80,000 call holds 7,118 BTC. On the downside, the Dec 25, 2026 $60,000 put holds 6,224 BTC. Max pain for both the September and December expirations is already climbing to $75,000. With BTC at $59,300, all three strikes are deep out of the money — but they show the range the market is sizing up.
The slate is clear heading into July. Whatever rebuilds from here reflects the new environment: BTC below $60,000, STRC under investigation, Hormuz uncertain, and a Fed still on a hike footing.
The structure is more challenged than it was Monday morning.
Bitcoin hasn’t stayed below $60,000 since October 2024, and it briefly touched $58,000 Thursday before bouncing. None of this means the long-term thesis is broken, but six things pushed price lower this week and you want to see them start reversing before getting confident.
BTC is down roughly 8% from Monday’s $64,500 open — the drawdown you feel directly, with no hedge, since there’s no leverage to get liquidated out of.
The quarterly expiry cleared $10.6B in contracts Friday; the slate is clean and new positions are already building in September and December. Thursday’s liquidations flushed a large chunk of borrowed money out, reducing the risk of another cascade near-term.
You’ve got no exposure to this week’s drawdown either way — the question is whether $60,000 and $58,000 give you a clean entry.
Months of tight trading near par invited leverage, margin calls forced selling, selling pushed the price further from par, more margin calls followed. Jesse Myers of The Smarter Web Company called it explicitly this week: a liquidation cascade, not a fundamental failure. The mechanics are identical whether it’s a futures contract or a product like STRC. Lesson 1 covers how to read when it’s exhausted.
Read Lesson 1 →This content is produced by Harmonic for educational purposes. It is strategy education, not investment advice.
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