Then there is no connection, and that Tom Lee is only pouring out his frustrations because his $25 thousand bitcoin prediction will not come true?
It looks like that. Being bullish has no positive outcome. Being somewhat bearish might have.
But how would you explain the selloff of real bitcoin when the futures contracts expire?
It could have plenty of reasons, but in a market as easy to manipulate one thing is very important to realize; if something looks too good to be true, then it mostly is. In other words, things aren't as the market wants you to believe. The whales active on spot exchanges are better off trolling BitMex than the very expensive futures that are subject to strict rules. The likeliness of being busted for manipulation on CME is 100x higher than BitMex.
BitMex is the absolute leader in every aspect and probably the main source of manipulation, but no one is focusing on it. Even in current slow market they manage to push $1.4 billion in volume in the last 24h. There have been days where it was over $5 billion.