Bullish Strategist Tom Lee Blames Bitcoin Futures for Recent Market Sell-Off

[1Referee]

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.

[richardsNY]

if by "far off" you mean compare to what happens then you are wrong he was close to predicting the real price so far. but if by "far off" you mean in time then you are right. he always predicts for long term (at least what I have seen from him) and that is the easy part because in short term all the drama, FUD, manipulation, panic sells and FOMO buys are affecting the market and making it hard to predict. for example you can't say what the price will be in a month from now or where the bottom of this bullshit downtrend currently is but you can say that in a year or two price will be rising and setting a new ATH. you can also say in 2020 with the halving we will have a huge rise at least doubling the price of that time,.... and considering all these and the way bitcoin has been rising exponentially each time you can come up with a near accurate prediction.

He's not only aiming at the long term, but also actively tries to be smart when it comes to the short term. He even admitted that he was too optimistic in some cases, but that always comes afterwards. Tim Draper is playing it safe by solely talking about what might happen in 2022 and thus far it has worked out perfectly for him. The thing with Lee is that he constantly tries to act as a positive character while the market only keeps going down. The more he's expecting from the short term market, while the price keeps going down, the more people will start to see him as a comedian (negative meaning of the word).

[cellard]

Governments most likely accepted CME futures with the only goal of shorting it by manipulating the price and smoking all the weak hands out of the market.

So with that move they increased their USD supply for further manipulation and their BTC supply to become a big player in Bitcoin.

Futures have an impact on people's psyche even if the underlying asset is not being traded, it's just another tool for the elite to steal your coins. They put scary futures, you sell, they increase USD and BTC, you lose, they win.