Hi everyone – welcome back to Evolve’s Bitcoin Monthly newsletter. We hope our views on Bitcoin adoption and market conditions prove useful for investors considering Bitcoin as an investment, or for those managing an existing Bitcoin position.
There is no way to dress up June, so we will not try. According to CoinDesk, Bitcoin fell roughly 20% in June, closing below $60,000 — its worst monthly performance since June 2022.1 The selling was relentless: no meaningful bounce, no relief rally, and a monthly candle that chartists call a Marubozu – all body, no wicks, a rare showing of one-directional pressure.1 Forbes reported that the June 25 intraday low of $58,131 was Bitcoin’s weakest print since September 2024.2 Year-to-date, Bitcoin is down close to 30%, according to Crypto Briefing.3
Our macro framework has not changed: governments continue to overspend, adoption continues to broaden, and Bitcoin-backed products keep working their way into traditional finance. In our December edition we argued that the absence of a blow-off top made a deep, prolonged bear market less likely – this cycle never hit euphoria, so there is less excess to purge. That argument is being stress-tested in real time, and we will not pretend the test is comfortable. But there is a difference between a painful month and a broken thesis. June’s damage traces to three identifiable sources – a new Fed regime establishing its credibility, a rotation of capital into AI, and a record ETF redemption wave – and none of them, in our view, touches the reasons to own Bitcoin over the next decade.
The Warsh Fed Shows Its Cards
On June 17, Kevin Warsh – whose narrow confirmation we covered in May – chaired his first FOMC meeting. The committee held the federal funds rate at 3.50–3.75% by a unanimous 12–0 vote, and did so with a statement stripped to a handful of short paragraphs, closing with six blunt words: “The Committee will deliver price stability.”4 The familiar forward-guidance language was simply gone.
The projections did the talking instead. The median committee member now sees the federal funds rate at 3.8% at the end of 2026 – above the current target midpoint – which means the committee’s base case has shifted from cuts toward a possible hike.5 When the discount rate on every risk asset moves, Bitcoin moves with it. That is the cost of joining the institutional portfolio – a cost we have written about all year.
Step back from the single meeting, though, and the picture looks different. The Fed’s own statement concedes that inflation remains elevated “in part reflecting supply shocks that have driven price increases in certain sectors, including energy” – a direct reference to the Hormuz conflict.4 Meanwhile, nothing about the fiscal trajectory has improved: according to the Congressional Budget Office, Washington is still spending roughly $7.4 trillion against $5.6 trillion in revenue,6 and according to Canada’s Spring Economic Update, the federal deficit sits at $66.9 billion.7 A central bank forced to talk tough on inflation while its government borrows historic sums in peacetime is not an argument against scarce assets – it is the fiscal dominance thesis playing out on schedule. Hard money gets squeezed while rates reset higher; it is also precisely what the other side of that squeeze favours.
Two Open Files: Hormuz and the Senate
The Strait of Hormuz file – open since April – finally produced a signature. NPR reported that on June 17, President Trump and Iranian President Pezeshkian signed a memorandum of understanding to end the war: the U.S. lifted its blockade of Iranian ports the next day, Iran committed to letting tankers transit the strait, and a 60-day clock started on a final agreement covering sanctions relief, reconstruction funds, and Iran’s nuclear stockpile.8 Markets exhaled – briefly. Euronews reported that on June 20, Iran declared the strait closed again after fresh Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon, though the U.S. military reported that shipping continued to move.9 We described May’s developments as a hopeful inflection rather than a resolution, and that is still the right frame: the deal is signed but fragile, the 60-day window runs to mid-August, and Israel is not a party to it. Note how directly this file feeds the previous section – the energy supply shock is a large part of the inflation keeping the Fed hawkish. This month, geopolitics and monetary policy were the same story.
In Washington, the CLARITY Act took another step: according to PYMNTS, in early June it was placed on the Senate legislative calendar, making it eligible for a floor vote – the furthest any comprehensive digital asset market-structure bill has ever advanced.10 It needs 60 votes, ethics language remained unresolved heading into June, and the realistic window is now before the July recess. Senator Cynthia Lummis put it plainly: “We are closer to a functioning digital asset market structure than we have ever been. Now is not the time to flinch.”10 Worth noting: JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon has vowed that banks will fight the bill.10 Incumbents do not spend lobbying dollars fighting legislation that does not matter. Both files remain open – and both, resolved favourably, are catalysts sitting in plain sight.
Under the Hood
The ETF complex had its hardest month yet. Crypto Briefing reported that U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $4.06 billion in net outflows in June – the worst month since the products launched in January 2024 – taking total assets to roughly $72.8 billion and putting 2026 on track to be the first negative calendar year for flows.3 Two pieces of context matter. First, measured in Bitcoin rather than dollars, ETF holdings remain near their historical peaks – the redemptions are large in headline terms but small against the stock of coins the wrappers have absorbed.3 Second, corporate treasuries kept buying through the dip, demand that never shows up in ETF flow data.3 Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan’s read is that the selling is concentrated among retail holders rotating capital into AI stocks, a substitution dynamic he sees as distinct from the institutional bid, which continues arriving on its own slower schedule.11 The marginal seller has a destination, not a grievance.
For the record on Strategy: CoinDesk reported the company’s first disclosed net Bitcoin sale since December 2022 – 32 BTC, about $2.5 million, sold above its cost basis to fund preferred-stock dividends – generated headlines wildly out of proportion to a transaction representing less than 0.004% of its 843,706 BTC.12 We covered Strategy’s structural evolution in May; June added nothing new.
On-chain, the word is capitulation. Coinspeaker reported that the long-term holder spent output profit ratio fell below 1.0 – meaning coins held for more than 155 days were being sold at a loss – with long-term holders realizing roughly $2.4 billion in losses over one 48-hour stretch in early June.13 That signal is rare, and its history is notable: comparable readings marked the January 2015, December 2018, and November 2022 lows. The MVRV Z-score sits near -1.5 standard deviations, territory that has previously defined accumulation zones, and the Fear & Greed Index touched 12 – sentiment last seen at the COVID crash and the FTX collapse.13 We will be honest about what this does and does not say: capitulation is visible, but a confirmed bottom is not – that requires long-term holder selling to exhaust and price to reclaim the short-term holder cost basis. What the data does show is coins moving from weaker hands to stronger ones at fire-sale prices. Historically, that is how bottoms get built.
Looking Ahead
Matt Hougan’s early-June assessment is worth quoting: “I do think we’re in the process of bottoming… this feels a lot to me like early 2019-era crypto winter.” All of the negative news he can imagine, he argues, is already known and priced.11 Lyn Alden’s June letter makes the longer argument: we have entered a “Wild West” era of fiscal dominance, weaker international coordination, and run-it-hot deficits, in which the durable strategy is to own scarce, high-quality assets and avoid excessive exposure to long-duration fiat claims.14 She has also argued for months that a cycle without a euphoric top carries low odds of a major capitulation. Neither of them is making a call about July. Neither are we. The thesis is macro, not monthly.
July brings the CLARITY Act’s floor window, the middle stretch of the Iran deal’s 60-day clock, and a market that has just flushed an enormous amount of leverage and sentiment. The four-year-cycle debate will rage on; our view remains that this drawdown – painful, orderly, and heavily macro-driven – looks more like a repricing within a structural adoption trend than the end of one. Drawdowns like June are the price of admission for an asset with Bitcoin’s asymmetry, and the investors who understand that in advance are the ones who get to collect on it.
We remain constructive Bitcoin investors – conviction is never more useful than in months like this one – and we look forward to what the second half brings.
Sources
1 CoinDesk, “Bitcoin’s 20% June crash looks even deadlier on the charts. Here’s why,” July 1, 2026.
2 Forbes, “Bitcoin Hits 21-Month Low As Expiring Crypto Bets Threaten More Selling,” June 25, 2026.
3 Crypto Briefing, “US spot Bitcoin ETFs face record $4.1B in outflows in June,” June 30, 2026.
4 Federal Reserve, “Federal Reserve issues FOMC statement,” June 17, 2026.
5 Federal Reserve, “Summary of Economic Projections,” June 17, 2026.
6 Congressional Budget Office, “The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2026 to 2036,” February 11, 2026.
7 Government of Canada, “Spring Economic Update 2026,” April 28, 2026.
9 Euronews, “Iran recloses Strait of Hormuz, citing Israeli strikes on Lebanon,” June 20, 2026.
10 PYMNTS, “CLARITY Act Nears Senate Floor Ahead of Recess Deadline,” June 2, 2026.
12 CoinDesk, “Strategy sold 32 BTC for $2.5 million in late May, filing shows,” June 1, 2026.
14 Lyn Alden, “June 2026 Newsletter: The Wild West,” June 4, 2026.
Disclaimer
Published July 2026.
Evolve Funds Group Inc. is the investment fund manager and portfolio manager. The Evolve Bitcoin ETF (“EBIT”) is offered by Evolve Funds Group Inc., and distributed through authorized dealers.
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