[Weekly Briefing for the 5th Week of May] If it gets familiar, it plummets again… When will the US tariff ‘roller coaster’ stop?

Bitcoin's price, which had been rising for 8 consecutive weeks, showed a correction last week with a -3.87% decline. While Ethereum (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, maintained a relatively stable price trend, altcoins like Solana (-11.69%) experienced significant drops. The mood was not bad at the beginning of the week. Particularly, when former President Trump announced a deferral of the 50% tariff on the EU until July 9th, the prices of risky assets, including Bitcoin, reacted with a sharp increase. This week, news of corporate Bitcoin purchases was prominent. In addition to Strategy and Metaplanet, which had been showing continuous buying movements, Trump Media, known as the former president's social media service company, declared that it would acquire Bitcoin worth $2.5 billion through stock issuance and corporate bond issuance, following Strategy's buying strategy. Nasdaq-listed GameStop purchased 4,710 Bitcoins at an average price of $108,800. Cantor Fitzgerald, where U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Rootnic is a related party, announced not only a simple purchase but also the implementation of a $2 billion Bitcoin-backed loan service. Nasdaq-listed sports gaming company Sharplink drew attention by announcing the acquisition of Ethereum through a $1 billion capital increase. Sharplink had previously announced a private placement of $425 million on the 27th of last month, with significant participation from cryptocurrency venture capitals like Consensys and Electric Capital, an Ethereum infrastructure company. With this new strategy of accumulating Ethereum through a listed company, Sharplink's stock price has risen more than 20 times. The issue is that despite many people accumulating Bitcoin, the price showed a noticeable weakness this week. The reason for the price decline is simple: there are more sellers than buyers of BTC in the market. From the beginning of the week, on-chain data suggested the possibility of large Bitcoin whale investors selling. Long-term holders, mostly Bitcoin whale investors, were detected moving to realize profits after long holding periods. Recently, amid the U.S. tariff situation, Bitcoin price unexpectedly strongly broke through the previous high of $108,000 and created a new high of $112,000. However, there are not enough materials to attract buying momentum to surpass this high point. With no clear additional upward momentum, the high price itself acted as a negative factor. There is a hypothesis that long-term investors, concerned about this, collectively moved their holdings to centralized exchanges to sell. Moreover, the U.S. Trade Court's decision on the 29th to invalidate the entire reciprocal tariff of the Trump administration significantly increased market uncertainty. The Bitcoin trend clearly began to turn downward around this time. The trend of the U.S. Bitcoin spot ETF, which had strongly led market growth since mid-April, also turned to net outflows that day. The Trump administration expressed its intention to directly challenge the court's decision. Tension was created in the tariff negotiation phase that had been continuing in a conciliatory atmosphere. The president suggested additional trade friction with China on the 30th and announced an increase in tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from 25% to 50%. The 2025 Bitcoin Conference, which had raised expectations, did not produce any significant new positive news. The only new information was that the Trump administration removed the cryptocurrency investment warning guidelines that had been attached to the U.S. retirement pension 401k. Although many people made optimistic statements about Bitcoin's future, this was the reason why Bitcoin's price remained weak throughout the week. This week's most important issue is whether the tension created by the Trump administration on the 30th will further escalate or be resolved, especially regarding tariff friction with China. This depends on whether President Trump will have a phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping and the content of their conversation. If the call with President Xi is not successful and the 50% tariff on steel and aluminum remains unchanged, risky asset prices this week are likely to struggle. The market is currently very unstable. The rumor circulating over the weekend about Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's resignation is another aspect that well illustrates this atmosphere. If Chairman Powell really resigns, it could be an event that strongly triggers a short-term adjustment. It seems necessary to pay attention to his external speech scheduled for the 3rd (Tuesday). We wish all readers a successful investment this week as well.