Bitcoin Drops 6.9% on Week as Rate Bets Hit Crypto, Gold
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- Bitcoin slid to $61,233, down 3% over 24 hours and 6.9% on the week, while gold fell 2% below $4,200 an ounce as rate-hike expectations punished both non-yielding stores of value
- Ether dropped 3.4% to $1,625, Solana fell 4.1% to $64.24, and XRP lost 4.3% to $1.12, with Hyperliquid's HYPE the worst major at -10.2% on the day and -21.3% on the week
- The bounce from last week's low was a short squeeze, not fresh buying, as over $500 million in bearish bets were liquidated — the highest such figure since April — according to sFOX's Diana Pires
- U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs have seen continued outflows, with Pires noting buyers have stepped in after declines but spot demand has not returned in a meaningful way to sustain rallies
- South Korea's Kospi tumbled 6.3% as the AI-exposed chipmakers sold off, dragging the MSCI Asia-Pacific gauge down 2.5% and sending Nasdaq 100 futures 0.8% lower, while the 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.54%
- Brent crude held near $92 a barrel after renewed U.S. strikes on Iran kept a geopolitical risk bid under oil even as risk assets broadly sold off
- Wednesday's U.S. inflation print is the key catalyst — a hot reading would harden the case for Fed Chair Kevin Warsh to keep rates elevated longer, draining liquidity from assets that ran on cheap money
Why it matters: If Wednesday's CPI runs hot, Fed Chair Kevin Warsh has political and economic cover to keep rates higher for longer, draining liquidity from bitcoin and gold simultaneously. With the prior bounce confirmed as a $500 million short squeeze (the largest since April) and spot ETF demand still absent, bitcoin's macro-hedge thesis weakens further if gold stabilizes while BTC keeps sliding — a split that would expose how much of the 'digital gold' narrative depends on liquidity, not flight-to-safety flows.
