Bitcoin is trading near its historically depressed 200-week average, a level typically seen late in bear markets, even after the hottest U.S. inflation reading in three years.
Market sentiment is deeply negative, with the Crypto Fear and Greed Index at 9 and major cryptocurrencies posting only shallow bounces that have not erased this week’s losses amid record ETF outflows.
Hot headline inflation, fading odds of U.S. regulatory clarity and rising global interest rates, alongside geopolitical tensions and falling equities, are weighing on prospects for a swift Bitcoin recovery ahead of the June FOMC meeting.
Bear market bottoms are a process, not an event.
First, price-sensitive investors capitulate. Then comes the harder phase: months of sideways action that slowly wear down the conviction of those who remain.
The mood in the market is just as washed out. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index – a measure of sentiment calculated using volatility, social media posts, and market volumes – sits at 9, deep in extreme fear, down from 11 last week and 48 a month ago.
Those readings usually show up when price-sensitive sellers have already done most of their selling. Checkonchain still warns that bottoms are a process where capitulation comes first followed by months of sideways trading that grind down the holders who stayed.
Bitcoin briefly broke below $60,000 this week for the first time since 2024 and changed hands at $62,623 on Thursday, up 1.9% on the day but lower over the week, with a record run of ETF outflows still pulling money out.
The bounce was broad but shallow. Ether rose 1.4% to $1,651, BNB added 1.3% to $595, solana gained 0.9% to $65 and dogecoin 1.1% to $0.085. XRP was the laggard, down 0.3% at $1.12. All of them remain lower over the past seven days, led by ether at 6.5% and XRP at 7.5%. Thursday’s gains dent the weekly slide rather than reverse it.
Inflation is not helping the case for a quick recovery. US consumer prices rose 0.5% in May from April and 4.2% from a year earlier, the fastest annual pace since early 2023, as the Iran war pushed up energy costs, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Wednesday.
The core measure, which strips out food and energy, rose 0.2%, less than economists expected, the one soft spot in an otherwise hot report.
“Hopes for US regulatory clarity have faded again, with Polymarket odds of the Clarity Act passing in 2026 dropping from 62% to 48% this week,” Yves Renno, head of Trading at global crypto payments platform Wirex, told CoinDesk.
“All eyes now turn to the FOMC on June 16th–17th, and Warsh’s tone will be decisive in determining whether Bitcoin bounces toward $68–72K or breaks below $60K entirely.”
Meanwhile, the pressure runs well beyond crypto. Global equities fell to a more than one-month low this week as a technology-led selloff deepened and US forces struck multiple targets in Iran, collapsing the ceasefire that had held since April.
MSCI’s All Country World Index, the broadest measure of global stocks, slipped to its lowest since May 5, and its Asia Pacific gauge fell 0.8% to a three-week low. Brent crude rose 1.8% to about $95 a barrel. The European Central Bank is expected to raise rates later Thursday for the first time since September 2023, with bond traders pricing in higher borrowing costs worldwide.
BlackRock’s IBIT and Fidelity’s FBTC are attracting the vast majority of new bitcoin ETF money, leaving smaller funds increasingly sidelined as institutional investors consolidate around the industry’s largest players.
What to know:
BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust and Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund now dominate U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs, regularly capturing the majority of new inflows.
Despite a roughly 29% year-to-date decline in bitcoin and waves of ETF redemptions, IBIT and FBTC have often acted as stabilizing forces, attracting capital even when rivals…
