In brief
- The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield hit 4.63%—a 16-month high—up 70 basis points since the Iran War began, as odds of a 2026 rate cut collapsed to 2%.
- Spot Bitcoin ETF outflows reached $1 billion for the week ending May 15, the largest weekly exit since late January, per SoSoValue.
- Analysts say $77,000 is the critical threshold—a break below with elevated open interest could put a $70,000 retest in play.
Bitcoin fell to a three-week low over the weekend as a surge in U.S. Treasury yields sent ETF outflows to their worst level since late January and drove more than $670 million in liquidations across crypto markets.
The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield reached 4.63% on Sunday night—its highest since February 2025—up 70 basis points since the Iran War began, according to The Kobeissi Letter post Monday. The move puts yields four basis points above the level that prompted President Trump’s 90-day tariff pause in April 2025. With U.S. mortgage rates nearing 7% and odds of a rate cut this year collapsing to 2%, “the U.S. bond market is collapsing in real-time,” the post read.
The pressure is reaching crypto through an increasingly institutional transmission channel, according to Diego Martin, CEO of Yellow Capital. “Geopolitical shocks no longer hit crypto directly the way they once did,” Martin told Decrypt. “They hit Treasury yields, which hit risk appetite, which hits ETF flows, which hit Bitcoin. The transmission is more institutional now.”
U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded their largest weekly outflow since late January, Alex Thorne, head of firmwide research at Galaxy, tweeted Monday.
last week saw the biggest weekly outflow from US spot bitcoin ETPs since the last week of january pic.twitter.com/gcqxfxi42m
— Alex Thorn (@intangiblecoins) May 17, 2026
The week ending May 15 saw $1 billion in net outflows, according to SoSoValue data, compared to $622.75 million in net inflows the prior week. The last comparable exit was the week of January 30, which saw $1.49 billion leave the funds.
The bond market crisis comes as Bitcoin trades at around $76,770, down 2% over the past 24 hours according to CoinGecko data. Total crypto market liquidations exceeded $672 million at the time of writing, according to data from CoinGlass.
Users on prediction market Myriad, owned by Decrypt’s parent company Dastan, have adjusted their optimism, now assigning a 74% chance that Bitcoin’s next move is a rally to $84,000—down from 89% on Thursday.
The $77,000 level is the line to watch, Martin said. “If $77,000 breaks while perpetual swap open interest remains elevated, the deleveraging math gets uncomfortable quickly and a retest of $70,000 or below becomes a real scenario, rather than a tail risk,” he added. “The next 48 hours of ETF flow data will tell us a lot.”
Georgii Verbitski, derivatives trader and founder of TYMIO, told Decrypt that Bitcoin’s near-term trajectory depends heavily on the AI-driven equity rally holding up.
Despite the S&P 500 and Nasdaq posting strong gains, Bitcoin’s recovery has been comparatively muted—a sign the market lacks strong organic demand at current levels, he said.
The subdued gains and performance come after Bitcoin’s lackluster reaction to the CLARITY Act advancing out of the Senate Banking Committee.
“If the AI trade starts to reverse or loses momentum, Bitcoin could face a much sharper downside move because the market currently lacks a strong standalone demand driver,” Verbitski said.
