May Jobs Report Kills Rate Cut Hopes: Bitcoin And Gold Sold Off In Tandem

What Happened

Discover: The Best Crypto to Diversify Your Portfolio

Bitcoin and gold pay nothing. When rates are rising, the cost of opportunity becomes unbearable for institutional allocators.

Bitcoin ETF outflows have accelerated in parallel. Diana Pires, chief business officer at sFOX, put it directly: “Buyers have stepped in after the move lower, but spot demand has yet to return in a meaningful way.”

Market Context

Bitcoin News: Bitcoin price is trading at $61,100 on Wednesday, down 3% over 24 hours and 6.9% on the week, as a blowout May jobs report pushed Fed rate hike odds higher and triggered a macro risk-off wave that hit every major hedge simultaneously.

Gold price fell 2% to below $4,200 an ounce. Both assets sold off in lockstep, the very scenario their proponents said couldn’t happen.

That data hardened the case for a rate cut delay into 2027 and forced markets to reprice the entire liquidity environment that floated crypto, gold, and equities through late 2025.

The causal chain is straightforward: a hotter-than-expected labor market eliminates the Fed’s rationale for easing, drives real yields higher, strengthens the dollar, and drains demand from non-yielding assets.

The 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.54% on Wednesday. Brent crude is trading near $92 a barrel, adding an inflationary wrinkle that makes the Fed’s calculus even harder.

Wall Street Journal Fed correspondent Nick Timiraos framed it plainly on June 6, the labor market firmed up, and rate cuts aren’t coming back on the original timeline.

A record outflow streak in U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF products has kept institutional money sidelined, and Strategy’s first BTC sale since 2022 further eroded the dip-buyer narrative that anchored prices above $70,000 through mid-May.

The broader market damage is severe. South Korea’s Kospi tumbled 6.3%, the MSCI Asia-Pacific gauge dropped 2.5% for its fourth loss in five sessions, and Nasdaq 100 futures pointed 0.8% lower.

BTC is sitting at $61,146 on the daily chart, and price has now broken below the February low which was the last major support level on this timeframe, putting Bitcoin at its lowest point since mid-2024.

Why It Matters

The catalyst is blunt: 172,000 non-farm payrolls in May versus a 130,000 consensus estimate, with April revised up to 214,000.

Bitcoin News: Is the Hedge Thesis Breaking? Rate Hike Expectations Drain Both Bitcoin and Gold

New Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh faces a direct binary at the FOMC June 2026 meeting on June 17–18: hold and signal structural reform, or hike and demonstrate inflation discipline.

Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack has already warned the Fed “may need to act soon.”

If the June 17–18 FOMC produces a hold with dovish language, deeply oversold technicals could trigger a sharp bounce. If Warsh hikes or signals one is imminent, the structural support floor gets tested hard.

The only marginal positive is that the sell-off from $84,000 has been steep and fast, the kind of move that can produce sharp relief bounces before any continuation, but bounces in this environment are likely to get sold rather than sustained.

Details

More than $500 million in bearish bets were liquidated, the highest figure since April, confirming the recent bounce was a short squeeze, not fresh buying. Bitcoin’s brief rally near $62,500 failed to attract the sustained spot inflows needed to hold the level.

The gold correlation question is the sharpest one. Rolling 180-day correlations between bitcoin and gold have climbed toward 0.6, but CryptoQuant data has also recorded readings as low as –0.88 during the same cycle, illustrating how rapidly the relationship flips around macro shocks.

BTC Support at $60,000: $59,735 Double-Bottom or Deeper Breakdown?

That February low around $61,000 to $62,000 was the line that had to hold for the recovery narrative to remain intact, and losing it with this kind of momentum is a serious structural breakdown that changes the picture significantly.

The next meaningful support is the $55,000 to $58,000 range from the mid-2024 pre-breakout accumulation zone, and that is now the target if current levels fail to stabilize.

Reclaiming $64,000 to $65,000 is the minimum needed to even begin stabilizing the chart, and $68,000 above that is the first level that would need to flip before recovery becomes a real conversation.