Bitcoin Slides Toward $60K as Fed Rate-Cut Bets Evaporate

Crypto News

Bitcoin (BTC) is sliding toward $60,000 as the year-long bet on Federal Reserve rate cuts collapses. Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari delivered the trigger on June 26, publicly reversing his policy outlook and stating he now expects the Fed to raise interest rates once in 2026. The remark, brief but forceful, undercuts the easing narrative Wall Street had priced for risk assets all year. Our reading of the tape is direct: a hawkish pivot from an influential policymaker re-rates the discount applied to every speculative asset, and the most liquid altcoin complex tends to feel that repricing first and hardest.

A fresh survey of economists reinforces the shift, with most respondents now expecting no move in the remaining six months of the year. The poll projects the Fed holding its benchmark rate at 3.50%-3.75% through year-end — a sharp break from an earlier reading that had penciled in a cut. That recalibration matters for crypto because a higher-for-longer policy path lifts the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets, pressuring valuations across Bitcoin and the broader market just as liquidity conditions tighten into the second half.

The erosion in rate-cut conviction has been rapid. The share of economists expecting a 25-basis-point cut stood at 32% in early May, slipped to 22% ahead of the June decision, and cratered to just 7% in the latest poll taken after the meeting. That three-step collapse traces the market mood that has pushed Bitcoin lower: as the probability of cheaper money fades, traders unwind the leverage and positioning built on an easing thesis, and high-beta assets bear the brunt of the de-risking.

For the first time since 2023, economists forecasting a rate hike now outnumber those expecting a cut. One senior economist surveyed argued that holding the current level — rather than hiking — remains the soundest approach, describing the Fed's members as split almost evenly down the middle. That division is itself a source of volatility: an undecided central bank keeps data dependence at maximum, leaving every inflation and jobs print capable of swinging global capital flows and crypto valuations in either direction at short notice.

The macro picture is not uniformly hawkish, however. May personal consumption expenditures, the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, rose 0.4% month-on-month, undershooting the 0.5% economists had forecast. Deutsche Bank noted the softer print helps rein in the hike rhetoric that had gained momentum in recent weeks, while cautioning that officials remain wary on the inflation outlook. That tension — cooling data against hawkish commentary — explains why Bitcoin is grinding lower rather than capitulating, with traders unwilling to commit decisively in either direction before the next round of figures.

Kashkari's hawkish turn was telegraphed earlier. At the early-May Federal Open Market Committee meeting he opposed language signaling that the next adjustment would more likely be a cut, instead pushing for a fully neutral stance. He has flagged that a geopolitical inflation shock could force multiple hikes, stressed he would accept further labor-market weakness to crush inflation, and argued the economy's resilience implies a higher real neutral rate than assumed. Taken together, his framework points to policy staying restrictive — a backdrop that historically caps speculative appetite and weighs on digital-asset risk premiums.

Across these developments runs a single arc: the rate-cut trade that powered risk assets is being dismantled in real time, and crypto sits at the leading edge of the adjustment. COINOTAG's own aggregate market data underscores how defensive positioning has become — our Fear & Greed Index reads 13 out of 100, deep in Extreme Fear, while Bitcoin dominance has climbed to 70.0% as capital rotates out of higher-risk tokens into the benchmark asset. Total crypto market capitalization stands near $1.72 trillion. With Bitcoin hovering around $60,155 against a hardening policy outlook, the incoming jobs and inflation data — not Fed promises — will decide whether this floor holds.