Capital rotation into artificial intelligence may have played a bigger role in Bitcoin’s latest selloff than most market watchers initially assumed.
Michael Saylor, whose company Strategy recently sold a portion of its Bitcoin holdings, pushed back on criticism and pointed instead to an unprecedented flow of money into AI infrastructure as a key factor behind the drop.
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Saylor Pushes Back On Blame
Strategy’s Bitcoin sale briefly made Saylor a target. TV personality Jim Cramer went as far as to say Saylor had “murdered Bitcoin,” a claim Saylor denied outright.
He argued that capital markets have been funding the AI buildout at historic scale — roughly $400 billion over six months — and that the pressure on Bitcoin was a rotation of capital, not a sign of structural damage to the asset.
SBI Holdings Chair Yoshitaka Kitao echoed that view, pointing to the upcoming IPOs of SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI as likely draws pulling money away from crypto.
Jobs Data Delivers The Blow
The immediate trigger, however, was a US jobs report that caught markets off guard. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported non-farm payrolls rose to 172,000 in May 2026, more than double the Wall Street estimate of 85,000. The unemployment rate held steady at 4.3%.
That reading spooked investors. BNP Paribas said the data opens the door to as many as three Federal Reserve rate hikes, a scenario that historically weighs on risk assets like Bitcoin. From $62,500, BTC fell sharply to around $59,000 following the release.
At the time of reporting, Bitcoin was trading at $59,990, down 6% in 24 hours — its lowest price since October 2024.
ETF Outflows Add To The Pressure
Spot Bitcoin ETFs have now recorded 14 consecutive sessions of outflows, with cumulative negative flows approaching $5 billion.
Bitget CEO Gracy Chen identified those outflows as a significant factor in the broader crypto market decline.
那个说过卖肾不卖币的男人终于都卖币了
现货ETF连续13天净流出，累计$43.7亿，是历史最长连续流出纪录
BTC跌穿了月线EMA50支撑的$65K我不是在看空。我只是觉得，该说的风险不能装没看见。… pic.twitter.com/2f0QxTKJYM
— Gracy Chen @Bitget (@GracyBitget) June 4, 2026
On Friday alone, Bitcoin saw $545 million in total liquidations, according to CoinGlass data. Long positions accounted for $444 million of that figure, meaning a wave of automated selling hit the market as prices fell through key levels, compounding the downward move.
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Whether the $59,000 zone holds as support remains to be seen. The combination of macro pressure, sustained ETF redemptions, and shifting capital flows has left the market on edge.
Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView