BitMart Research Weekly: ETF Continues to Bleed + AI Siphon Effect, Crypto Market Oscillates and Seeks a Bottom

1. Macro Economy and Traditional Financial Markets

1. AI Narrative Strengthens: Anthropic Files Confidentially, Alphabet Increases Investment, Tech Stocks Hit New Highs

This week, the three major U.S. stock indices continued to rise, maintaining a strong trend. The Nasdaq Composite Index increased by 1.19%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 1.13%, and the S&P 500 gained 0.81%. Since April, the S&P 500 has accumulated a rise of about 16%, marking nine consecutive weeks of gains, the longest winning streak since 2023. AI remains the core driving force, with the chip and memory sectors leading the rally. The narrative of an AI infrastructure "arms race" continues to receive positive feedback from the capital markets.

The most iconic event this week was Anthropic formally filing a confidential S-1 registration with the SEC on June 1st. The company's target valuation is approximately $965 billion, with a potential IPO fundraising scale of up to $75 billion. If successfully listed, it could become one of the largest IPOs in history. Concurrently, Alphabet announced a new round of AI infrastructure financing plans totaling a massive $80 billion, with Berkshire Hathaway participating in $10 billion. These signals further strengthened the market's pricing expectations for the long-term expansion space of AI infrastructure. However, the potential liquidity suction effect of the Anthropic IPO is also beginning to attract market attention. Although the company's annualized revenue has exceeded $47 billion, it is still in a high-growth phase. The current valuation essentially relies on a deep discount of future AI application layer returns. If the post-IPO market cap verification falls short of expectations, or if it simultaneously impacts public market liquidity with SpaceX, the correction pressure on AI tech stocks will significantly intensify.

2. Geopolitics: Heightened U.S.-Israel Military Operations, Window for U.S.-Iran Talks Remains, Energy Prices Come Under Pressure Again

The geopolitical situation showed divergence this week. On one hand, President Trump stated that U.S.-Iran talks are progressing well, with discussions on extending the ceasefire and reopening the Strait of Hormuz continuing, leading to a narrowing of market expectations for the tail risk of a full-scale Middle East conflict. On the other hand, Israel announced an expansion of ground operations in Lebanon. The joint U.S.-Israel military action triggered a new round of regional tension, pushing Brent crude oil up about 1.3% to near $93 per barrel. Energy market volatility reflects the current contradictions in macro pricing: the AI-driven tech investment boom has reduced market concerns about a recession. However, energy supply instability, sticky core inflation, and the second estimate of U.S. Q1 GDP being revised down to an annualized rate of 2.5% still leave the Federal Reserve with insufficient room for rate cuts. Copper prices also rose further due to the approaching U.S. tariff review, with Goldman Sachs and Citigroup successively raising their full-year forecast targets.

3. New Fed Framework and Interest Rate Expectations: Warsh Takes Office, June FOMC Window Opens

New Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh was formally sworn in on May 22nd. The market views the June 17th FOMC meeting, which he will lead, as a key node for macro pricing in the second half of the year. According to the latest CME FedWatch data, the market assigns a 99.4% probability of keeping the current interest rate range in June and a 93.0% probability of doing so in July, indicating extremely limited expectations for a near-term rate cut. U.S. Treasury yields have remained high recently. In practical terms, the macro-financial environment is equivalent to a "covert rate hike" of about 75 basis points, creating implicit pressure on risk asset valuations. Last week, the U.S. Dollar Index fell back to 98.942, the 10-year Treasury yield dropped to 4.437%, and gold closed at $4,538. This reflects the market's dual pricing of "long-term high interest rates + rising safe-haven demand." The May non-farm payroll data to be released this week will be a crucial variable for verifying the Fed's subsequent policy path.

Additionally, the Japanese Yen continues to weaken, falling 1.7% in May alone, approaching the critical 160 level. Japan's Ministry of Finance has used approximately $7.36 billion for intervention over the past month, but bearish bets on the Yen by leveraged funds have risen to their highest level since July 2024. If the Bank of Japan delivers a larger-than-expected rate hike at its June 16th meeting, the unwinding effect of global carry trades could marginally tighten liquidity, posing potential headwinds for both tech stocks and crypto assets.

2. Crypto Market

1. Market Snapshot: BTC Drops ~6% for the Week, ETF Sees Record Consecutive Net Outflows

The crypto market continued its pullback this week, forming a clear divergence from the new highs in U.S. stocks. BTC opened the week around $77,267 and fell to approximately $72,675 by June 1st, a weekly decline of about 6%. ETH fell around 4.5% concurrently, with the ETH/BTC ratio remaining largely flat, indicating similar capital outflow pressure on both assets, rather than ETH weakening independently. ETF fund pressure was particularly prominent. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded their longest streak of consecutive net outflows since their launch in January 2024, with nine consecutive trading days of net outflows totaling approximately $2.8 billion. Among them, BlackRock's IBIT saw a single-day net outflow of about $528 million, its second-largest single-day outflow since listing. Spot Ethereum ETFs also experienced 13 consecutive days of net outflows, totaling approximately $694 million. The market Fear & Greed Index further dropped from 39 last week to 29, entering the "Fear" zone.

On the derivatives front, BTC open interest fell alongside the price decline. The Deribit options skew rose again to near 16%, with Put option premiums approaching extreme levels for the recent period, indicating a significant increase in hedging demand. The total stablecoin market cap decreased by approximately $2.758 billion net over the past seven days, with on-chain spot purchasing power remaining weak. Overall, the Crypto market lacks independent incremental capital drivers and remains under pressure from institutional funds flowing towards AI tech assets.

2. RWA and On-Chain U.S. Stocks: DTCC Integrates with Stellar

On May 27th, the Depository Trust Company (DTC), a subsidiary of DTCC, announced plans to integrate its tokenized asset services with the Stellar public blockchain. The service is expected to go live in the first half of 2027, covering the tokenized issuance of blue-chip stocks, ETFs, and U.S. Treasuries, as well as corporate action processing and cross-chain interoperability. DTCC processes securities transactions worth approximately $4.7 quadrillion annually. Its integration with Stellar signifies that tokenized equities are formally entering the core U.S. securities settlement infrastructure, rather than remaining within self-built issuance layers on on-chain platforms. Influenced by this news, XLM surged over 30% on the day, with 24-hour trading volume skyrocketing more than 9-fold.

3. Long-Term View: MicroStrategy Pauses BTC Purchases, Anthropic IPO Could Be Liquidity Inflection Point

MicroStrategy's actions this week are noteworthy. Between May 26th and 31st, the company sold a small amount of 32 BTC to pay dividends on its preferred stock, while also pausing its at-the-market (ATM) equity offering program used to raise funds for BTC purchases. Its current holdings stand at approximately 843,700 BTC. The company's strategy has shifted towards debt management, planning to prioritize the repurchase of approximately $1.5 billion of its zero-coupon convertible bonds maturing in 2029, thereby temporarily halting its BTC buying operations. As one of the major sources of incremental buying pressure in the crypto market over the past two years, a slowdown in MicroStrategy's pace implies a weakening of short-term support.

From a broader macro perspective, Anthropic formally filed its S-1 on June 1st, and SpaceX is also approaching its large-scale IPO. The combined potential fundraising scale of both could exceed $100 billion. Historically, mega-cap IPOs often create a liquidity suction effect on secondary markets in the short term. High-beta risk assets like AI tech stocks and crypto assets will both face the pressure of funds being temporarily diverted. Overall, the biggest macro headwind for Crypto currently stems from the continuous strengthening of the AI landscape. Against the backdrop of high-valuation tech assets like Anthropic and SpaceX successively impacting public market liquidity, the window for Crypto to rally independently remains limited. If an AI bubble phase is cleared out in the future, BTC might experience a significant correction concurrently. Paradoxically, this window could instead serve as the opportunity for forming the bottom area of a new Crypto cycle.

This article is solely market analysis and does not constitute any investment advice. Investment carries high risk. Please fully assess your own risk tolerance and strictly implement risk controls before trading.