A dramatic rotation of capital into artificial intelligence — not just isolated selling by a few big holders — may explain Bitcoin’s sharp pullback this week, Michael Saylor argued as he pushed back against critics.
Saylor, whose company MicroStrategy recently sold a portion of its Bitcoin stash, rejected suggestions that the transaction “killed” the market. Instead he pointed to an extraordinary surge of investment into AI infrastructure — roughly $400 billion over the last six months, he said — as the primary force draining liquidity from crypto and pushing prices lower. The comment came after TV host Jim Cramer accused Saylor of having “murdered Bitcoin,” a charge Saylor denied.
Other industry figures echoed the capital-rotation thesis. SBI Holdings chair Yoshitaka Kitao highlighted a string of high-profile tech IPOs on the horizon — SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI among them — as likely magnets for speculative capital that might otherwise flow into crypto.
But the immediate catalyst was macroeconomic: a surprise U.S. jobs report on Friday. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said nonfarm payrolls rose by 172,000 in May 2026, well above Wall Street’s 85,000 estimate, while the unemployment rate held at 4.3%. The stronger-than-expected jobs print rattled markets because it reopened the possibility of further Federal Reserve tightening; BNP Paribas warned the data could leave room for as many as three additional rate hikes, a backdrop that historically pressures risk assets including Bitcoin.
Bitcoin slid from around $62,500 to roughly $59,000 after the report. At the time of reporting BTC was trading near $59,990 — down about 6% in 24 hours and at its weakest level since October 2024.
Structural outflows amplified the decline. Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded a run of consecutive sessions of net redemptions — reported in recent updates as 14 straight days, with cumulative outflows approaching $5 billion. Bitget CEO Gracy Chen flagged the ETF withdrawals as a major driver of the market downturn, and market-data provider CoinGlass showed $545 million in total liquidations on Friday alone. Long positions accounted for $444 million of that total, indicating a wave of forced, automated selling as leveraged positions were wiped out when price levels broke.
Where Bitcoin goes from here hinges on whether the roughly $59,000 zone holds as support. The confluence of macro risk, sustained ETF redemptions and a possible long-term rotation of capital into AI and big-tech IPOs has left traders jittery and the market vulnerable to further volatility.
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