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Hardcore bitcoin purists haven't lost faith in the world's largest digital currency, despite it losing nearly 17% of its value, marking the worst weekly performance since July 2024 and wiping out about $200 billion in market cap in the last seven days.
The prominent bitcoin advocates or maximalists (short for maxis) — a group that believes bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency likely to achieve lasting global adoption and monetary relevance — argue that capital is being sucked out of crypto and into artificial intelligence, creating what they see as a temporary liquidity crunch rather than a fundamental bitcoin problem.
This narrative comes as the world's largest cryptocurrency is currently hovering below $60,000, down about 27% over the past month and down by more than 50% from its Oct. 6 all-time high, according to CoinDesk data.
The capital flight coincided with a record-breaking streak for U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs, which suffered $3.45 billion in outflows across 11 consecutive sessions. While crypto bleeds, Wall Street's tech appetite remains aggressive. Even after the recent pullback, AI-related equities remain among the market's strongest performers. The Nasdaq rose 34%, and the S&P 500 climbed nearly 24% in the last year, raising anxiety among crypto investors seeking answers about bitcoin's underperformance.
While some market observers view the drop as a loss of structural confidence, bitcoin maxis argue the slump is merely a reflection of speculative capital rotating heavily into AI.
According to Mati Greenspan, a market analyst, bitcoin maximalist and founder of Quantum Economics, the price of bitcoin is in a downward trend, not because investors have lost faith in it, but because AI has become the dominant destination for speculative capital.
"Bitcoin is not facing a bitcoin problem. It's facing a liquidity problem," Greenspan told CoinDesk in an interview Friday. "AI has become the market's new obsession, but obsessions fade.”
Another prominent bitcoin maxi and subject of recent debate if his bitcoin selling has caused the recent crash, Strategy (MSTR) Chairman Michael Saylor echoed Greenspan's sentiment on X.
“Capital markets are funding the AI buildout at historic scale: ~$400B over six months,” Saylor said. Bitcoin ETFs have seen ~$4B of outflows since May 14, pressuring $BTC. This is a capital rotation, not a bitcoin impairment. Volatility creates opportunity.”
'The root cause'
Greenspan pointed to the Anthropic $50 billion IPO, targeting a nearly $1 trillion valuation, as the clearest indication of where market liquidity might have gone.
While bitcoin advocates point to the asset's historical long-term returns, traditional liquidity pools are currently chasing AI infrastructure, data centers, and multi-billion-dollar private capital rounds, Greenspan added.
In fact, the anticipated IPOs of OpenAI, Anthropic and SpaceX, which together could raise more than $200 billion, may be drawing investor attention and capital toward AI and technology opportunities at the expense of other speculative assets, including crypto.
Bitcoin core developer and maximalist Jameson Lopp argued that investor frustration during market downturns often fuels the search for simple explanations. “I suspect the root cause is the bear market, combined with TradFi markets experiencing an AI boom,” Lopp said on X.
However, not everyone is blaming AI as the primary driver behind bitcoin's weakness.
Market data suggests the pressure on crypto is multifaceted, and critics argue that blaming AI entirely oversimplifies a fragile macroeconomic environment. Jason Fernandes, a bitcoin maxi, market analyst and AdLunam co-founder, told CoinDesk that the asset is facing pressure from multiple fronts.
“$BTC is under siege from every angle right now,” Fernandes said. “ETF outflows, high interest rates, creeping inflation, money rotating back into hot tech stocks, macro uncertainty, and now the psychological shock of Michael Saylor's Strategy selling $BTC after years of preaching ‘never sell.’”
Strategy, the largest publicly traded corporate holder of bitcoin, drew heavy criticism on social media after selling 32 bitcoin for $2.5 million in late May—its first sale in four years—to fund dividend payments on STRC, its perpetual preferred stock known as Stretch.
Though critics claimed the move "damaged confidence," Greenspan, like many other analysts, dismissed the panic. "Selling 32 $BTC against a balance sheet of more than 843,000 $BTC is not even a rounding error," Greenspan said.
Time to buy?
Despite the outflows, some of the maxis argue it might be time to dip into the underperforming asset as bitcoin's longer-term fundamentals remain intact.
Greenspan argued that the recent record-breaking outflows from bitcoin funds are likely part of a rotation back toward monetary assets. He added that bitcoin's current consolidation phase could serve as an accumulation zone if underlying network fundamentals hold. Despite the price dip, institutional adoption, regulatory frameworks, and discussions around bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset have continued to mature over the last few years.
Meanwhile, other bitcoin advocates, such as Strike CEO Jack Mallers, are bypassing broader market debates and encouraging investors to buy the dip on social media.
However, a rotation back into crypto is not guaranteed to be smooth. Even if bitcoin's weakness stems partly from capital flowing into AI, Greenspan argues that a reversal may not immediately benefit crypto and might act as a double whammy.
“If AI sentiment cracks, bitcoin could get hit twice: first from liquidity leaving crypto, and then again from a broader risk-off move across markets,” Greenspan said.
“As for what comes next, I would be careful assuming the bottom is already in,” Greenspan noted.
#Cryptocurrency #Market #altcoins #AI #bullish

Today, crypto market analyst CoinMarketCap shared top digital assets that skyrocketed their prices over the week, giving investors distinct avenues for moneymaking as indicated by their significant surges and popularity during the period. The data listed the top crypto performers over the past week, revealing their unique strengths, giving investors lucrative opportunities for financial growth.
Top Five Crypto Gainers
$NEAR Protocol ($NEAR)
As per the data, $NEAR Protocol emerged as the top crypto performer over the week, as pointed out by the analyst. $NEAR surged 55.09% in the last seven days, outperforming most of the crypto market, highlighting increased enthusiasm among crypto buyers on the Near Protocol market. The key catalyst behind this remarkable rise is the recent Near Protocol network upgrade announcement. Early last week, Near Protocol shared an upcoming major infrastructure upgrade next month, June, to allow the network to automatically add shards as demand grows.
Hyperliquid ($HYPE)
Moving down, the CoinMarketCap data ranked Hyperliquid ($HYPE) as the second-best performer as the crypto asset witnessed a massive 47.15% rise in price over the week. This huge price hike comes ahead of the debut of its first IPO on Trade.xyz’s perpetual trading market, aiming to allow traders to take long or short positions on SpaceX through derivatives instruments.
Venice Token ($VVV)
Also, the price of Venice Token ($VVV) rose 30.13% over the past seven days, making it the third-best crypto performer of the week. The Venice AI token supercharged its price, helped by its recent listing on the Robinhood trading platform, rising user utility on its crypto AI platform, and heightened $VVV token burns.
Ondo ($ONDO)
Ondo ($ONDO) emerged as the fourth-best crypto performer according to the CoinMarketCap metrics, surging by 24.55% in the last seven days. The rise enabled the on-chain token to break out of its multi-month descending channel, suggesting the asset has moved into a steady accumulation phase. This impressive price movement comes after the US SEC announced an upcoming innovation exemption, preparing to allow tokenized securities to trade on decentralized platforms, a regulatory shift that is set to benefit Ondo Finance’s RWA infrastructure, which hosts over 260 tokenized US stocks and ETFs across multi-chain networks.
Worldcoin ($WLD)
Fifth on the list is Worldcoin ($WLD), which has shown a strong price jump recently. The analyst pointed out that $WLD surged by 23.24% in the past seven days, gaining momentum as traders and investors turn their eyes to the Worldcoin ecosystem.
Other Top Market Performers
Besides that, the CoinMarketCap data identified other top crypto performers during the week. These include Morpho (MORPHO), which rose by 21.99% over the week, and Zcash (ZEC) and DoubleZero (2Z), which also recorded in 21.49% and 19.97% surges, respectively, showing their popularity.
#NEAR🚀🚀🚀 #WorldCoin. #VVV #ONDO #zcash

June kicked off in the red for crypto markets as the U.S. and Iran exchanged fire and peace talks failed to translate into reduced tensions in the region. The CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) fell 2% since midnight UTC, with bitcoin and ether ($ETH) both losing about 1%.
At $72,700, bitcoin is currently negative for a sixth time in seven days, following a 3.5% slide last month, usually a period with positive returns. It averages a 7.4% rise in May, according to Coinglass data. A record 10 days of net withdrawals from spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) saw $2.97 billion leave the investment vehicles.
The CoinDesk DeFi Select Index led the day’s decliners, dropping 2.6% since midnight, with all six members lower. Ondo Finance’s ONDO token fell 2.8%, and has now lost 17% since founder Nathan Allman died unexpectedly last week.
Hyperliquid's HYPE stood out, adding 1.26% since midnight. A five-day streak of gains took it to a record high $73.94, its fourth in four days, as capital enters newly introduced ETFs based on the token, which started trading only last month.
U.S. stock indexes replayed Friday's divergence, with S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 micro-futures both adding about 0.2%.
Derivatives positioning
$BTC open interest sits at $19.5 billion, essentially level from a week ago, with speculative positioning also broadly unchanged.Funding rates are positive across multiple venues at 0%–10% annualized, with the prior Deribit spike now back to normal. The three-month annualized basis is 2.8%, up from 2.2% last week, pointing to a mild improvement in institutional risk appetite.Options positioning leans modestly bullish. Put/call volume over the past 24 hours splits 61/39 in favor of calls, while one-week 25-delta skew sits at 12.3% compared with 12.4% last week. Front-end implied volatility (DVOL) has ticked up to 37 from multi-month lows, suggesting the recent compression may be easing. The 1 month–6 month term structure remains in contango, with markets continuing to price near-term calm alongside longer-dated uncertainty.Coinglass data shows $282 million in 24 hour liquidations, with a 60-40 split between longs and shorts. $ETH (59 million) and $BTC ($48 million) were the leaders in terms of notional liquidations.The Binance liquidation heatmap indicates $72,280 as a core liquidation level to monitor in case of a price drop.
Token talk
Stellar's $XLM jumped 40.4% in 24 hours to $0.2862, lifting market cap above $9.6 billion, on the back of a May 27 announcement that DTCC, Wall Street's central clearinghouse, will connect its tokenized securities platform to the Stellar network in the first half of 2027.The deal makes Stellar the first public blockchain in DTCC's multichain tokenization strategy.Open interest (OI) in $XLM perps rose 10.9% to about $361 million as the rally unfolded, CoinGlass data show, with roughly $12 million in derivatives liquidations across the move. The combination of expanding OI alongside rising spot volume points to fresh long positioning rather than short covering doing the heavy lifting, even with the short squeeze underneath.Spot turnover hit about $2.3 billion on the day, up about 34%, showing the move was backed by real demand rather than a thin-liquidity spike. $XLM outperformed every other top-20 token over the period.The breakout cleared a monthslong descending channel that had constrained the token since late last year, with the rally running from long-term support near $0.14 through prior resistance at $0.20 and $0.26.DTCC oversees more than $114 trillion in assets and processes about $2.5 quadrillion in securities transactions annually, putting Stellar's selection at the center of how Wall Street brings tokenized stocks, ETFs and U.S. Treasuries onto a public blockchain.The partnership sits on the SEC's December 2025 No-Action Letter authorizing the firm to tokenize real-world assets it custodies, with production testing targeted for July, wider rollout in October, and broader availability in the first half of next year.#Binance #bitcoin #ETFvsBTC #ETH🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 #Hyperliquid