The Week in One Sentence
US strikes on Iran knocked Bitcoin under $73,000 and erased a billion dollars in leveraged bets, with ETF outflows hitting a four-month high and miners squeezed by the falling price.
1. The War Premium Came for Bitcoin
Bitcoin fell below $73,000 on Thursday, its lowest level of the week, after US warplanes struck Iranian targets near the Strait of Hormuz. Roughly $1 billion in leveraged positions was liquidated over the following 24 hours, with longs accounting for 93% of the total, according to Coinglass data cited by CoinDesk. The asset marketed as a haven sold off with everything else.
The week opened quietly. Bitcoin traded near $76,969 on Monday and held a tight range through Tuesday. The strikes changed that. Oil jumped, equity futures fell, and Bitcoin tracked the risk-off move down to a Friday open of $73,525. It closed the week down roughly 5%, down close to 30% over twelve months, and still far below the October all-time high of $126,198. The 200-day moving average near $82,000 has capped every rally this month.
The mechanism is familiar by now. A fifth of the world's seaborne oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz, so each flare-up there lifts oil and inflation expectations and sends risk assets lower together. Bitcoin has traded inside that basket for most of the spring rather than against it. Mark Cuban made the same point last week when he sold most of his position (issue #015), and this week's tape supported him more than it refuted him. The safe-haven case keeps failing its live tests.
By Friday the pressure eased. Multiple outlets reported a 60-day truce extension awaiting the president's signature, and Trump said a deal was close. The 10-year Treasury yield slipped to 4.45%, a two-week low, on the news. Bitcoin did not follow. It held near its lows into the weekend, which tells you which basket the market still files it under. A signed extension would pull the war premium out of oil. Without one, Thursday's low becomes the level to defend.
2. Spot ETF Outflows Hit a Four-Month High
US spot Bitcoin ETFs are bleeding money at a pace not seen since January. On May 27, the funds recorded $733 million in net outflows, the largest single day in four months, according to Farside Investors data. BlackRock's IBIT accounted for $528 million of that, its second-largest daily outflow since the fund launched in January 2024. The redemptions came as Bitcoin fell 3.6% and first slipped under $73,000, a day before the strikes deepened the move.
The streak now runs nine consecutive sessions, with the last day of net inflows back on May 14. Across the three trading days from May 26 to 28, roughly $1.3 billion left the funds. April had been the strongest institutional month of the year, which makes the reversal sharper: net inflows into US spot Bitcoin ETFs for all of 2026 have fallen close to zero, the nearest the group has come to net-negative since launch.
Last week we flagged the question worth watching, whether flows would turn positive again and confirm the May pullback as sentiment rather than something structural. They did not turn. They accelerated in the other direction. The institutions marketed as patient, long-term money sold into the same risk-off move as everyone else.
ETF flows are noisy, and one strong week can undo a bad one. The historical pattern after outflow streaks this long favors a bounce within one to two weeks. But a single green day has to come first, and through Friday it had not.
3. The Price Drop Reached the Miners
A sub-$73,000 Bitcoin does not only hit holders. It squeezes the people who secure the network. Hashprice, the daily revenue a miner earns per unit of computing power, sat near $36 per petahash as of the May 25 Hashrate Index reading. That is at or below breakeven for many operators, depending on their electricity cost and the age of their machines. Industry estimates put roughly one in five miners underwater at current prices.
Difficulty, the measure of how hard it is to find a block, has worked against them. It rose 3.12% in the May 15 adjustment to 136.61 trillion, so miners compete harder for the same 3.125 BTC reward while the dollar value of that reward falls. Network hashrate has pulled back about 3.6% from its April peak as some operators idle older rigs through the warmer months, when cooling costs climb and thin margins turn negative.
This matters beyond the mining sector because of forced selling. Miners with bills to cover and shrinking margins tend to sell the Bitcoin they earn rather than hold it, and public miners have been net sellers for much of 2026. In a week when leverage and ETF desks were already pushing the price down, miner supply is one more weight on a market with little demand to absorb it. That was the shape of the whole week: leverage, institutional desks, and miners all selling into the same move, with a possible truce the only thing on the other side of the scale.
The squeeze is not a crisis. Hashrate sits near record highs and the network has absorbed far worse. But it is a real cost of a falling price, and one the headlines tend to skip.
The Numbers
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| BTC Price (Fri AM) | ~$73,400 |
| Weekly High | ~$77,300 (Mon May 25) |
| Weekly Low | below $73,000 (Thu May 28) |
| US 10-Year Yield | 4.45% (Fri, eased on truce hopes) |
| Fear & Greed Index | 22 (Extreme Fear) |
| 24h Liquidations | ~$1B (93% longs) |
| Spot ETF Flows | 9-session outflow streak; -$733M on May 27 |
| 2026 Net ETF Inflows | near zero (approaching net-negative) |
| Hashprice | ~$36/PH per day (near breakeven) |
What to Watch Next Week
The truce signature. A signed 60-day extension takes the war premium out of oil and off Bitcoin. Without one, Thursday's sub-$73K low is the level that gets retested. This is the dominant near-term variable.
The Strategic Reserve announcement. White House adviser Patrick Witt has teased a "next few weeks" announcement since early May. It still has not landed. Each week it slips, the tease loses weight.
The CLARITY Act floor schedule. Congress was in Memorial Day recess this week, so the bill did not move. Floor debate is expected in June. A committed floor date would tell you whether the July 4 signing target is realistic or already slipping to fall.
The next difficulty adjustment. With hashprice near breakeven, a downward move would hand miners some relief, while continued miner selling would add pressure to an already soft market.
ETF flows. A single green day breaks the nine-session streak and reframes the month. Watch whether the bleed was a war-driven blip or the start of something heavier.
Free Tools
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A week like this is exactly why a fixed buying schedule beats timing the news. Run the numbers with the DCA Calculator to see what consistent buying through the chop would have returned.
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Bitcoin Weekly is published every Saturday by 21VOX. Written by Karl. No financial advice. Just signal.