Bitcoin Pinned Below $60k Amid Growing Anxiety Over Interest Rates

Bitcoin continued its slide on Friday, trading below $60k as investors pulled out of spot exchange-traded funds for the seventh straight week. The broader sell-down in risk-driven assets kept traders cautious towards speculative plays like cryptocurrencies.

The outflows from Bitcoin ETFs marked a total of $1.35 billion this week, with investors increasingly preferring assets with clearer fundamentals over crypto. Central to this shift was the growing optimism around artificial intelligence stocks, which have vastly outpaced crypto in recent years.

Persistent concerns over high U.S. interest rates also put pressure on crypto markets. The Federal Reserve's hawkish stance and sticky inflation data fueled worries that higher rates could hike further, boding poorly for speculative assets like crypto.