Treasury Yields Throw a Wrench in the Fed's 🍸 — $BTC Slides Below $84K, $DOGE Takes 8% Hit

Bitcoin slipped more than 2% to roughly $83,900 in early Asian trading on Thursday after touching nearly $87,300 a day earlier, as a surge in U.S. Treasury yields weighed on non-yielding and leveraged assets across global markets. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield closed Wednesday at 5.11%, up 15 basis points on the day, according to Treasury data, following the strongest reading from a U.S. business survey in more than five years and a poorly received five-year note auction.

Dogecoin led losses among major tokens, falling 7% to just above $0.09. Zcash ($ZEC), XRP and Hyperliquid ($HYPE) each declined between 5% and 6%, while ether ($ETH), Solana ($SOL) and BNB lost 2% to 3%. TRON ($TRX) held flat. The selling extended a broad move that began in traditional markets, where Brent crude climbed more than 4% to nearly $104 a barrel, ending a six-session slide and complicating the inflation outlook.

The macro backdrop sharpened after S&P Global's flash U.S. business survey showed output expanding at its fastest pace in more than five years, with the composite index at 58.4, its highest since July 2021. Hours later, the Treasury's $70 billion sale of five-year notes drew weak demand and cleared at 5.033%, the highest auction yield since 2006 and about 3 basis points above where the notes traded before the sale, meaning buyers required extra yield to absorb the debt.

Higher yields on government bonds raise the bar for holding assets that pay nothing, bitcoin included, and make it more expensive to borrow against leveraged positions, a dynamic that has intensified pressure on crypto markets. Bitcoin's sharpest leg lower on Wednesday came shortly after the business survey was released, according to CoinDesk data, leaving the asset below the $85,000 strike flagged by Ledn co-founder Mauricio Di Bartolomeo as a hub of call option interest ahead of Friday's roughly $14 billion options expiry on Deribit.