Bitunix analyst: This week’s market watch is not just about CPI, but whether global capital costs are being revised upward again.

BlockBeats message, July 13 — BTC is once again under pressure near 64,000. In the short term, traders are watching whether it can regain and hold above $63,000. If buyers cannot re-establish dominance, further retesting of the $60,000 psychological level is not ruled out.

This week, global markets will face a dense lineup of events, including the US June CPI, PPI, and retail sales, as well as Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh’s first appearance before Congress for his semiannual monetary policy report. Major corporate earnings from heavyweight companies such as JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, TSMC, ASML, Netflix, and others will also be closely watched. The market focus is no longer just on a single economic data point, but on whether these events can collectively validate whether the current “high cost of capital” market environment will persist. Among these, the importance of Warsh’s first congressional hearing may be just as significant as CPI itself. The market will observe whether he continues the current low-profile policy style that avoids providing forward guidance, and whether he gives any hints regarding the rate-hike expectations that have recently been heating up. At present, within the Fed, some officials have already begun discussing withdrawing last year’s rate-cut measures. If June CPI is again higher than expected, it will further raise market expectations for future policy tightening.

On the other hand, the situation in the Middle East has worsened again. Iran announced that it will shut the Strait of Hormuz once more, while the US military has continued airstrikes on Iranian military facilities. The scope of the conflict has expanded to multiple countries across the Gulf. It is worth noting that what truly affects global inflation is not only crude oil prices, but also the ongoing deterioration of global refining capacity caused by the war. The Russia-Ukraine conflict, damage to Middle East refineries, and risks to Hormuz shipping mean that global supply of refined products remains tight. Even if crude oil prices fall back, terminal energy prices such as gasoline and diesel may still remain elevated, making energy inflation stickier than market expectations.

At the same time, another storyline worth watching comes from the AI capital race. In recent times, tech giants such as NVIDIA, Amazon, and SpaceX have continued to raise funds for AI infrastructure through large-scale debt issuance, but Wall Street is beginning to show clear signs of absorption fatigue. Market concerns are not about corporate credit risk, but about the fact that the supply of new debt in the thousands of billions of dollars range will continue to push up corporate financing costs. This means that although AI investment has not cooled down, the cost of capital is gradually becoming an important constraint on valuations in the next stage. It also implies that global liquidity is simultaneously facing double competition between government bond issuance and corporate financing demand.

In addition, the Japan Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) plans to increase its allocation to alternative assets, which has also helped the Japanese yen rebound. This also reflects that large global capital continues to adjust the direction of its asset allocation. If the dollar stays at high interest rates, while Japanese capital returns and AI financing needs exist at the same time, global risk assets will continue to face pressure from liquidity being reallocated.

Overall, what the market needs to answer this week is not only whether US inflation is rising again, but also whether global cost of capital will continue to be pushed higher. Against the backdrop of AI continuously absorbing large amounts of capital, uncertainty still exists in the energy supply chain, and the Fed’s policy direction remains unclear, risk assets will continue to be jointly affected by interest rates, liquidity, and corporate financing capacity. And this will determine whether Bitcoin can once again challenge the region above $64,000, or whether it will continue to maintain a range-bound, consolidation pattern.