Bitunix Analyst:Against a"Higher-for-Longer"Backdrop,AI Capex Frenzy and Geopolitics Enter the Validation Phase

June 9 — No recession, and inflation has yet to cool — yet capital demand continues to expand. Iran and Israel exchanged direct fire for the first time since April, while the Houthis announced a full ban on Israeli vessels transiting the Red Sea: clear signs that Middle East risks remain far from fully resolved. Though Trump has publicly pressed both sides to halt military escalation, and U.S.-Iran talks are reportedly aiming for an agreement by the end of June, U.S. forces intercepted a tanker bound for Iran, and Israel has maintained a hardline stance toward Hezbollah. The takeaway: energy supply pressures and a geopolitical risk premium will persist in the short term. At the same time, the market’s central focus has shifted decisively to monetary policy. Following the strong nonfarm payrolls (NFP) print, multiple Wall Street firms have begun revising their prior rate-cut expectations: Goldman Sachs withdrawing its in-year rate-cut forecast, Schwab arguing the Fed’s threshold for hiking has dropped, and the bond market already pricing in future hike risks. Capital is repricing for “higher rates for longer” — and even “limited additional hikes.” This week’s U.S. CPI will be the watershed moment: should energy gains continue feeding into core inflation, market bets on a hawkish Fed pivot could escalate further. The AI sector, meanwhile, has entered a fresh capital arms race. OpenAI has formally filed for an IPO, Anthropic is simultaneously preparing to go public, and SpaceX has launched its IPO roadshow — while Google and NVIDIA continue expanding compute investment, and Google has signaled a large TPU procurement from Intel. The global AI infrastructure arms race keeps accelerating. But markets are now asking a consequential question: with rates staying elevated, bond yields climbing, and a wave of IPOs and secondary offerings draining market liquidity, will capital markets retain enough liquidity to support such a massive valuation structure? From a capital-structure perspective, the biggest risk today isn’t just inflation or war alone — it’s that global capital demand is starting to outstrip liquidity supply. AI companies need financing, governments are issuing debt, energy shocks keep pushing inflation higher, and yet the Fed can’t deliver the easing markets have been hoping for. If the past two years’ market narrative was “growth driven by AI expectations,” the question over the coming months is whether those AI growth stories can withstand pressure from a meaningfully higher cost of capital. For crypto, Bitcoin has already broken its prior range support and completed a downside liquidity sweep — markets are now testing the critical demand zone near $62,000. Structurally, price has returned close to the key support band formed in February, reflecting that risk appetite is being suppressed by the macro backdrop. The key watch: if this week’s CPI exceeds expectations, markets will further reinforce Fed hike pricing, with risk assets facing another wave of liquidity pressure. Conversely, if CPI undershoots, recently repriced tech and crypto assets could get short-term breathing room. Until the new macro pricing regime is established, volatility is likely to stay elevated.