Bitcoin and gold just sold off together.

📊  Today’s Big Picture

This week, two assets were sold together.

Bitcoin (BTC). And gold.

Both ran for eighteen months as the same trade. The hedge against war, inflation, and dollar debasement.

Both are down this week.

Bitcoin trades at $73,000 this morning. A six-week low. Down 5% on the week.

Gold trades near $4,550. Down from $4,759 on May 12.

JPMorgan’s (NYSE: JPM) lead crypto strategist named the trade on Wednesday. The debasement trade is unwinding. Investors are retreating in anticipation of an Iran-US deal.

Tonight at 8:00 AM UTC, $6.25 billion in Bitcoin options settle on Deribit. Spot is below the max-pain strike. Below the call wall. Below the put wall.

The catalyst that made Bitcoin and gold run is the same catalyst now breaking the trade.

By the end of this issue, you will know what unwound this week, why peace breaks the hedge, and what Monday opens into.

🔍  Signal vs. Noise

Three Headlines, Three Realities

1. The first headline this week is that April inflation came in hot.

• What the math says: headline PCE rose 3.8% year-over-year. The hottest reading since May 2023.

Core PCE came in at 3.3% year-over-year. The hottest core since October 2023.

Monthly core was 0.2%. That is the dovish sliver. In-line with consensus.

The energy contribution was unmistakable. Gasoline spending rose $28.8 billion on the Hormuz oil pass-through. Real personal income fell for the second consecutive month.

Q1 GDP was revised down to 1.6% from 2.0%. Stagflation-lite on the cover.

But the S&P 500 (INDEX: SP500) and Nasdaq (INDEX: NASDAQ) still closed at records Thursday. The bond market did not break. The next Fed move is now debated as a December hike.

2. The second headline is that AI hardware blew the doors off.

• What the math says: Dell (NYSE: DELL) reported Q1 FY27 revenue of $43.8 billion. Up 88% year-over-year.

AI server revenue was $16.1 billion. Up 757%. The AI backlog sits at $51.3 billion.

The stock closed up 3.84% Thursday. Then jumped roughly 39% after hours.

Snowflake (NYSE: SNOW) closed up 36.5% Thursday. Its best day ever. Marvell (NASDAQ: MRVL) gained on a Q2 guide of $2.7 billion accelerating to 35% year-over-year growth.

The AI capex cycle is not in late innings. The hardware suppliers are accelerating.

3. The third headline is that AI software did not get the same treatment.

• What the math says: Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) guided Q2 revenue at $11.3 billion. Consensus was $11.4 billion.

Remaining performance obligations came in at $67.9 billion against $68.9 billion expected.

The stock fell 2% after hours.

Costco (NASDAQ: COST) reported a clean beat. $69.15 billion in Q3 revenue, up 11.6%, comp sales up 9.8%. The stock fell 0.85%.

Beat the quarter. Missed the story.

🏛️ What The Smart Money Bought While The Crowd Sold

Central Banks Just Spent A Third Consecutive Year Buying More Gold Than In Any Year Since The 1960s.

Central banks have been net buyers of gold for three straight years.

The selloff this week is the first time the retail trade has broken without the institutional bid breaking with it.

The CEO of the desk that built the ABN framework flagged the divergence on Wednesday.

Central banks bought roughly 1,045 tonnes of gold last year.

Third year in a row above 1,000 tonnes.

The last time purchase volumes ran this high was 1967.

Spot gold is trading near $4,550 an ounce. That is down from $4,759 on May 12. Central banks are not selling the dip. Family offices and private wealth desks are doing the same trade through tokenized gold. Each token represents one ounce of physical gold held in Swiss or London vaults.

Fully redeemable. Self-custodial. Tradeable 24 hours a day. The institutional gold trade has gone digital without losing its physical backing.

If you hold dollar-denominated savings or US equities concentrated in one sector, the same hedge the central banks are running is available to retail investors for the first time…

See for yourself right here…

📰  From Around the Market

Every issue, we bring you the most important stories from around the world and show you why they matter. Think of this as your shortcut through the noise - one click per story, and you’re caught up.

Dell delivered the largest AI server quarter in history.

Dell reported Q1 FY27 revenue of $43.8 billion. Up 88%.

AI server revenue alone was $16.1 billion. Up 757% year-over-year.

The AI backlog sits at $51.3 billion. FY27 guidance was raised to $165 to $169 billion.

The stock jumped roughly 39% after hours. The largest single-day move since 2018.

This is not the late innings of AI capex. The hardware suppliers are accelerating.

Snowflake signed a $6 billion deal with AWS.

Snowflake reported Q1 Wednesday and closed up 36.5% Thursday. Its best day ever.

The catalyst was a reported $6 billion multi-year agreement with Amazon Web Services.

Revenue came in ahead of consensus. Forward guidance was raised.

This is proof that AI can monetize in software. Just not evenly.

Snowflake and Salesforce both sell enterprise software. One guided up. One guided down. The market rewarded one with the best day in company history and punished the other with a 2% drop.

Polymarket odds of an Iran ceasefire collapsed to 8%.

Polymarket’s contract on a permanent Iran-US ceasefire by month-end collapsed to roughly 8% this week.

The peak was 70% over the previous weekend.

The catalyst was a new exchange of strikes. US “self-defense” operations hit Iranian targets. Iran’s IRGC vowed a “more decisive” response. Kuwait intercepted drones.

But Brent crude still fell more than 10% on the week to $93.

The oil market is pricing the framework. The prediction markets are pricing the rhetoric. Both cannot be right.

Costco delivered the cleanest consumer read of the week.

Costco reported Q3 revenue of $69.15 billion. Up 11.6%.

Comparable sales rose 9.8%. Digital sales rose 21.5%. Membership income rose 10.7%.

The stock fell 0.85%.

The disconnect is valuation. Costco trades at roughly 52 times forward earnings.

Walmart (NASDAQ: WMT) warned on fuel costs last week. AutoZone (NYSE: AZO) missed on revenue Tuesday. Costco delivered. The consumer is bifurcated.

👀  What to Watch For

Tonight at 8:00 AM UTC. The $6.25 billion Bitcoin expiry.

Deribit settles roughly $6.25 billion in Bitcoin options tonight.

Max pain is at $75,000. Spot is $73,000.

The $80,000 call wall holds $532 million in open interest. The $75,000 put wall holds $394 million.

The put-to-call ratio is 0.86. Slightly bullish positioning. Trading below every major strike.

A break above $75,000 before settlement squeezes the put writers. A hold below lets the puts expire in the money.

Monday June 1. HPE earnings.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE: HPE) reports fiscal Q2 after the close.

Options price a 12.9% move.

The Juniper Networks integration is complete. The AI server backlog is $5 billion exiting Q1.

After Dell’s blowout, HPE has room to surprise or room to disappoint. Both tails are wide.

Friday June 5 at 8:30 AM ET. May nonfarm payrolls.

The last labor reading before Warsh’s first FOMC.

April printed 115,000 jobs. Unemployment sits at 4.3%. Average hourly earnings rose 0.3% monthly.

With inflation at 3.8% and the next Fed move debated as a hike, a soft print creates the real stagflation dilemma.

Watch the unemployment rate and wages. 4.4% to 4.5% with steady wages is the worst combination the Fed can be handed.

💭  Today’s Final Thought

This week, April’s inflation print came in hot.

Dell delivered the largest AI server quarter in history.

Bitcoin and gold sold together for the first time since the trade began.

The bond market held. The S&P 500 closed at a record. The next Fed move is debated as a hike.

The catalyst that made the hedge run is the same catalyst now breaking it.

Peace talks are bad news for the assets people bought because of war.

That is the trade most retail investors are about to learn the hard way.

- Rami Al-Sabeq (Editor in Chief | Future Finance)

About Future Finance

Future Finance is written by Rami Al-Sabeq, Editor-in-Chief, and his research team. His macro-to-crypto work has been featured in Unchained and Cryptonary, and his independent essays appear at RamiWrites.Substack.com.

Behind every issue sits Head of Research Tyler Hubbard, whose track record across 590+ digital asset picks has produced an 85% directional accuracy rate and a 426% average peak return. That’s as of the third-party audit measuring performance through April 30th, 2026. Follow him on TradingView here.