A top economist who nailed the yen’s long decline now says the U.S. dollar has hit peak strength.
Robin Brooks, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and ex-chief economist at the Institute of International Finance, argues the greenback is as strong as it’s going to get, even after President Trump announced the Iran peace deal on June 17.
The U.S. dollar generally appreciates when risk appetite declines due to conflict or economic strain, and depreciates as those pressures subside.
However, instead of declining, the Dollar Index, which tracks the greenback's value against major fiat currencies, has risen from 99.52 to over 101.30 since the peace deal announcement.
"The Dollar should have been falling after the peace deal, with safe haven inflows turning to outflows from the US, but the first Warsh Fed meeting changed all that. Speculative positioning is max long the Dollar," he said on X.
Lopsided bullish positioning often signals a market top or imminent reversal. The dollar could come quickly drop if key releases such as the jobs report show even modest signs of slowdown, denting expectations for Fed rate cuts.
A weaker dollar could potentially put a floor under bitcoin and gold. As of writing, BTC traded near $52,300 and gold hovered near $4,000.
Ionic Digital is the latest bitcoin miner to pivot aggressively into AI infrastructure, underscoring a broader industry trend as AI workloads become more profitable than bitcoin mining. According to the Energy Mag, ahead of its planned Nasdaq listing, the company raised $400 million after reporting that AI and HPC infrastructure leasing generated $44 million of first quarter revenue, far exceeding the $7.4 million from bitcoin mining. The company still held 2,815 BTC on its balance sheet as of March 31, while selling 1,009 BTC in 2025 for $101.5 million at an average price of $100,547 per coin. Ionic has repurposed its flagship Texas site for AI, highlighting how bitcoin miners are increasingly monetizing power infrastructure for AI.
U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs lost a net $231 million on Monday, with BlackRock's IBIT accounting for $300 million of outflows that other funds partly offset, including $50 million into ARKB and $35 million into GBTC, per SoSoValue data.
The outflow lands as risk appetite elsewhere is surging. Wall Street's technology rally spread into Asia on Tuesday, with the MSCI Asia Pacific index up 1% on the year's final trading day after a semiconductor rebound helped the S&P 500 snap a five-session losing streak. The Asian benchmark is on track for its biggest quarterly gain in almost 17 years.
South Korea's Kospi, which crashed 10% in a single session earlier this month, climbed 2.1% to extend its lead as the world's best-performing major benchmark this year. Samsung is up more than 100% this quarter, and SK Hynix has gained almost 240% since April. The yen slid to its weakest level against the dollar since 1986, a sign investors are funding the AI trade by borrowing in yen.
Bitcoin ETFs are not participating in that capital rotation, however. The same AI infrastructure spending fueling record quarters in Seoul and Tokyo is the trade competing for the dollars that might otherwise flow into bitcoin, a dynamic that has run through the month's coverage of SpaceX, Anthropic and the chip sector.
Source
This article is syndicated for educational reading. For the latest updates, visit the original publisher.
Read on coindesk.com
