Treasury yields hit 12-month high, Bitcoin stalls

Treasury yields hit 12-month highs on May 15, pushing Bitcoin back toward $80,500 a day after the Clarity Act committee vote.

US Treasury yields surged to fresh 12-month highs on May 15, with the 10-year note hitting 4.54% and the 2-year climbing to levels not seen since mid-2025.. The move came a day after the Senate Banking Committee approved the Clarity Act in a 15-9 bipartisan vote, which had briefly lifted Bitcoin above $82,000. By Friday, macro pressure had reversed most of those gains.

April CPI data showed inflation running at 3.8%, confirming that rate cuts are not arriving in 2026. CME FedWatch data now shows markets assigning more than a 44% probability to a Fed rate hike by December, against a current rate of 3.50% to 3.75%. At the start of 2026, traders had priced in at least two cuts before year-end.

What higher yields mean for Bitcoin

Bitcoin is a non-yielding asset competing directly against Treasury securities now offering more attractive dollar-denominated returns. As crypto.news tracked, the “higher for longer” rate environment compresses valuation multiples and caps speculative excess, making it harder for marginal capital to flow into high-beta crypto assets.

One partially offsetting signal is the tokenized Treasury market, whose total value locked hit a record above $15 billion on May 15 according to rwa.xyz data. The same yield environment that pressures Bitcoin is attracting institutional capital into on-chain access to high-yielding government debt.

Bitcoin is trading near $80,592, below its 200-day SMA of $82,228 and having failed to close above it on five consecutive attempts this month. As crypto.news documented, a hawkish macro backdrop keeps Bitcoin sensitive to shifts in Fed tone rather than legislative progress alone. If the 10-year yield continues toward 5%, the headwind for non-yielding assets intensifies further.