As the U.S. consumer price index (CPI) inflation rate for May rose above 4 percent, a forecast has emerged that bitcoin and gold could face additional pressure this year.

On June 11, local time, blockchain media outlet Cointelegraph reported that the U.S. CPI for May rose 4.2 percent from a year earlier.

The data weakened expectations of interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. With inflation staying higher than expected, some in the market even discussed the possibility of a rate hike within the year. That is seen as an unfavorable environment for cryptocurrencies, which are classified as risk assets.

Bitcoin has shown a weak trend in the first half of the year. The bitcoin price has fallen about 36 percent since January, and gold has dropped 23 percent from its January peak. By contrast, oil prices have risen more than 50 percent over the same period. The market sees rising energy prices as a factor that could stoke inflation expectations again.

Yigi Iope, chief investment officer at institutional trading firm Theo, saw the CPI result as making the Fed more cautious. He also assessed that the data is not a factor that creates a clear direction for bitcoin. That is, in a situation where liquidity expectations are limited, risk assets could be affected more by positioning than by new easing signals.

There was also an assessment that gold is not free from pressure. Iope said real interest rates are a key variable, and that when a rate cut is not imminent, the opportunity cost of holding a non-interest-bearing asset remains high.

Markus Thielen of 10x Research also maintained a cautious view on bitcoin. He forecast that the current macro environment continues to act as a headwind for bitcoin, and that the inflation data alone would make it difficult for Wall Street investors to meaningfully increase their bitcoin allocation. He added that as summer approaches, such disruptive factors could become more pronounced and could lift inflation expectations again.

Price outlooks were also conservative. Thielen said bitcoin remains in a vulnerable state and that the possibility of it falling below $60,000 within days is increasingly growing.

Still, there is also a counterargument that the market is not immediately tilting toward rate hikes. Tim Sun, a senior researcher at HashKey Group, saw expectations for rate hikes heating up, but assessed that the likelihood of the Fed actually raising rates this year is relatively low. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) futures market is also reflecting a 98.4 percent probability that rates will remain unchanged at the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting scheduled for June 17.

In this situation, the market's attention is focused on how much a renewed rise in inflation will delay the Fed's policy path. The more the timing of rate cuts is pushed back, the more both bitcoin and gold could be affected by liquidity and real-rate variables. For the time being, changes in inflation and rate expectations are expected to remain key variables that will determine the direction of the cryptocurrency market.

We are currently witnessing record Institutional selling of Bitcoin. The most selling in history, led by ETFs, nuking over 460% of the daily mined supply, every day. pic.twitter.com/efpUCTUwy6