Senate Yanks Trump's Iran War Powers 50-48, Bitcoin Responds With a Polite Nap 🫠

The U.S. Senate passed a War Powers Resolution on Tuesday by a 50-48 vote, directing President Trump to end military hostilities with Iran unless Congress authorizes further action. Four Republicans — Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul — crossed the aisle to join Democrats, while Senator John Fetterman was the lone Democrat to oppose the measure. The resolution is the first of its kind to clear both chambers of Congress during Trump's second term. It is structured as a concurrent resolution and therefore does not go to the president's desk. A White House official told CNN that "concurrent resolutions do not go to the president and have no force of law."

The vote comes weeks after a U.S.-Iran ceasefire earlier this month that reopened the Strait of Hormuz and pulled crude back from wartime highs. Equities and oil had largely priced in that truce before Tuesday. The S&P 500 was little changed in the session, and oil posted modest gains. Lawmakers previously invoked the 1973 War Powers Resolution against Trump in 2020 following the Soleimani strike; that bill passed the Senate but was vetoed.

Bitcoin ($BTC), frequently marketed as a geopolitical hedge, did not rally on the news. $BTC traded near $62,667 on Wednesday, down roughly 2.5% over 24 hours, extending a slide that has followed crypto-specific headwinds rather than developments in Washington. The coin now sits close to half its October record near $126,000. A Federal Reserve in no rush to cut rates has compounded the pressure on risk assets.

The bigger drag has been flows. U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded 13 consecutive days of outflows through early June, shedding roughly $4.4 billion — the longest streak since the products launched in January 2024. BlackRock's IBIT, the largest fund, lost approximately $980 million in its worst week to date. During this year's U.S. strikes on Iran, $BTC slid alongside equities instead of trading like gold, echoing its February 2022 pattern, when it fell about 8% the day Russia invaded Ukraine before rebounding. For now, $BTC is responding to liquidity conditions and rate expectations, and the next move in ETF flows is likely to carry more weight than any vote on Capitol Hill.