Tankers in Trouble, Traders in Trouble: Strait of Hormuz Spooks $BTC Below $63K 🛢️

Bitcoin slipped below the $63,000 mark on Tuesday after a second attack on an oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz revived tensions between the United States and Iran, dragging major cryptocurrencies into the red alongside a surge in crude prices. BTC, the leading cryptocurrency by market capitalization, fell to as low as $62,657 in Asian trading hours, down nearly 1% since midnight UTC, according to CoinDesk data. Ether ($ETH), $XRP, and $SOL declined between 1% and 2.3% over the same window.

The price move followed a series of incidents at sea reported by the UK Military Centre on X, which disclosed two separate attacks on oil tankers in the strait, both of which sustained minor structural damage. The United States said it launched "powerful strikes" against Iran after attacks on three ships in the Strait of Hormuz, including Qatari and Saudi tankers, while Iran said it targeted "85 US military installations" in retaliation for strikes on its Hormozgan and Mahshahr provinces.

Qatar has accused Iran of being responsible for the earlier tanker attack. The scale of the escalation has pushed an already fragile cease-fire between Washington and Tehran to the brink of collapse. The conflict, which erupted in late February, had previously pushed oil above $100 a barrel and stoked global inflation concerns.

Crude markets reacted quickly to the developments, with WTI futures jumping more than 2% to $72.27 and the Dollar Index holding steady above 101.00, maintaining Tuesday's gains. Oil prices had earlier traded above $70 per barrel. Rising inflation expectations have fueled fears of interest rate hikes across major economies, including the United States, a backdrop that tends to weigh on riskier assets such as cryptocurrencies, as higher yields make it more difficult for traders to rotate capital out of bonds and into digital assets.