Bitcoin Holds $62K While Geopolitics Apparently Forgot It Was a 24/7 Risk Asset 🪨

Bitcoin traded near $62,009 on Thursday, down 1.2% over 24 hours but up 1.6% on the week, even as a fresh round of U.S. military strikes against Iran and a $7.7 billion stablecoin contraction roiled broader risk markets. BTC had dropped to $62,870 on Wednesday after stalling at the $64,000 resistance zone, with U.S. airstrikes delivering the decisive blow to an already fragile appetite for risk. Ether held at $1,730, also off 1.2% on the day but up 5.7% over seven sessions.

U.S. Central Command said it hit 90 military targets in its latest round of strikes, carried out 24 hours after President Donald Trump declared the ceasefire over. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps claimed strikes on 85 U.S. military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait and said it had downed a U.S. MQ9 drone. Washington simultaneously withdrew a concession that had allowed Iran to sell oil on international markets, sending Brent crude up 1% to $78.80 a barrel for a third consecutive session of gains. Both sides raised the prospect of closing the Strait of Hormuz, and the White House is preparing for a multi-day or multi-week campaign targeting that corridor.

Markets treated the escalation primarily as an interest-rate event. Two-year Treasury yields pushed toward their 2026 high, and money markets on Wednesday pulled forward their bet on the next Fed increase to October from December. Gold extended its slide to a fourth day at around $4,060 an ounce, while government bonds in Japan, Australia and New Zealand fell, extending Wednesday's global selloff. Higher rates typically weigh on non-yielding assets, yet bitcoin has shed only 1.2% in 24 hours — a muted reaction compared with the 5% drops that followed earlier Hormuz headlines during the conflict. The pattern has held across every leg of the conflict since February, with each successive escalation extracting a smaller price reaction.

President Trump said Iran had called him seeking an agreement. "They want to make a deal so badly," Trump said, adding, "I just don't know if they're worthy of making a deal. I don't know that they're going to honor the deal. That's the problem." U.S. stock futures turned green following the strikes, with Nasdaq 100 futures gaining 2.6% over 24 hours. Bitcoin rose 1.2% since midnight UTC to $63,000, while ether added 0.75% to $1,755.

Bitcoin is now 9% above June's monthly close, and several altcoins outperformed, with LIT and ETHFI each gaining roughly 35% over the same period, ENA adding 5.6%, and HYPE up 5.9% on the week despite a 1.2% daily dip. Solana was the laggard at $77.25, shedding 1.8% on the day and 1.7% on the week, while XRP slipped 0.7% to $1.09 and TRON added 4% over seven days. CoinMarketCap's Altcoin Season indicator ticked up one point to 47/100, and the Fear and Greed index climbed to 27, exiting the extreme fear zone it occupied for 40 straight days.

Derivatives positioning cooled alongside the price action. Crypto futures 24-hour volume dropped nearly 20% to $191 billion, open interest held near $106 billion, and Bitcoin's overnight recovery to nearly $63,000 came with open interest in major dollar- and USDT-denominated futures slipping to 266K BTC from 272K BTC. Bitcoin had previously printed a 21-month low of $57,742 on July 1 amid rate-hike fears, according to Bloomberg, leaving limited cushion for additional macro shocks as traders monitor whether $60,000 continues to hold.