Bitcoin Just Ghosted a War, Oil, and Gold All in the Same Week 🇙🇷

Bitcoin ($BTC) traded near $63,800 on Monday, down 0.3% over 24 hours and up 2% on the week, even as gold, oil, equities and government bonds slumped on the United States' fourth round of strikes on Iran in a week. Spot gold slid as much as 1.6% to near $4,050 an ounce, while Brent crude jumped 4% to above $79 a barrel as conflicting claims over the Strait of Hormuz fueled supply worries. Treasuries fell across the curve, with the two-year yield climbing to its highest since February 2025, and MSCI's Asia Pacific equities gauge dropped 1.6%. U.S. Central Command said the latest strikes targeted Iran's ability to attack commercial vessels after Iranian forces hit a Cyprus-flagged container ship. The status of the Strait of Hormuz remained unclear, with the U.S. denying Iran's statement that the waterway would close "until further notice." Roughly a fifth of the world's seaborne oil normally passes through Hormuz.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said it struck U.S. bases in Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan in retaliation, while Iranian state media reported explosions along the country's southern coast, including the energy hubs of Bushehr and Asalouyeh and the port cities of Bandar Abbas and Bandar-e Dayyer. Earlier rounds of strikes also included Iran's IRGC claim of hitting 85 U.S. military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait and the downing of a U.S. MQ-9 drone, alongside a U.S. withdrawal of a key concession that had allowed Iran to sell oil on international markets. "The Strait of Hormuz is a vital maritime corridor for global trade. Iran does not control it," CENTCOM stated on July 13 after reporting strikes on Iranian air-defense systems, coastal radar sites, missile and drone capabilities and small boats. U.S. Central Command also wrote that "U.S. Central Command forces have begun launching a series of powerful strikes against Iran to impose heavy costs for targeting and attacking commercial shipping crewed by innocent civilians in an international waterway."

President Donald Trump said Iran had called him seeking a deal after the latest strikes. "They want to make a deal so badly," Trump said. "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," he added, with the White House preparing for what could be days or weeks of further strikes.

Crypto's muted reaction runs against a fragile macro backdrop. Bitcoin had previously dropped to $62,870 on Wednesday after stalling at the $64,000 resistance zone, and had printed a 21-month low of $57,742 on July 1 amid rate-hike fears, according to Bloomberg. A $7.7 billion stablecoin contraction and anemic Bitcoin ETF inflows compounded the pressure. Yet by Thursday Bitcoin ($BTC) had bounced 1.2% to $63,000 while ether ($ETH) advanced 0.75% to $1,755, tracking Nasdaq 100 futures higher by 2.6% despite the escalation, and the Crypto Fear and Greed Index climbed to 27, pulling out of the extreme fear zone it occupied for 40 straight days.

Derivatives positioning reflected investor caution. Crypto futures 24-hour volume dropped almost 20% to $191 billion, with aggregate open interest steady near $106 billion. Bitcoin open interest in major dollar and USDT-denominated futures slipped to 266,000 $BTC from 272,000 $BTC as $BTC recovered to nearly $63,000 overnight. Ether ($ETH), XRP at $1.09 and solana ($SOL) at $76 showed the same reluctance to add leverage, with $SOL down 5% over seven days and dogecoin ($DOGE) near $0.07. Altcoin outperformance was led by lighter (LIT) and ether.fi (ETHFI), both up about 35% since the end of June, while ENA added 5.6% on the day to extend monthly gains even as it remains more than 91% below its September 2025 peak. CoinMarketCap's Altcoin Season indicator ticked up one point to 47/100.

The cross-asset picture has traders watching the $60,000 level for $BTC: holding it through further escalation would reinforce the view that markets are now treating Middle East risk as a rates event rather than a crypto-specific shock, while a break lower would suggest the recent calm is temporary. Money markets have moved their bet on the next Fed increase to October from December, and minutes of the Fed's June meeting showed a few policymakers saw a case for raising rates before backing a hold. One crypto-relevant thread runs through Korean equities, where SK Hynix shares plunged 12% in Seoul on Monday after the chipmaker's U.S.-listed shares surged 13% on their Friday debut, dragging the Kospi down 7%. That chip trade helped lift bitcoin on Friday, and its sharp reversal on Monday still left crypto flat in either direction, underscoring how far bitcoin has decoupled from the war headlines that once moved it.