Geopolitics Crashes the Party: Bitcoin Tips Its Hat to $63K After a Weekend Win 🎩

Bitcoin slipped to $63,100 from above $64,300 during Monday trading, shedding roughly 1% as a weekend rally gave way to renewed Middle East tensions and broad profit-taking across risk assets. The decline came as Iran and the U.S. exchanged airstrikes over control of the Strait of Hormuz, reigniting concerns that weighed simultaneously on crypto and traditional equity markets.

The altcoin market absorbed the heavier selling. Lighter (LIT) dropped 8%, its first significant pullback after gaining more than 200% over the past two months. Equity markets tracked the risk-off move, with South Korea's Kospi index losing 9.2% on the back of a 15% slide in SK Hynix, the memory-chip maker that went public in the U.S. on Friday. Japan's Nikkei and China's SSE each fell more than 2%, while Nasdaq 100 futures were down 0.9% and S&P 500 futures off 0.25% since midnight.

In the derivatives market, total open interest held steady at $17 billion and the three-month annualized basis sat at 3.8%, signaling measured positioning. Funding rates were little changed to positive across major venues, with Bybit the outlier at roughly -13% annualized on BTC perps. Coinglass data showed $253 million in 24-hour liquidations, skewed toward longs. Options markets remained tilted bullish, with a 24-hour put/call ratio of 64/36 in favor of calls, while the one-week delta skew narrowed to 16% from 26% a week earlier. The at-the-money term structure stayed in contango, with the front end near 34%-35% and the long end around 43% out to mid-2027.

Bitcoin was last trading at $63,041.97, according to CoinDesk Data.