By Omkar Godbole (All times Eastern unless otherwise noted)
Although Bitcoin’s Hyperliquid’s performance is even more notable amid the impressive price gains since the Iran conflict began over two weeks ago.
Users of decentralized perpetual contracts have traded millions of dollars in commodity futures, particularly those related to oil, highlighting the utility of blockchain-based markets for price discovery when traditional markets are closed.
This trend looks set to continue as industry experts become increasingly bullish on commodities, especially energy.
“Energy contracts – especially refined products such as heating oil and gasoline – exhibit stronger expected Sharpe ratios, tighter physical markets and supportive term structures,” Prometheus Research said
The Iran conflict has fueled gains in commodity ETFs, with Mining.com predicting it will have a lasting impact on key metals including nickel and other key minerals.
All of this suggests that on-chain commodities markets could siphon money away from various parts of the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency markets. Booming artificial intelligence stocks have supposedly done just that in 2024-25, capping gains for the largest cryptocurrencies.
Another tail risk: Economists expect rising oil prices to lead to higher inflation, which could prompt central banks to cautiously cut interest rates, further weighing on risk assets. Remember, the Fed will announce its interest rate decision tomorrow.
So while Bitcoin appears to be active, a rapid rise may not be easy. Earlier on Tuesday, prices briefly topped $75,000 amid short covering in the futures and options markets.
“When you combine the highly hedged options market with the persistently negative perpetual funding rates we’ve seen over the past few weeks, you see significant distortions in the market – under-hedging, shorting, and under-holding,” Monarq Asset Management told CoinDesk.
However, the breakthrough was short-lived. Prices fell back below $74,000, dragging down the CoinDesk 20 Index and major coins such as ethereum (ETH), XRP (XRP) and solana (SOL). Meanwhile, S&P 500 futures fell, pointing to renewed risk aversion in traditional markets. Stay alert!
Read more: For analysis of today’s altcoin and derivatives activity, see Today’s Cryptocurrency Market
What to see
For a more comprehensive list of this week’s events, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- cryptocurrency
- March 17: Lava Network (LAVA) will expand with 17 new chain integrations and 9 new blockchain ecosystems.
- Macro
- March 17, 10 a.m.: U.S. pending home sales in February (previous value -0.8%)
- income (Estimate based on FactSet data)
- March 17: CEA Industries (BNC), post-market, $0.69
Token event
For a more comprehensive list of this week’s events, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- Governance votes and calls
- March 17: Mantle (MNT) will host State of Mind Ep. 07, Discuss CeDeFi milestones and DeFi strategies.
- March 17: OKX will host an X Spaces conference on the state of proxies, featuring representatives from Uniswap, Dune, and Alchemy.
- The Decentraland DAO is voting on whether to allow registered users to customize the color of their avatar name tags, as well as add a more accessible volume slider to the UI sidebar. Voting will close on March 16-17.
- Convex Finance is voting on the Curve and Frax indicator weight distribution for the week of March 12, guiding vlCVX’s voting power in hundreds of liquidity pools. It also votes on the FXN meter weight distribution for the same period. Voting ends on March 17.
- The Aavegotchi DAO is voting to determine multi-signer elections for 2026-2027, retaining the 5-out-of-9 threshold and setting quarterly signer compensation. Voting ends on March 17.
- Aavegotchi DAO is conducting its 3rd round of voting to select 7 out of the remaining 10 nominees as multi-signers, thus completing the list of 9 signers for the DAO Foundation wallet. Voting ends on March 17.
- Aura Finance is voting on the Balancer indicator weight allocation for the week of March 12, directing vlAURA voting rights for Balancer pools on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism, Gnosis, Base and Avalanche. Voting ends on March 17.
- The ShapeShift DAO is voting to establish and fund a new international user experience workflow for six months to maintain professional multilingual translations of ShapeShift apps and websites. Voting ends on March 17.
- Unlock
- Token issuance
Meeting
For a more comprehensive list of this week’s events, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
market trend
- BTC is down 0.28% since 4pm ET on Monday to $73,668.91 (24 hours: +0.22%)
- ETH fell 1.25% to $2,307.46 (24 hours: +1.76%)
- CoinDesk 20 down 0.96% to 2,147.86 (24 hours: +0.75%)
- The comprehensive pledge rate of Ethereum CESR increased by 7 basis points to 2.81%
- The BTC financing interest rate on Binance is -0.0054% (annualized -5.9042%)
- DXY rose 0.09% to 99.80
- Gold futures rose 0.03% to $5,003.80
- Silver futures fell 0.61% to $80.19
- The Nikkei 225 closed unchanged at 53,700.39 points
- The Hang Seng Index closed up 0.13% to 25,868.54 points
- The FTSE 100 rose 0.54% to 10,373.64
- Europe’s Stoxx 50 rose 0.45% to 5,764.94
- The Dow closed up 0.83% on Monday at 46,946.41 points
- The S&P 500 closed up 1.01% at 6,699.38 points
- The Nasdaq Composite Index closed up 1.22% at 22,374.18 points
- The S&P/TSX Composite Index closed up 1.03% at 32,876.65 points
- The S&P 40 Latin America Index closed down 0.32% at 3,607.58 points
- The U.S. 10-year Treasury bond rate fell 7 basis points to 4.22%
- E-mini S&P 500 futures rose 0.61% to 6,745.75
- E-mini Nasdaq 100 futures rose 0.66% to 24,839.25
- E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose 0.59% to 47,261.00
Bitcoin Statistics
- Bitcoin dominance: 59.06% (-0.17%)
- Ethereum to Bitcoin ratio: 0.0313 (-0.39%)
- Computing power (seven-day moving average): 935 EH/s
- Hash price (spot): $32.42
- Total fee: 2.54 BTC / $187,439
- CME Futures Open Interest: 115,130 BTC
- BTC in gold: 14.8 ounces.
- Bitcoin and gold market capitalization: 4.93%
technical analysis
- This chart shows the daily fluctuations in the Ethereum to Bitcoin ratio since November in the form of candlesticks.
- The ratio surged 5% on Monday, breaking a long-term trend of price volatility.
- The so-called bullish breakout suggests that Ethereum is likely to continue to outperform in the future.
crypto stocks
- Coinbase Global (COIN): Monday’s close at $203.32 (+3.98%), pre-market close at $204.00, +0.33%
- Circle Internet Group (CRCL): Closed at $125.83 (+9.06%), +0.79% at $126.82
- Galaxy Digital (GLXY): Ended flat at $23.10 (+3.36%)
- MARA Holdings (MARA): Closed at $9.23 (–0.97%), +0.11% at $9.24
- Riot Platforms (RIOT): Closed at $14.40 (+2.56%), +0.21% at $14.43
- Core Scientific (CORZ): Closed at $16.97 (+2.91%), –0.41% at $16.90
- CleanSpark (CLSK): Closed at $10.02 (+2.66%), +0.50% at $10.07
- Exodus Movement (EXOD): Closed at $9.32 (+3.90%)
- CoinShares Bitcoin Mining ETF (WGMI): Ended flat at $40.45 (+5.68%)
- Bullish (BLSH): Closed at $39.62 (+8.19%), –1.29% at $39.11
Cryptocurrency Treasury Corporation
- Strategy (MSTR): Closed at $147.52 (+5.62%), –0.83% at $146.3
- Strive (ASST): Closed flat at $10.86 (+13.96%)
- SharpLink Gaming (SBET): Closed at $8.20 (+8.90%), +0.49% at $8.24
- Upexi (UPXI): Closed at $1.08 (–2.70%), +4.63% at $1.13
- Lite Strategy (LITS): Closed at $1.25 (+5.93%)
ETF flows
Spot BTC ETF
- Net daily traffic: $199.4 million
- Cumulative net flow: $56.31 billion
- Total BTC holdings are approximately 1.29 million
Spot ETH ETF
- Daily net traffic: $35.9 million
- Cumulative net flow: $11.86 billion
- The total amount of ETH held is approximately 5.74 million.
Source: Farside Investors
