By Omkar Godbole (All times Eastern unless otherwise noted)
Bitcoin Despite the Middle East war wreaking havoc on traditional markets, its price rose to nearly $72,000, hitting a one-month high and boosting the broader cryptocurrency market.
The outperformance stems from several factors, including relative positioning, the rising likelihood of passage of the U.S.’s long-controversial Clarification Act aimed at legalizing stablecoins, and hopes that the conflict with Iran will soon end.
Bitcoin is down nearly 50% from its all-time high in October and was already oversold before hostilities began on Saturday. So while traditional assets are plummeting, Bitcoin is doing well. This could reignite investor interest in the largest cryptocurrency, attracting institutions to invest back into spot ETFs.
As noted on Monday, Bitcoin will rise as war will only worsen global government finances, leading to more “fiat currency debasement.”
Meanwhile, the New York Times published an interesting report that may help prices rebound, According to Bloomberg. The report said that the day after the attacks began, agents from Iran’s intelligence ministry contacted the CIA to discuss terms for ending the war. Although the U.S. ignored the offer, outreach suggests that back channels are still active and may be used again, potentially leading to a ceasefire.
Finally, it is possible that the Clarification Act will be passed soon.
“There are rumors in the U.S. that the Clarification Act is about to be signed into law. This is helping to boost the prices of many altcoins relative to major assets, as they are expected to be one of the biggest long-term beneficiaries of the bill,” Paul Howard, director at trading firm Wincent, said in an email.
However, he added that there is currently no strong evidence that significant amounts of money on the sidelines are waiting to pour into digital assets, and any rotation remains relatively small or gradual.
Looking ahead, traders expect volatility to persist, especially if the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil supply chokepoint, remains closed and oil prices continue to soar.
QCP Capital’s market insights team said: “We expect volatility to persist, but if disruption persists, pressure to reopen the Strait of Hormuz may increase. Bitcoin’s outperformance of broader risks is worth watching as an early sign of stabilizing sentiment.” 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
- Macro
- March 4, 8:15 am: U.S. ADP employment changes in February (previous 22K)
- March 4, 10:00 am: US February ISM Services PMI (previous value 53.8)
- March 4, 2:00 pm: Federal Reserve Beige Book
- income (Estimate based on FactSet data)
Token event
For a more comprehensive list of this week’s events, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- Governance votes and calls
- The Uniswap DAO is voting on two related proposals to expand v2 and v3 protocol fees to eight layer 2 networks and enable a new tier-based fee system across all v3 pools. Voting closes March 4-5.
- ENS DAO is voting to replace three DNSSEC oracle algorithms to patch critical RSA signature forgery vulnerabilities and significantly reduce gas costs. Voting ends on March 4.
- Unlock
- Token issuance
- March 4: Block Street (BSB) will be listed on Binance Alpha, Bybit and others.
Meeting
For a more comprehensive list of this week’s events, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
market trend
- BTC is up 4.49% to $71,283.58 as of 4pm ET on Wednesday (24 hours: +6.65%)
- ETH rises 5.19% to $2,068.65 (24 hours: +5.64%)
- CoinDesk 20 up 4.31% to 3,086.55 (24 hours: +5.45%)
- The comprehensive pledge rate of Ethereum CESR dropped by 1 basis point to 2.85%
- The BTC financing interest rate on Binance is 0.0051% (annualized 5.6119%)
- DXY fell 0.25% to 98.81
- Gold futures rose 1.70% to $5,194.10
- Silver futures rose 4.00% to $86.24
- The Nikkei 225 closed down 3.61% at 54,245.54 points
- The Hang Seng Index closed down 2.01% to 25,249.48 points
- The FTSE 100 rose 0.18% to 10,502.97
- The Euro Stoxx 50 index rose 0.70% to 5,812.08
- The Dow closed down 0.83% on Tuesday at 48,501.27 points
- The S&P 500 closed down 0.94% at 6,816.63
- The Nasdaq Composite Index closed down 1.02% at 22,516.69 points
- The S&P/TSX Composite Index closed down 2.19% at 33,784.90 points
- The S&P 40 Latin America Index closed down 4.95% at 3,539.33 points
- The U.S. 10-year Treasury bond rate rose 1 basis point to 4.06%
- E-mini S&P 500 futures unchanged at 6,825.00
- E-mini Nasdaq 100 futures prices unchanged at 24,762.00
- E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 0.12% to 48,501.00
Bitcoin Statistics
- Bitcoin dominance: 59.61% (+0.81%)
- Ethereum-Bitcoin ratio: 0.02909 (0.26%)
- Hash rate (seven-day moving average): 1,025 EH/s
- Hash price (spot): $31.26
- Total fee: 2.71 BTC / $183,733
- CME Futures Open Interest: 101,620 BTC
- BTC in gold: 13.7 ounces.
- Bitcoin and gold market capitalization: 4.77%
technical analysis
- This chart shows Bitcoin’s weekly price movements since the start of 2024 in candlestick format.
- The rally above $71,000 refocused attention on the $74,000 level, which acted as resistance before buyers exited the area in March 2024 and later became support where the sell-off stalled last April.
- As such, this level represents a historically important area of economic activity and could now serve as a key inflection zone: a breakout and hold above $74,000 could open the door to higher levels, while repeated failure could reignite selling pressure.
crypto stocks
- Coinbase Global (COIN): Closed at $182.36 (–1.55%) Tuesday premarket, up 6.66% to $194.51
- Galaxy Digital (GLXY): Closed at $20.68 (–4.83%), +4.01% at $21.51
- MARA Holdings (MARA): Closed at $8.66 (–8.36%), +6.47% Closed at $9.22
- Riot Platforms (RIOT): Closed at $15.29 (–6.94%), +3.53% Closed at $15.83
- Core Scientific (CORZ): Closed at $15.30 (–7.22%), +2.55% at $15.69
- CleanSpark (CLSK): Closed at $9.89 (–6.26%), +4.25% at $10.31
- Exodus Movement (EXOD): Closed at $10.83 (+3.44%), +0.65% at $10.90
- CoinShares Bitcoin Mining ETF (WGMI): Closed at $37.88 (–6.31%), +4.67% at $39.65
- Circle Internet Group (CRCL): Closed at $99.63 (+3.63%), +6.15% to $105.76
- Bullish (BLSH): Closed at $33.12 (–2.04%), +2.93% at $34.09
Cryptocurrency Treasury Corporation
- Strategy (MSTR): Closed at $132.68 (–3.61%), +7.70% at $142.89
- Upexi (UPXI): Closed at $0.79 (–10.80%), +14.65% at $0.90
- Lite Strategy (LITS): Closed at $1.15 (+2.68%)
- Sharplink (SBET): Closed at $7.26 (–1.76%), +4.68% at $7.60
ETF flows
Spot BTC ETF
- Net daily traffic: $225.2 million
- Cumulative net flow: $55.47 billion
- Total BTC holdings are approximately 1.28 million
Spot ETH ETF
- Net daily traffic: -$10.8 million
- Cumulative net flow: $11.66 billion
- The total amount of ETH held is about 5.71 million
Source: Farside Investors
