The pressure came from a broader pullback in markets. Global stocks fell in thin holiday trading, with markets in the US, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan closed, and a gauge of Asian shares falling 0.6% after a five-day streak to record highs. Brent crude was trading around $79 a barrel, down about 9% on the week, as shipping through the Strait of Hormuz returned to normal under the deal signed between the United States and Iran and eased what had been a historic supply shock.
Attention now turns to talks over Iran’s nuclear program, with Vice President JD Vance saying a 60-day deadline to work out details of the deal has begun.
The biggest question hanging over the market is where this cycle is headed and whether altcoins that typically rally at the end of a bull run will get their turn. Michael Egorov, founder of Curve Finance, told CoinDesk that he believes bitcoin is behaving differently this cycle because spot ETFs were approved just before the 2024 halving, the event roughly every four years that reduces the rate of new bitcoin issuance, attracting institutional demand that didn’t exist before and breaking the old pattern.
The speculative energy that once flowed into altcoins, he said, turned into “useless memecoins” right after the ETFs launched.
