Everything is selling. Bitcoin is the one that sells the least.
Gold fell for a ninth straight day on Monday to around $4,360, its longest losing streak in years. Asian stocks fell for a third session and are heading into correction territory.
Bond yields rose as the prolonged war threatened to stoke inflation and push central banks to raise rates rather than cut them. The S&P and European futures pointed to further losses. Brent crude rose to $113 a barrel, up more than 70% so far this year.
Bitcoin was trading at $68,316 on Monday morning Asia time, up 1.5% over the past 24 hours and down 6% on the week. Ether rose 2.7% to $2,059. XRP gained 2% to $1.38. Tron rose 0.3% to $0.309, the only major green on a weekly basis at 3.8%. BNB fell 1.2% to $627. Solana fell 2.5% to $86.54. Dogecoin lost 1.7% to $0.09, down 7.4% on the week and the worst performing major.
The weekly figures are ugly across the board. Gold, the asset that is supposed to perform best in geopolitical chaos, has lost about 18% from its recent highs. Asian stocks are entering a correction. Bitcoin is down 6% on the week, but is still trading above the $66,000 floor that held throughout the war-driven sell-offs since February 28.
“The gold rally and BTC crash are more structural than market-based,” said Alexander Blume, CEO of Two Prime, an SEC-registered investment advisor. “China and others have been systematically buying gold as part of a broader effort to decouple from Western markets and the US dollar.” Those purchases have been reversed as the conflict escalated and liquidity became the priority over security.
Blume noted that both the bitcoin price and derivatives markets “have held up decently well” given the macro context, and said Two Prime is positioned for “an increase in funding and futures rates in the coming weeks and months,” effectively betting on the contrarian view that a bullish surprise is more likely than the market expects.
The 48-hour ultimatum Trump gave Saturday to “strike and destroy” Iran’s power plants if the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened expires Monday night. Iran responded that any such attack would lead to an indefinite closure of the waterway and retaliatory attacks on US and Israeli energy infrastructure throughout the region.
Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs raised its full-year Brent forecast to $85 from $77 and WTI to $79 from $72, describing the Hormuz disruption as the “biggest supply shock ever experienced for global crude oil markets.”
