Everything sells. Bitcoin sells the least.
Gold fell for a ninth straight day on Monday to around $4,360, the longest losing streak in years. Asian stocks fell for a third session and are set to enter correction territory.
Bond yields rose as the protracted war threatened to fuel inflation and push central banks toward rate hikes rather than cuts. S&P and European futures pointed to further losses. Brent crude rose to $113 a barrel. barrel, now up more than 70% year-to-date.
Bitcoin was trading at $68,316 on Monday morning Asian time, up 1.5% over the past 24 hours and down 6% on the week. Ether rose 2.7% to $2,059. XRP rose 2% to $1.38. Tron climbed 0.3% to $0.309, the only major green on a weekly basis up 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 numbers are ugly across the board. Gold, the asset supposed to outperform in geopolitical chaos, has lost about 18% from recent highs. Asian stocks are heading into a correction. Bitcoin is down 6% on the week, but is still trading above the $66,000 low that held through every war-driven selloff since February 28.
“The gold rally and BTC collapse are more structural than market-based,” said Alexander Blume, CEO of Two Prime, an SEC-registered investment adviser. “China and others have been systematically buying gold as part of a broader effort to decouple from Western markets and the US dollar.” That buying has reversed as the conflict intensified and liquidity was prioritized over safety.
Noting that both bitcoin’s price and derivatives markets “have held up decently well” given the macro backdrop, Blume 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 an upside surprise is more likely than the market expects.
Trump’s 48-hour ultimatum on Saturday to “hit and wipe out” Iran’s power plants if the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened expires Monday night. Iran responded that any such attack would trigger an indefinite closure of the waterways and retaliatory strikes 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 outage as the “biggest supply shock ever for global crude markets.”
