Bitcoin rose to $74,935 in Asian hours on Thursday, up 0.7% over 24 hours and 5.4% on the week, as US stocks closed at record highs on reports that the US and Iran had reached an “in-principle” agreement to extend talks beyond next week’s April 7 ceasefire expiration.
The S&P 500 ended up 0.8% and the Nasdaq 100 rose 1.4%, both all-time highs, capping a two-week rally from lows in late March.
Ether led major tokens, up 8.1% on the week to $2,360, extending the outperformance against bitcoin that emerged earlier in the week. XRP rose 3.6% to $1.41, dogecoin gained 4.8% to $0.098 and solana added 2.2% to $85.
The stock rally is running ahead of what other markets are willing to confirm. Long-term government yields barely moved. Gold held close to $4,800. Brent crude ticked up to $95 as the United States pressed ahead with a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which remains effectively closed.
“Stocks are basically expressing their view that the war in the Persian Gulf is almost over,” Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers, wrote in a note.
Crypto’s derivatives desks do not price the same conviction. QCP Capital wrote in a Telegram broadcast on Wednesday that bitcoin’s rally is spot-led rather than part of a broader gene risk.
Funding rates on bitcoin perpetuals are still negative and open interest has eased, suggesting shorts are leaning against the move rather than capitulating. Front-end implied volatility remains muted, one-month vol is trading below three months, and 30-day 25-delta risk-reversion still shows more demand for downside protection than upside exposure.
Put simply, options markets price caution even when spot rallies. The cost of bitcoin options expiring in the next few weeks is unusually calm for a true breakout, and traders are still paying for protection against a decline rather than betting on more upside. That is the signature of a bounce, not a trend change.
“Markets may be trading on the truce angle, but core risk remains unclear,” QCP wrote. The firm pointed to the gap between Iran’s 60% enriched uranium and US demand of less than 20% as the structural issue that a framework headline cannot close.
The ether outperformance is the one signal that cannot be explained by bitcoin-specific flows.
The much-watched ETH/BTC ratio — which tracks the price of ether versus bitcoin — climbed to around 0.0315 on Wednesday, recovering from February 2026 lows near 0.028 and marking the first sustained stretch of ether strength against bitcoin in months.
Ethereum’s on-chain fundamentals have deviated from the price for several weeks, with network transactions hitting a record 200.4 million in Q1 and stablecoin supply hitting a record high of $180 billion.
Traders can watch the next risk-off session for cues. Ether outperforming bitcoin on a red day suggests that the rotation to riskier assets is real, while a sharper slide would indicate that ether was simply riding bitcoin’s higher-beta coattails.
Traders are also watching to see if the US-Iran framework survives negotiations over the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear program ahead of next week’s ceasefire expiry. QCP’s read that this is headline relief rather than resolution is the one worth stress testing first.
