Bitcoin is trading with a positive bias above the $75,000 level, which CoinDesk recently highlighted as a critical threshold for bulls to maintain control.
Still, some observers are urging caution, noting that prices should stay above this level until Wednesday, when the U.S.-Iran ceasefire is set to end.
“The truce is set to expire Wednesday night Washington time and the market has to price two paths, extension and de-escalation versus renewed escalation and oil stress. That’s why even with BTC strong, the band can still go fast. It’s headline risk with a timer,” analysts at Marex said in an email to CoinDesk.
An escalation could push oil prices well above the March high of $119, potentially sending Asian and global stock markets into a tailspin. The question remains whether bitcoin, which held relatively steady around $70,000 during the conflict in March, will remain resilient or come under pressure along with the broader market.
At the time of writing, no delegation from Iran had traveled to the talks in Pakistan. On Monday, President Donald Trump warned of a major escalation in the conflict if the ceasefire ends without an agreement.
Also on analysts’ radar is Kevin Warsh’s nomination hearing for the Federal Reserve chair, scheduled for Tuesday. Warsh has a reputation as an “inflation hawk” who opposed interest rate cuts and quantitative easing after the 2008 crash.
So what he says during the session can move markets. “His remarks could act as a catalyst in the near term, especially if they reinforce expectations of policy easing,” digital asset trader QCP Capital said in a note.
Speaking of the broader market, major cryptocurrencies such as ether (ETH), solana (SOL), and XRP (XRP) are up less than 2% over the past 24 hours, underperforming bitcoin. Smaller tokens like XLM and TON are up by more than 5% each. The CoinDesk Memecoin Index is up over 3%.
In particular, the DeFi Select Index added 2%, which is surprising given the industry-wide drop from the weekend hack of KelpDAO. This led the attacker to drain rsETH, a liquid restaking token widely used as collateral on several DeFi platforms.
Decentralized lender Aave has taken the biggest hit, with the total value of cryptoassets locked on its platform falling to $16 billion, down nearly $10 billion since before the hack.
Aave’s original token, AAVE, has fallen 18% to $93 since the hack. At the same time, open interest in futures linked to the token reached a record high of 3.59 million tokens. Increased demand for leveraged bets points to the potential for more volatility ahead. Pay attention!
Read more: For analysis of today’s activity in altcoins and derivatives, see Crypto Markets Today. For a comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
What is trending
Today’s signal
The chart shows XRP’s daily price swings in candlestick format. The white line represents the average price over 100 days and the yellow line represents the extended bear market.
XRP remains below both the average and the trendline, even as market leaders bitcoin and ether (ETH) have topped these levels on their respective price charts.
Until the price recovers both the 100-day average and the downtrend line, momentum remains relatively weak relative to BTC and ETH, which have already established stronger bullish structures.
