Trump may be ready to walk away from the Iran war. Markets are not yet sure what that means.
Bitcoin traded at $67,545 on Tuesday morning, roughly flat over 24 hours after recovering from a drop below $65,200 that briefly marked its lowest level since the war began in late February. Ether held above $2,000 at $2,062, up 0.4% on the day. Solana’s SOL fell 0.9% to $83.07, XRP fell 2.2% to $1.32, and dogecoin fell 2.1% to $0.09. SOL and XRP led weekly losses across the top 10 with 8% and 6.4% respectively.
The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Trump and his aides estimated that liberating the Strait of Hormuz would push the conflict beyond his four-to-six-week timeline, and that the president told advisers he is willing to end the campaign even if the strait remains largely closed.
S&P 500 futures rose 0.8% on the report. WTI crude erased an earlier jump to $107 and fell near $103 after Iran hit a Kuwaiti crude oil tanker in Dubai earlier in the session.
The whipsaw closed a brutal stretch for traditional markets. The S&P 500 is now on its longest daily losing streak since 2022. The MSCI Asia Pacific is headed for its worst month since the 2008 financial crisis. Government bonds added to gains and the dollar weakened against most G10 currencies.
Crypto’s relative performance continues to stand out against that backdrop. The total crypto market cap is $2.32 trillion, largely unchanged over the past week, a period in which the Nasdaq 100 fell about 5%. Bitcoin has spent the entire war trading between around $65,000 and $73,000, selling on each escalation but refusing to break structurally lower even as shares form a clear downtrend.
“Crypto has pulled back but seems stronger than stocks,” said Alex Kuptsikevich, chief market analyst at FxPro. “Although the cryptocurrency market remains below its 50- and 200-day moving averages, it is finding support on dives to the lowest levels seen since early February, showing horizontal stabilization after the decline, while stocks form a downtrend.”
JPMorgan noted on Monday that bitcoin is handling the Iran crisis better than gold and silver, a remarkable observation given that gold’s unprecedented losing streak has been the most disorienting signal in global markets for weeks. The traditional safe harbor falls during an active war, while the asset, which is supposed to be the volatile, maintains its reach.
The question heading into April is what a potential end to the conflict actually means for crypto.
A truce would remove the overall risk that has kept bitcoin range bound, but a closed Hormuz, even after a US withdrawal, would keep oil elevated and inflation expectations sticky, complicating the rate cut path the market has been waiting for.
Monday’s dip below $65,200 and snap recovery above $67,000 looked like a stop hunt that found real demand underneath. Whether that claim holds up through April depends on whether Trump’s determination to end the war turns into an actual off-ramp, or just another headline in a month that has been full of them.
