By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless otherwise noted)
While bitcoin is the price increase since the Iran conflict began more than two weeks ago is impressive, Hyperliquid’s performance is even more remarkable.
Users of the decentralized perpetuals exchange have traded millions in commodity futures, particularly those linked to oil, highlighting the utility of blockchain-based markets in price discovery when traditional markets are closed.
This trend looks set to continue as industry experts become increasingly bullish on commodities, especially energy.
“Energy contracts – particularly refined products such as fuel oil and gasoline – are exhibiting stronger expected Sharpe ratios, tighter physical markets and supportive maturity structures,” Prometheus Research said.
The Iran conflict has already driven gains in commodity ETFs, and Mining.com predicts a lasting impact on key metals, including nickel and other critical minerals.
All of this suggests that onchain commodity markets can siphon capital away from bitcoin and various parts of the crypto market. Booming AI stocks reportedly did so in 2024-25, limiting gains in the largest cryptocurrency.
Another tail risk: Economists predict a rise in inflation due to the rise in oil prices, which could prompt central banks to proceed cautiously with interest rate cuts, further weighing on risk assets. Remember, the Fed is due to announce its interest rate decision tomorrow.
So while BTC looks buoyant, quick gains may not come easily. Prices briefly topped $75,000 earlier Tuesday amid short-covering in the futures and options markets.
“When you pair the heavily hedged options market with the persistently negative perpetual funding rates we saw over the past few weeks, it became clear that the market was highly skewed – hedged, short and under-owned,” Monarq Asset Management told CoinDesk.
However, the outbreak was short-lived. Prices fell back below $74,000, dragging down the CoinDesk 20 index and major tokens such as ether (ETH), XRP (XRP) and solana (SOL). Meanwhile, S&P 500 futures fell, signaling renewed risk aversion in traditional markets. Pay attention!
Read more: For analysis of today’s activity in altcoins and derivatives, see Crypto Markets Today
What to see
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- Crypto
- March 17: Lava Network (LAVA) expands with 17 new chain integrations and nine new blockchain ecosystems.
- Macro
- 17 March at 10:00 AM: US Awaits Home Sales MoM for February (Prev -0.8%)
- Earnings (Estimated based on FactSet data)
- March 17: CEA Industries (BNC), post-market, $0.69
Token Events
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- Governance votes and calls
- March 17: Mantle (MNT) to host State of Mind Ep. 07 where we discuss CeDeFi milestones and DeFi strategies.
- March 17: OKX hosts an X Spaces session on Agent States with representatives from Uniswap, Dune and Alchemy.
- Decentraland DAO is voting on whether to allow registered users to customize the color of their avatar name badge and add a more accessible volume slider to the UI sidebar. Voting ends March 16 and 17.
- Convex Finance votes on curve and Frax benchmark weight assignments for the week of March 12, managing vlCVX voting power across hundreds of liquidity pools. This is also true of FXN benchmark allocations for the same period. Voting ends March 17.
- Aavegotchi DAO votes to finalize its election of Multi-Sig Signers for 2026-2027, maintaining the 5-of-9 threshold and setting quarterly signer compensation. Voting ends March 17.
- The Aavegotchi DAO runs vote 3 to select seven of the remaining 10 nominees as Multi-Sig signers, completing the list of nine signers for the DAO Foundation wallet. Voting ends March 17.
- Aura Finance votes on Balancer measurement weight allocations for the week of March 12th, managing vlAURA voting power across Balancer pools on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism, Gnosis, Base and Avalanche. Voting ends March 17.
- The ShapeShift DAO votes to establish and fund a new international UX Workstream for six months to maintain professional multilingual translations of the ShapeShift app and website. Voting ends March 17.
- Unlocks
- The token is launched
Conferences
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
Market movements
- BTC is down 0.28% as of 16 ET Monday at $73,668.91 (24 hours: +0.22%)
- ETH is down 1.25% to $2,307.46 (24h: +1.76%)
- CoinDesk 20 is down 0.96% to 2,147.86 (24h: +0.75%)
- Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 7 bps to 2.81%
- BTC funding rate is at -0.0054% (-5.9042% annualized) on Binance
- DXY is up 0.09% to 99.80
- Gold futures are up 0.03% at $5,003.80
- Silver futures are down 0.61% at $80.19
- The Nikkei 225 closed unchanged at 53,700.39
- The Hang Seng closed up 0.13% at 25,868.54
- The FTSE 100 is up 0.54% at 10,373.64
- The Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.45% at 5,764.94
- The DJIA closed Monday up 0.83% at 46,946.41
- The S&P 500 closed up 1.01% at 6,699.38
- The Nasdaq Composite closed up 1.22% at 22,374.18
- The S&P/TSX Composite closed up 1.03% at 32,876.65
- The S&P 40 Latin America closed up 0.32% at 3,607.58
- The US 10-year Treasury yield is down 7 bps to 4.22%
- E-mini S&P 500 futures rose 0.61% to 6,745.75
- E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures rose 0.66% to 24,839.25
- E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose 0.59% to 47,261.00
Bitcoin statistics
- BTC Dominance: 59.06% (-0.17%)
- Ether-bitcoin ratio: 0.0313 (-0.39%)
- Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 935 EH/s
- Hash price (spot): $32.42
- Total Fees: 2.54 BTC / $187,439
- CME Futures open interest: 115,130 BTC
- BTC priced in gold: 14.8 oz.
- BTC vs Gold Market Cap: 4.93%
Technical Analysis
- The chart shows daily swings in the ether-bitcoin ratio in candlestick format since November.
- The ratio rose 5% on Monday, breaking a long-term trend of uneven price action.
- The so-called bullish breakout suggests potential for continued ether outperformance ahead.
Crypto stocks
- Coinbase Global (COIN): closed Monday at $203.32 (+3.98%), +0.33% at $204.00 in premarket
- Circle Internet Group (CRCL): closed at $125.83 (+9.06%), +0.79% at $126.82
- Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $23.10 (+3.36%), unchanged
- MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $9.23 (–0.97%), +0.11% at $9.24
- Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $14.40 (+2.56%), +0.21% at $14.43
- Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $16.97 (+2.91%), -0.41% at $16.90
- CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $10.02 (+2.66%), +0.50% at $10.07
- Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $9.32 (+3.90%)
- CoinShares Bitcoin Mining ETF (WGMI): closed at $40.45 (+5.68%), unchanged
- Bullish (BLSH): closed at $39.62 (+8.19%), -1.29% at $39.11
Crypto Treasury Companies
- Strategy (MSTR): closed at $147.52 (+5.62%), -0.83% at $146.3
- Strive (ASST): closed at $10.86 (+13.96%), unchanged
- SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $8.20 (+8.90%), +0.49% at $8.24
- Upexi (UPXI): closed at $1.08 (–2.70%), +4.63% at $1.13
- Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $1.25 (+5.93%)
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs
- Daily net flows: $199.4 million
- Cumulative net flows: $56.31 billion
- Total BTC holdings ~ 1.29M
Spot ETH ETFs
- Daily net flows: $35.9 million
- Cumulative net flows: $11.86 billion
- Total ETH holdings ~ 5.74 million
Source: Farside Investors
