Bitcoin edged lower, surrendering a short-lived rally past $70,000, as a broader selloff in risk assets deepened amid mounting fears that the Iran war will continue to escalate.
The original cryptocurrency fell more than 4.5% to $66,171 and was trading around $68,800 in afternoon New York trading. Stocks and bonds declined on Tuesday as a surge in oil prices driven by Middle East conflict unsettled investors.
Tuesday’s decline indicates “significant resistance from sellers on the upside,” Alex Kuptsikevich, chief market analyst at FxPro, said in a note. “The first cryptocurrency failed to break out of horizontal consolidation, which again forces us to consider a decline to $63,000 as a working scenario.”
Crypto markets across the board were in the red on Tuesday as investors fled riskier assets, with tokens like Ether and Solana declining. Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, dropped as much as 4%.
Investors continued to seek out haven assets after the US and Israel launched a bombing campaign against Iran over the weekend. Iran stepped up attacks on the US and its allies in the Middle East, threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, a critical trade waterway.
“Bitcoin is once again serving as a hair-trigger indicator for traditional financial markets,” said Petr Kozyakov, chief executive of crypto payments platform Mercuryo.
Pratik Kala, head of research at Apollo Crypto, described the moves as a normal cooling-off period. “Bitcoin is cooling off after a strong rally yesterday, which occurred on high volumes,” he said, noting that Bitcoin has been trading in a range of between $65,000 and $70,000 since early February, meaning any move above that band will invite profit-taking.
US-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded nearly $1.5 billion in net inflows during the past week, though they have experienced about $1 billion in net outflows so far this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Ether has seen about $200 million in inflows in its ETFs in the past week.
Shares of crypto-related companies continued to fluctuate with the prices of digital assets. Exchange company Coinbase fell around 2%, miner Core Scientific dropped almost 6% and Bitcoin accumulator Strategy slumped 6%.
After the close of trading yesterday, Core Scientific reported fourth-quarter results that were weaker than expected as it makes a push to into supplying data center infrastructure.
With assistance from Emily Nicolle and Melos Ambaye.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
