The price of Bitcoin fell below $63,000 on Friday, as a new wave of US airstrikes in Iran and a new political conflict between Washington and Beijing pushed investors out of the risky asset.
Bitcoin price traded near $62,800, an extension of Thursday’s slide of 1.4% from $65,000, according to Bitcoin Magazine Pro data. The token fell below its 50-day moving average, a gauge of near-term momentum watched by many traders.
The bitcoin price reversal followed a broader decline in global markets. Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 4% and entered a correction, down more than 10% since June 25, as memory-chip maker Kioxia lost 16.1%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng shed 2%, while the Shanghai Composite fell 3.1% to an 11-month low.
Nasdaq-linked futures were down 1.6%, echoing Thursday’s decline on Wall Street, where chip stocks from Nvidia, Micron, Broadcom and Qualcomm came under pressure on fears the AI rally has outpaced earnings.
Bitcoin price, Iran escalation, and uncertainty in Washington
Iran’s official Fars news agency, citing Hormozgan province, said US airstrikes hit five bridges in the southern province.
A separate missile strike destroyed a maritime control tower in Iran’s Chabahar port. WTI crude rose near $79 a barrel, up nearly 15% across five sessions, a move that renewed concerns about inflation and the path of interest rates.
A second front of uncertainty has opened in Washington. President Donald Trump has dismissed intelligence reports alleging Chinese meddling in the US election and said Beijing obtained 220 million voter records, a threat he described as a threat to democracy. The Chinese embassy denied the allegations.
The dispute itself has little market weight, although traders fear it could strain relations ahead of Trump’s September meeting with Xi Jinping. The Australian dollar, a proxy for China’s trade ties, has weakened against the greenback.
Bitcoin market dynamics
In contrast to the background, some analysts argue that the masks sold in the market whose main drivers have changed little. Nicolai Sondergaard, a research analyst at Nansen, said that the bitcoin tape shows more data than geopolitical fences.
“The inflation and liquidity channel is doing more work here than the historical geopolitical hedge,” Sondergaard said. He pointed to the June CPI report released on July 14, which showed that inflation was 3.5% compared to the forecast of 3.8% and a positive reading of 2.6% compared to 2.9%. The dollar index fell to 100.77, a multi-month low, and the 10-year Treasury yield fell to 4.57%.
Soft printing resets Fed expectations. The probability of a rate hike at the July 28-29 meeting has dropped from more than 40% to a small minority, according to CME FedWatch data.
“The FOMC meeting on July 28 to 29 is the real binary,” Sondergaard said. “If the CPI data holds and the Fed shows a credible pivot approach, the conditions for sustainable ETF entry are back in place.”
Onchain flow supports his learning. Spot bitcoin ETFs pulled in $510 million over three periods this month, the only outflow of $2.73 billion, with BlackRock’s IBIT leading the way. Nansen’s data shows major currencies held down during the strike.
“Total outflows hit -18.3 BTC per hour of the strike, then returned to the post-shock rate of +0.67 BTC per hour, meaning buyers returned during the same session,” Sondergaard said.
Sondergaard framed the position as constructive rather than fragile. Funding levels remain close to zero, which is a sign that longs are not crowded, and smart currency long/short ratios are up to 1.58 without rotation in stablecoins. Retailers hold a ratio of 1.79, which is a step ahead of the pros but in the same direction. The incoming seven days are focused on liquidity, DeFi lending and decentralized exchanges, the share at risk.
Sondergaard said their sequence has rhymes with past shocks. “Previous floods in the Middle East have produced the same pattern: short-term flush, accumulation continues,” he said.
“The MVRV sits at 1.205 with an affordable price of about $53,000 and a long-term owner base of about $49,900, which defines the building’s foundation,” Sondergaard said. “That’s not a market profile that works on geopolitical sentiment.”
At the time of writing, the value of bitcoin is $62,836.
