Bitcoin Price and Crypto Stocks Rise as Iran Ceases Fire, $100M Strategic Buyout Ahead of Fed Week
The price of Bitcoin rose to a two-week high on Monday as the US-Iran agreement to end the war removed one of the long-standing positions in the market, sending equities linked to the leading crypto to what traders are seeing as the real test of the week: the first FOMC meeting of Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh.
The price of Bitcoin traded near $ 67,000 and increased by 4% in 24 hours, after Iran confirmed a memorandum of understanding that reopens the Strait of Hormuz. The price broke the $64,000 resistance with little liquidity over the weekend before meeting the New York open on Monday.
But Nansen Research analyst Nicolai Sondergaard urges caution against reading too much into the headline.
“The news of the end of the war forced Bitcoin to $66,000 with little liquidity over the weekend, but traders who have been burned twice this year have not yet restarted,” he wrote. Bitcoin Magazine. “The April agreement collapsed, and the US strikes broke the second agreement on June 9, when Bitcoin reversed all the relief moves both times. The market takes June 19 in Switzerland as a real time stamp, not Sunday’s headlines.”
Strategy buys again
Strategy (MSTR) disclosed a new 8-K on Monday showing that it acquired 1,587 BTC for approximately $100 million between June 8 and June 14, funded by its stock market offering, bringing the total holdings to 846,842 BTC.
Shares gained more than 9% on the news, pushing the daily volume of 16.84 million shares.
Strive (ASST), the Bitcoin treasury company led by Vivek Ramaswamy, rose nearly 16% to $17.50 — continuing its recovery from its $9.00 three-month high in early April. Other stocks like Coinbase, Robinhood, and Circle all jumped more than 5%.
The cryptocurrency rally shows something that Austin Federa, founder of DoubleZero, saw on the ground.
“Institutions love crypto,” Federa said. “I’ve never seen such enthusiasm from bankers and suits. You wouldn’t know it was a bear market talking to them.”
Bitcoin price structure debate
Despite the green screens, Bitfinex analysts see a danger in mistaking the ease of demand. “What the tape shows is trader fatigue coming at the same time as a macro reprieve, which is a different situation than actual demand,” the company’s analyst team wrote. Bitcoin Magazine. “Each subsequent price action behaves very differently, leading us to believe that despite a temporary recovery, bulls face significant obstacles before an uptrend emerges.”
Bitfinex pointed to long-term bid conditions: “We believe we have a short-term low with multiple congruences such as linked assets rising to higher levels, large sell-offs triggering funding and resetting open interest and trader fatigue with a lot of ease at the moment. However, the two biggest buyer structures in ETFs and B-corporations need to convert BTC to Treasury/DAT to biTC.”
ETF data gives mixed signals. Bitcoin spot ETFs recorded five consecutive weeks of net outflows totaling nearly $1.8 billion before June 12 broke the streak with $85.85 million in net inflows, led by BlackRock’s IBIT at $57.69 million and Fidelity’s FBTC.
One good session does not guarantee a change in the price of bitcoin, but it is the first sign that institutional buyers may start to participate again.
The Fed is the next catalyst
The geopolitical relief trade is real, but Sondergaard and Bitfinex both point to the passage of the FOMC as a market mover this week. June 16–17 marks Kevin Warsh’s first meeting as Fed chairman. Inflation hit 3.8% in April, rate cuts are out of the question, and some officials have begun to float the prospect of a hike later.
The Fed is widely expected to hold at 3.50%-3.75%, but the revised dot plan and the first press conference of Warsh will show which direction the Committee is leaning, and therefore, the value of bitcoin.
Bitfinex constructs the Iran deal as a conduit, not an independent catalyst: “If the deal holds, oil retreats, the energy-led component of inflation fades, real yields and inflation, and the bid for a safe dollar eases. That chain is very clear for Bitcoin in the near-term.”
But the company marked the timing as an important variable: “The agreement comes a day before the FOMC meets, the first meeting chaired by Kevin Warsh. The reliable general supply gives the Committee cover to treat the increase in May as temporary and holding, rather than tightening the headline print above the target.”
For crypto bulls, the bull case calls for a bullish stop, Warsh delivering a neutral signal, and ETF entry to consolidate consecutive positive periods. None of those results are guaranteed.
This is precisely why the price of Bitcoin remains, as Bitfinex puts it, “stuck in the convergence zone between these two key levels, where it must establish a strong base of support or face a collapse that may be a deep lower leg.”
