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Bitcoin Edges Lower on Iran Pressure With $62,000 at Risk

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Bitcoin Edges Lower on Iran Pressure With $62,000 at Risk

Bitcoin (BTC) fell further into Monday’s Wall Street open as markets reacted to the US-Iran escalation.

Key points:

  • Bitcoin falls toward $62,000 as losses intensify on nerves over the US-Iran war.
  • Donald Trump says that the US should “run” the Strait of Hormuz as a tug-of-war with Iran continues.
  • BTC price action is described as “very weak”, but a $70,000 rebound prediction remains in place.

Oil rises amid “aggressive” BTC shorting

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD edging closer to $62,000 amid what a trader described as “massive” short trading.

BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

US stocks were broadly in the red at the open, with the Nasdaq Composite Index down 1% at the time of writing.

Speaking to Fox on the day, US President Donald Trump said that the US would be taking over the Strait of Hormuz, a key international oil route, which Iran closed at the weekend.

“We’re going to keep the strait, and we’ll probably run it. ‌We’ll become the guardian of the strait. Maybe we’ll call it the ‘guardian angel’ of the strait. And we should be reimbursed for that,” he said.

Oil prices stayed higher, with WTI crude circling $75 per barrel.

CFDs on US WTI crude oil one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Bitcoin saw pressure, with sellers firmly in control after an initial drop following the weekly close.

“Massive shorting into this pre NY-open drop. Price is now sitting directly at mVWAP, a key level bulls need to defend!” analytics account JDK Analysis wrote in a post on X.

The post referred to the volume-weighted average price across exchanges, warning that $60,000 could reappear.

“With spot also selling, this still looks very weak. But if New York brings real spot demand and mVWAP holds, a bounce could trap a large number of sellers,” JDK added.

BTC/USD chart with order-book data. Source: JDK Analysis/X

Others also noticed the downward trend, with commentator Exitpump earlier reporting a “crazy amount of aggressive shorting” while open interest continued to rise.

Bitcoin upside targets still see $70,000 returning

Those making the case for a rebound on the day included trader Roman, who retained his new bullish bias.

Related: BTC price bull market to begin in September? Five things to know in Bitcoin this week

In an X post, Roman highlighted several price metrics, including the relative strength index (RSI) and volume, showing downside exhaustion.

“I believe a move higher is coming it all just comes down to formation and how we get there,” he wrote. 

“Lots of HTF & LTF indications for 70-75k area + exchange data is showing that more spot is being bought than sold. It’s a matter of when not if.”

BTC/USD one-day chart. Source: Roman/X

Earlier, Cointelegraph reported on various expectations of continued BTC price upside this month before bearish continuation, ultimately ending in a Q3 macro bottom.

Bolivia weighs adding Tether’s USDT to its national payments system

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Bolivia weighs adding Tether’s USDT to its national payments system

Bolivia is considering adding Tether’s USDT stablecoin to its national payments system, marking another step in the country’s shift from banning crypto transactions to allowing regulated digital asset use.

Economy Minister José Gabriel Espinoza said at a press conference on Monday that the government is evaluating whether USDT could circulate alongside the boliviano, the country’s fiat currency, and the U.S. dollar.

The proposal remains under technical review and the government has not published implementation rules or granted the stablecoin legal-tender status, local news outlet La Razón reported.

Officials are developing a framework for banks, digital wallets and payment providers, according to Espinoza. Any rollout would require stronger anti-money laundering controls as Bolivia remains on the Financial Action Task Force’s grey list, which subjects the country to increased monitoring over shortcomings in its financial crime regime.

The proposal comes amid a sharp rise in crypto adoption after Bolivia’s central bank lifted restrictions on transactions in June 2024. Central bank data shows that crypto transaction volume climbed from $46.5 million in the first half of 2024 to $294 million during the same period last year. Total transaction volume rose 630% after restrictions were removed, the central bank has said.

Robinhood Chain scores strong debut, Bernstein says

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Robinhood Chain scores strong debut, Bernstein says

Robinhood’s (HOOD) new blockchain has posted a strong debut, quickly emerging as one of the busiest networks for decentralized trading and reinforcing the broker’s strategy to expand tokenized financial products, Wall Street broker Bernstein said in a Monday research report.

Since launching its mainnet on July 1, Robinhood Chain has generated $3.1 billion in decentralized exchange trading volume over the past week, making it a top-five chain by DEX activity, the broker said. More than 65,000 users now hold around $13 million in tokenized stocks and $300 million in stablecoins on the network.

“Strong early adoption highlights the growing convergence of tokenized real world assets with the broader DeFi ecosystem, as industry participants continue to innovate across multiple business models for regulated asset tokenization,” wrote analysts led by Gautam Chhugani.

Robinhood launched the public mainnet of Robinhood Chain on July 1, an Ethereum layer-2 blockchain built on Arbitrum that’s designed for tokenized real-world assets and decentralized finance.

The network underpins the firm’s tokenized stock offering, enabling 24/7 trading, self-custody and onchain use cases such as lending and collateral, while supporting integrations with decentralized applications and liquidity providers.

MSTR made no changes to BTC holdings last week as it raised cash

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MSTR made no changes to BTC holdings last week as it raised cash

Strategy (MSTR) increased its U.S. dollar reserve by $466.7 million to $3 billion last week through its at-the-market equity program, according to a Monday regulatory filing.

The company maintains the reserve to support dividend payments on its preferred stock and interest payments on its outstanding debt.

Strategy made no bitcoin purchases (or sales), leaving its holdings unchanged at 843,775 BTC.

The company acquired its bitcoin for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $63.69 billion, including fees and expenses, at an average price of $75,476 per bitcoin.

MSTR shares are 3% down pre-market as bitcoin fell through the weekend to its current price of $62,800.

U.S.-Iran hostilities send BTC price lower even as ETF flows show demand: Crypto Daily

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U.S.-Iran hostilities send BTC price lower even as ETF flows show demand: Crypto Daily

Bitcoin is hovering near $63,000 after falling more than 1% since midnight UTC amid a wider wave of risk-off sentiment following the U.S. and Iran mutual airstrikes over the weekend.

Brent crude futures rose more than 3% to approach $79 a barrel as the renewed fighting raised concerns over shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil passageway. Higher energy prices add inflationary pressure and reduce the scope for easier monetary policy, a link that weighed on bitcoin during earlier oil shocks.

“This week, crypto markets will experience a ‘tug-of-war’ between macro and geopolitics,” Taran Dhillon, head of digital assets at Kula, told CoinDesk.

U.S. inflation data coming this week will shape interest-rate expectations, Dhillon said.

Still, spot bitcoin and ether ETFs just broke eight-week streaks of outflows, a sign of growing demand for the two largest cryptocurrencies.

Regulatory clarity may add further tailwinds, Dhillon noted, as the Clarity Act advances. While ethics provisions are still being discussed, “even incremental progress matters,” he said.

Bitcoin slips below $63,000 in an Asian-session leverage flush

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Bitcoin slips below $63,000 in an Asian-session leverage flush

Digital assets posted a third consecutive quarter of losses in Q2 2026, the longest losing streak since the 2022 bear market, as institutional capital rotated into AI equities and Bitcoin ETFs recorded their largest quarterly outflow since launch. Our report examines what drove the divergence, where structural adoption continued regardless, and what Q3 signals to watch.

Thailand Central Bank Audits USDT Amid Gray Money Crackdown

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Thailand Central Bank Audits USDT Amid Gray Money Crackdown

Thailand’s central bank is stepping up stablecoin surveillance as part of a wider effort to crack down on money laundering, illicit finance and “gray money” in the country.

The Bank of Thailand is working with the Kingdom’s Securities and Exchange Commission to audit high-volume stablecoin transactions, with a focus on USDt (USDT), cash transactions and currency exchanges, to identify and stop illicit financial flows.

“The measures we are implementing are not short-term fixes; they require the continuous deployment of multiple parallel strategies,” Bank of Thailand Governor Vitai Ratanakorn said, according to local media outlet The Nation on Saturday.

Thailand is targeting the “gray economy,” which largely consists of cash that may have come from suspicious origins, such as scam call centers that have proliferated in the region. While there are no reliable figures for the gray economy, scam losses were 115 billion THB ($3.4 billion) in 2025, with around 173 million scam calls and texts recorded. 

Stablecoins have become a popular method of transferring large amounts due to near-instant cross-border settlement. 

Cash, forex and gold trading targeted

The move will expand commercial bank compliance duties across cash networks, currency exchanges, gold bullion trading and “suspicious stablecoin transactions” in an effort to prevent regulated entities from facilitating corruption or shadow economies, it reported.

High-value cash transactions will also require a source-of-funds declaration, and exchanges of large volumes of big banknotes for smaller denominations without a clear business reason will also be monitored. Cash deposits of more than 5 million baht ($150,000) also require full disclosure. 

Related: Thailand crypto platforms freeze 10K accounts in AML crackdown: Report

Thailand has often been touted as a crypto haven, but digital asset and stablecoin payments are still outlawed by the central bank and there has been regular rule tightening on crypto businesses. 

Crypto trading remains legal, with the country’s largest exchange, Bitkub, seeing about $26 million in daily volume. However, almost 40% of that is forex, with the USDT/THB pair being the most popular, according to CoinGecko. 

Scammer crackdown gone wrong

Thailand’s banks imposed sweeping account restrictions and froze three million bank accounts in 2025 as part of its crackdown on mule accounts, gray capital and suspicious activity.

However, thousands of individuals and legitimate businesses were caught in the dragnet in what media reports described at the time as a “scammer crackdown gone wrong.” 

Features: Robinhood L2 sparks ETH optimism, Saylor ‘muddies waters.’ Hodler’s Digest

What recent U.S.-Iran strikes mean for bitcoin, ether, solana

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What recent U.S.-Iran strikes mean for bitcoin, ether, solana

The moves priced a single fear, that a wider war keeps oil elevated and forces the Federal Reserve to hold rates higher for longer. Minutes of the Fed’s June meeting show a few policymakers saw a case for raising rates before backing a hold. Gold fell because a higher-for-longer path lifts real yields and dulls the appeal of metal that pays nothing, and bonds fell for the same reason.

But bitcoin sat all of it out. Ether was little changed at about $1,800, up 2% on the week, and the rest of the majors barely moved on the day, with Solana the weakest at $76, down 5% over seven days. XRP held $1.09 and dogecoin sat near $0.07.

The one crypto-relevant thread runs through Korean stocks. SK Hynix shares plunged 12% in Seoul after the chipmaker’s U.S.-listed shares surged 13% on their Friday debut, a reversal that helped drag the Kospi down 7%. That chip trade drove the rally that lifted bitcoin on Friday, and its sharp reversal on Monday still left crypto flat, in either direction.

Bitcoin has now held a tight range through a weekend of strikes, a Monday selloff in every asset that usually reacts to war, and a hawkish repricing of the Fed. That is a marked change for a market that once sold off fast on a single Hormuz headline. It is no longer trading the war at all, taking its direction from dollar liquidity and the chip cycle while oil, gold and rates do the reacting.

Signs of life?: State of Crypto

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Signs of life?: State of Crypto

But the 2026 midterm election is coming up quite soon — Nov. 3, so less than four months from now — and lawmakers will have to face their own base and flanks after they break for the summer recess and go into the final campaign swing.

That means that U.S. President Donald Trump and the $1.4 billion he made off crypto will be a key factor in the floor vote. More specifically, if there isn’t an ethics provision, it’s unlikely that sufficient Democrats will vote for the bill in the Senate. If the text that drops next week doesn’t even include a placeholder to address the ethics portion, that may even be counterproductive to getting full bipartisan support for the bill, an individual said.

That means that Trump will still need to sign off on an ethics agreement. Several of the sources CoinDesk spoke to last week said the White House had not been as engaged recently as it had earlier in the summer, but another individual told CoinDesk in early July that it may just be a matter of waiting to see whether all the other outstanding issues are resolved first.

One bright side for the bill’s proponents: Assuming the President did not veto the housing bill sitting on his desk sometime between this newsletter’s filing and 12:00 a.m. on Saturday, a provision banning the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency for at least four years will have taken effect. There was concern from industry players that House lawmakers might push to include a CBDC ban in Clarity if the Senate advanced the bill, which would further strain the negotiation process and timeline. But that issue should be resolved for now through at least until 2030, with the inclusion in the housing bill.

Bitcoin nears the $58,000 floor that has marked every cycle bottom since 2015

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Bitcoin nears the $58,000 floor that has marked every cycle bottom since 2015

Jurrien Timmer, Fidelity’s director of global macro, says bitcoin is drifting toward the bottom edge of the model he has used to track it for years.

That model is the power law, which plots bitcoin’s entire price history on a logarithmic chart bounded by three curves — an upper resistance line, a middle trendline, and a lower support line that has caught every major bottom since 2015.

On Timmer’s latest chart the support line sits near $58,000, and bitcoin at about $62,700 is closing in on it.

The lower panel is where he expects accumulation. It tracks how far bitcoin trades above or below the power law trendline, and that gap has swung to negative 56%, a depth the chart labels the accumulation zone and one that lined up with the 2018 and 2022 lows. The 52-week reading on the bitcoin-to-gold ratio has fallen just as far, to around negative 100%.

Timmer is not calling a bottom just yet. He has said the speculative premium that pushed bitcoin past $120,000 last year is largely gone, that global money supply growth is slowing, and that he sees no catalyst for a reversal until liquidity returns.

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