Bitcoin held near $73,800 as markets weighed a spike in oil driven by the Iran conflict—and candid comments from former President Donald Trump that the shock would be short‑lived.
Trump told PBS reporters, according to Jinshi Finance, that the US is “doing very well” on Iran and described the budget impact of the fighting as “negligible” because Tehran is “involved in terrorism.” He predicted oil would “drop like a rolling stone” once hostilities end, echoing earlier remarks that the current crude surge is a “small price to pay” to limit Iran’s capabilities. Trump also said he’s deliberately avoided hitting civilian energy infrastructure, claiming he “left a lot of infrastructure in Tehran” and could destroy the country’s power plants “in an hour,” while insisting the US has kept a “100 yards” buffer around oil facilities and specifically noting he spared Kharg Island’s pipelines because repairing them “would take years to connect.” He also warned the US could “strike again,” underlining that escalation risk remains.
Those remarks come as benchmark crude trades comfortably above $100 per barrel, a level that has forced insurers to reprice risk around the Strait of Hormuz and stoked worries about supply disruptions. Policymakers and market commentators have framed the situation as a trade‑off: a short‑term spike in fuel costs versus the strategic aim of blunting Iran’s threat to shipping and regional stability. That calculus may resonate politically in some circles, but it does not change the immediate pain for refiners, airlines and import‑dependent economies facing higher input costs and tighter margins.
Crypto markets, by contrast, have reacted with relative composure. Bitcoin is hovering near $73.8k, up roughly 5.8% over the past 24 hours, trading in a range of about $69,460 to $73,770 and seeing turnover above $55 billion. Ethereum is around $2,200, gaining roughly 6.8% on the day after swinging between roughly $2,042 and $2,200. The mix of elevated intra‑day volatility and net gains has reinforced a “digital macro hedge” narrative embraced by some funds and investors.
Skeptics caution, however, that BTC and ETH still behave like high‑beta risk assets—sensitive to shocks in energy, interest rates and geopolitical headlines—so their current resilience may not insulate portfolios if the conflict escalates further or market conditions change. For now, crypto traders appear to be treating the Iran‑related oil shock as another macro event to trade around rather than an immediate catalyst for a flight to safety.
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