Bitcoin passes $70,000 on Trump war news but falls back

Bitcoin rose above $70,000 on Tuesday morning after US president Donald Trump said the conflict with Iran would be “over soon”.

The token gained 2.3 percent to reach $70,581 after Trump’s statement, according to data from Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange. However, prices slipped to $69,724 at 04:00 GMT.

Bitcoin dropped to $63,255 on February 28 following the US-Israel strikes on Iran, which killed supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

The cryptocurrency’s biggest historical price drop was about as severe as the tech crash in the early 2000s, but it bounced back in little more than two years. By comparison, it took US tech stocks 15 years to fully recover from the dotcom bubble.

Escalating tensions in the Middle East are raising concerns about rising oil prices and their potential impact on global inflation, which could also spill over into crypto markets, Simon Peters, a UK-based crypto analyst at eToro, said in a statement this week.

AGBI reported last month that Gulf sovereign wealth funds and financial institutions were pressing ahead with selective bets on bitcoin, signalling sustained conviction in digital assets despite a slump in crypto markets. 

More news on the Iran conflict

• Gulf systems targeted by wave of war-linked cyberattacks
• Crude falls and stocks gain as Trump says war is nearing end
• Iran war panic buying pushes oil prices to four‑year peak