Global markets remain in a late-stage deleveraging environment. Since last year’s peak, the crypto market has broadly corrected by nearly 50%, indicating that excessive risk premia have been systematically flushed out. Sensitivity to liquidity conditions and macro uncertainty remains elevated.
On the macro front, geopolitical risks are intensifying again. US–Iran nuclear talks have resumed in Oman under multilateral mediation, but strong warnings from President Trump and persistent disagreements over the negotiation framework suggest that tensions are unlikely to ease meaningfully in the near term. These developments continue to drive volatility in oil and safe-haven assets, while indirectly suppressing global risk appetite.
At the same time, a valuation-driven correction in technology stocks—triggered by the AI investment cycle—has spread across US equities and global markets. The combination of equity and bond weakness has reinforced defensive positioning, pushing capital further away from high-volatility assets.
In precious metals, Goldman Sachs has highlighted that gold’s upside is being driven primarily by Western capital flows and central bank reserve diversification, rather than short-term speculation. This underscores that, amid monetary-system uncertainty and geopolitical fragmentation, defensive allocation remains a dominant narrative.
Against this backdrop, Bitcoin is increasingly viewed as a barometer of whether markets are willing to re-engage with risk. As long as global capital remains defensive and structural deleveraging is incomplete, crypto assets are unlikely to decouple from macro risk pricing. Key forward-looking variables remain whether geopolitical tensions escalate into direct conflict, and whether tech-sector repricing triggers broader balance-sheet contraction effects.
