Bitcoin has seen a modest gain since the start of the Iran conflict, even as bonds and stocks have struggled—and a new note from digital asset manager CoinShares suggests that divergence is meaningful.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading for $70,323 after having fallen 0.8% in the past day, according to crypto price aggregator CoinGecko. Even with the daily dip, it's up since the U.S. and Israel first began bombing Iran at the tail end of February.
"Since the onset of the crisis, Bitcoin has risen approximately 6 to 6.5%, while gold is up around 1 to 1.5% and equities have declined," wrote CoinShares Head of Research James Butterfill in a note shared with Decrypt. "This divergence is, in our view, analytically significant."
It helps that several key factors lined up at just the right moment, he added. Technical indicators had already been signaling that Bitcoin was near its bottom, or lowest price, for this cycle.
"Bitcoin tends to perform well during geopolitical dislocations, not despite its volatility, but in part because of its properties as a non-sovereign, censorship-resistant asset," Butterfill wrote. He added that investors pulling funds out of U.S. Treasuries is evidence that traditional safe haven assets have lost some of their appeal.
Treasury yields tend to seesaw with prices. When demand for Treasuries rises, prices go up and yields fall. Right now, that seesaw is moving in the other direction. Yields are rising, signaling that investors are pulling back from an asset that has historically been the first port of call in a crisis.
Make no mistake: The outflows from digital asset funds have been consistent. But so have inflows, Butterfill wrote.
"This is now our third consecutive week of net inflows into digital asset investment products," he said, noting in an email to Decrypt that investors have deposited $500 million already so far this week. "We read this as a meaningful signal: institutional investors are treating Bitcoin as an asset worth holding through geopolitical turbulence, not one to be exited."
That doesn't mean all digital assets will be supported the same as Bitcoin, though.
CoinShares noted that categories tied to disposable income, like speculative trading and meme coins, will face serious headwinds if household budgets remain under pressure.
"But the political and regulatory momentum behind stablecoin adoption, particularly in the United States, remains firmly in place and is largely insulated from the oil shock dynamic," Butterfill added.
