Crypto Daybook Americas: Bitcoin Drops as Mideast Tensions Rise, but $200K Still In Play
By Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)
A weaker dollar, subdued inflation and heightened tensions in the Middle East are reshaping the crypto market's trajectory, giving bitcoin (BTC) in the future, while pushing it down in the near term. While the largest cryptocurrency is lower today, analysts say a price of $200,000 is in play by year-end.
One influence is the U.S. interest rate. Consumer prices rose less than forecast last month, increasing the chance of a Federal Reserve rate cut, which would bolster risk assets including cryptocurrencies. With core inflation stable at 2.8%, traders now largely expect two cuts this year beginning in September, according to the CME’s tool.
Then there's the Middle East. The U.S. said yesterday it was over heightened security risk and amid reports Israel is considering Earlier today, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nation's nuclear watchdog, ruled that Iran was in for the first time in 20 years.
With tensions rising, investors are ditching the dollar in favor of safe havens including gold and the Swiss franc as they position for a potential conflict. That has also pushed down cryptocurrency prices, with BTC losing 1.7% of its value in the last 24 hours and the broader CoinDesk 20 () Index retreating 2.25%.
“Bitcoin continues to trade like a classic risk-on asset, responding sharply to macro tailwinds,” Boris Alergant, head of institutional partnerships at Babylon and a former Ripple and JPMorgan executive, told CoinDesk.
“That said, the broader picture for BTC remains optimistic,” Alergant said. “More institutions are emulating MicroStrategy’s BTC treasury strategy, creating a steady base of structural demand.”
Still, the SEC’s recent willingness to greenlight ETF applications tied to altcoins such as solana, led to predictions of an “” while signals of regulatory f and protocol-based yield helped lift DeFi tokens.
“This marks the first time the SEC has shown coordinated openness to both layer-1 assets and the DeFi ecosystem,” Youwei Yang, chief economist at BIT Mining, told CoinDesk in an emailed statement.
James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, pointed to $900 million in new digital asset fund inflows this week, suggesting that investor confidence is rebounding.
“This resurgence comes as bitcoin trades near all-time highs and global money supply conditions loosen, suggesting there could be further upside potential for digital asset prices more broadly,” he said.
Keep in mind, though, the balance of global events. Tame inflation could help boost risk assets, yet unexpected escalation in the Middle East could reverse those gains. Stay alert!
What to Watch
Crypto
June 12, 10 a.m.: Coinbase's (New York). .
June 16: 21Shares executes a for ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB); ticker and NAV remain unchanged.
June 16: Brazil’s B3 exchange USD-settled ether (0.25 ETH) and solana (5 SOL) futures contracts, approved by Brazil’s securities regulator, the Comissão de Valores Mobiliários (CVM) and benchmarked to Nasdaq indices.
Macro
June 12, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics releases May producer price inflation data.
Core PPI MoM Est. 0.3% vs. Prev. -0.4%
Core PPI YoY Est. 3.1% vs. Prev. 3.1%
PPI MoM Est. 0.2% vs. Prev. -0.5%
PPI YoY Est. 2.6% vs. Prev. 2.4%
June 12, 3 p.m.: Argentina’s National Institute of Statistics and Census releases May inflation data.
Inflation Rate MoM Prev. 2.8%
Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 47.3%
June 15-17: (Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada)
Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
June 23 (TBC): HIVE Digital Technologies (), post-market
Token Events
Governance votes & calls
ApeCoin DAO is weighing and launching ApeCo to “” The discussion is scheduled to end later today.
Arbitrum DAO is voting on a proposal to launch DRIP, targeting specific DeFi activity. Managed by a foundation-led committee, DRIP would reward users directly and allow the DAO to shut it down via vote. Voting ends June 20.
June 12, 11:30 a.m.: Jupiter to host its with a “special guest.”
Unlocks
June 13: Immutable (IMX) to unlock 1.33% of its circulating supply worth $12.44 million.
June 15: Starknet (STRK) to unlock 3.79% of its circulating supply worth $17.06 million.
June 15: Sei (SEI) to unlock 1.04% of its circulating supply worth $10.65 million.
June 16: Arbitrum (ARB) to unlock 1.91% of its circulating supply worth $35.74 million.
June 17: ZKsync (ZK) to unlock 20.91% of its circulating supply worth $41.78 million.
June 17: ApeCoin (APE) to unlock 1.95% of its circulating supply worth $11.10 million.
Token Launches
June 12: Coinbase to list Fartcoin (FARTCOIN), Subsquid (SQD) and PancakeSwap (CAKE).
June 12: Ethena (ENA) and Solayer (LAYER) to be listed on Binance.US
June 16: to unstake stMATIC as part of Lido on Polygon’s sunsetting process ends
June 26: Coinbase to Helium Mobile (MOBILE), Render (RNDR), Ribbon Finance (RBN) and Synapse (SYN).
Conferences
Day 3 of 3: Ripple's (Singapore)
June 14: (Kyiv)
June 18-19: Canadian Blockchain Consortium’s (Ottawa)
June 19-21:
June 25-26: Bitcoin Policy Institute’s (Washington)
June 26: (New York)
June 26-27:
June 30 to July 3: (Cannes, France)
Token Talk
By Oliver Knight
SPX6900 (SPX), one of that spawned in the latter half of 2024, rocketed to a record high of $1.71 on Wednesday, defying a wider market sell-off prompted by political tensions involving Iran.
The project's goal is to flip the entire U.S. stock market in terms of capitalization and while it's a few trillion dollars away, it has amassed a $1.7 billion market cap.
Crypto analyst and social media personality Murad famously racked up a earlier this year. That loss has become a $55 million gain due to the token's ascent.
SPX remains one of just a handful of altcoins that are positive over the past 24 hours as much of the market continues to reel over fears that a fighting could escalate in the Middle East. Gold and oil prices rose significantly overnight, which is historically a sign of impending conflict.
CoinMarketCap's AI agent memecoin sector is down by 3.5%.
Derivatives Positioning
Bitcoin options open interest on Deribit has reached $36.7 billion, the highest level seen this month.
The dominant expiry remains June 27 with over $13.8 billion in notional open interest, and bullish call positioning continuing to cluster at the $140,000 strike.
The put/call ratio stands at 0.60, reflecting a moderate bias toward calls, though less so than in recent sessions.
Ether options open interest has climbed to a yearly high of $6.87 billion on Deribit. More than $2.38 billion in notional value is tied to the June 27 expiry, with calls heavily concentrated at the $3,000 strike where $614 million is positioned.
The put/call ratio sits at 0.45, indicating a strong preference for upside exposure into the quarter-end.
BTC funding rates have stabilized across major venues, with Deribit at 12.84% APR, Bybit at 10.75%, and Binance at 8.12%, according to data from Velo. This supports the view that long positioning remains elevated, but not at extremes.
Aggregate futures open interest stands at $55.4 billion across Binance, Bybit, OKX, Deribit and Hyperliquid with Binance accounting for $23.3 billion of that total, based on Velo data.
Market Movements
BTC is down 1.26% from 4 p.m. ET Wednesday at $107,534.98 (24hrs: -1.77%)
ETH is down 2.21% at $2,753.40 (24hrs: -0.8%)
CoinDesk 20 is down 2.05% at 3,198.06 (24hrs: -2.52%)
Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 2 bps at 3.05%
BTC funding rate is at 0.0075% (8.1731% annualized) on Binance
DXY is down 0.57% at 98.07
Gold futures are up 1.26% at $3,385.80
Silver futures are down 0.54% at $36.06
Nikkei 225 closed down 0.65% at 38,173.09
Hang Seng closed down 1.36% at 24,035.38
FTSE is down 0.15% at 8,851.13
Euro Stoxx 50 is down 0.87% at 5,346.38
DJIA closed on Wednesday unchanged at 42,865.77
S&P 500 closed down 0.27% at 6,022.24
Nasdaq Composite closed down 0.50% at 19,615.88
S&P/TSX Composite closed up 0.37% at 26,524.16
S&P 40 Latin America closed up +1.42% at 2,625.01
U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is down 4 bps at 4.39%
E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.41% at 6,004.25
E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 0.33% at 21,815.50
E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index are down 0.60% at 42,649.00
Bitcoin Stats
BTC Dominance: 64.07 (-0.08%)
Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02562 (0.43%)
Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 913 EH/s
Hashprice (spot): $54.7
Total Fees: 4.76 BTC / $521,445
CME Futures Open Interest: 150,075 BTC
BTC priced in gold: 31.9 oz
BTC vs gold market cap: 9.04%
Technical Analysis
Solana's sol (SOL) failed to find acceptance above the 200-day exponential moving average on the daily timeframe, leading to a deviation back below key moving averages. The 100-day EMA is currently providing support.
Notably, SOL closed below Monday’s high in the previous session, presenting a clean setup for a Monday Range strategy. If the pullback continues, Monday’s low at $149.68 serves as a key downside target.
This level also aligns with a weekly demand zone (order block), potentially acting as a strong support area.
Crypto Equities
Strategy (MSTR): closed on Wednesday at $387.11 (-1.04%), -1.47% at $381.43 in pre-market
Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $250.68 (-1.67%), -1.11% at $247.90
Circle (CRCL): closed at $117.2 (+10.66%), unchanged in pre-market
Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$26.42 (-3.4%)
MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $16.35 (-0.85%), -2.08% at $16.01
Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $10.55 (+0.96%), -1.42% at $10.40
Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $12.25 (-4.07%), -1.22% at $12.10
CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $9.97 (-1.58%), -1.6% at $9.81
CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $20 (-1.38%)
Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $31.72 (+0.7%), -0.69% at $31.50
Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $31.08 (-7.91%), +1.38% at $31.51
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs
Daily net flow: $164.6 million
Cumulative net flows: $45.20 billion
Total BTC holdings ~ 1.21 million
Spot ETH ETFs
Daily net flow: $240.3 million
Cumulative net flows: $3.76 billion
Total ETH holdings ~ 3.84 million
Source:
Overnight Flows
Chart of the Day
The chart from TheTie shows bitcoin generally moved in the same direction as the U.S. equity market as measured by the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust.
The cryptocurrency is nevertheless more volatile than the equity benchmark.
Bitcoin briefly decoupled around April as it sold off while equities were relatively steady.
While You Were Sleeping
(CoinDesk): Matt Mena says bitcoin could benefit from improving macro clarity, institutional adoption, treasury demand and state-level reserve programs that may boost ETF inflows and strengthen its role in global portfolios.
(CoinDesk): Strong demand for 10-year Treasuries countered concerns over waning appetite for U.S. debt, now above $36 trillion, while some analysts cited bitcoin and gold as hedges against mounting fiscal risks.
(Reuters): The 700 Marines have completed training in deescalation and crowd control and will join National Guard forces to help protect federal personnel and property under Title 10 of U.S. Code.
(The New York Times): The U.K., France, Canada and other mid-sized allies are deepening cooperation as Trump's unilateralism and tariff policy strain their longstanding ties with the U.S.
(The Wall Street Journal): Russia made its largest monthly gains since late 2022 in May, aiming to convince Ukraine’s allies that continued military and financial aid is pointless because Russia's victory is inevitable.
(CoinDesk): The company said it will use the funds to acquire bitcoin, secure it with blockchain-native custody, and integrate it into a platform combining tokenized treasuries and staking services.
