Bitcoin fell to $68,507 on Friday morning, down 3.2% over the past 24 hours and 2.7% on the week, after a familiar pattern played out for the fifth consecutive week: a de-escalation headline followed immediately by an escalation headline.
U.S. president Donald Trump extended his deadline for Iran to reach a ceasefire deal by 10 days and said talks were going "very well." Brent crude dipped 1.3% to $106. Then the Wall Street Journal reported the Pentagon is looking at sending up to 10,000 additional ground troops to the Middle East, and whatever relief had built evaporated.
The broader crypto market shed nearly 1% to a total cap of $2.4 trillion. Ether dropped 4.6% to $2,050, back below the level it's been fighting to hold all month. Solana fell 5.3% to $85.93. XRP lost 2.8% to $1.36, now down 6.5% on the week. BNB slid 2.3% to $626. Dogecoin dropped 2.8% to $0.091. Tron was the only major in the green at 1.2% daily and 2.4% weekly.
Asian equities fell 0.6% on Friday after Wall Street hit its lowest level since September on Thursday. South Korean tech stocks led losses, with Samsung and SK Hynix dragging the KOSPI down 2.3%. Taiwan dropped 1.2%. The war's fifth week is producing the same pattern as the first four, where headline-driven whipsaws that leave everyone stopped out and the underlying trend unresolved.
FxPro chief market analyst Alex Kuptsikevich noted that the crypto market cap is approaching its 50-day moving average but still holding above it, which he called "a bullish sign."
The institutional data beneath the price action tells a different story from the daily selloff.
Bitcoin ETFs have attracted $2.5 billion over the past month, according to Bloomberg, offsetting nearly all the outflows that had been ongoing since January. BlackRock's bitcoin ETF has ranked among the top 2% of all ETFs by inflows year-to-date. Net bitcoin outflows from exchanges last month signaled a shift toward accumulation, with investors buying coins and withdrawing them to self-custody.
BlackRock itself offered a notable framing this week, saying that large investors are concentrating in bitcoin and ether while shunning the broader altcoin market.
The 10-day extension on the Iran deadline pushes the next binary event to early April.
