By Francisco Rodrigues(All times ET unless indicated otherwise)
Cryptocurrencies slid as Israeli airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear and missile sites roiled global sentiment and sent investors fleeing risk assets.
The CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20), a measure of the broad crypto market, lost 6.1% over 24 hours, and bitcoin (BTC), seen by some as a haven investment, dropped 2.9%. Gold futures, a more traditional refuge, rose 1.3% from their close.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the overnight attack, which also targeted Iran’s top military leaders, was aimed at rolling back Iran’s nuclear program and missile capabilities. Iran, which has repeatedly called for Israel’s destruction, responded by launching 100 suicide drones toward Israeli territory, though a more concerted reaction is anticipated.
The strike came less than 24 hours after the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran was not complying with uranium enrichment limits. The U.S. said it was not involved in the attack, which killed some of Iran’s military leaders.
The escalation saw risk assets across the board plunge. Japan’s Nikkei dropped around 0.9%, U.S. index futures fell 1.2% and the Euro Stoxx 50 lost 1.35%. U.S. crude oil futures, on the other hand, rose more than 6% to $73, with Brent crude spiking 14% at one point. Gold surged to $3,445 per ounce, approaching its all-time high.
Cryptocurrencies’ declines dashed gains eked out earlier in the week on the back of ETF approval speculation. Solana’s sol SOL, in particular, had rallied on reports the SEC asked ETF issuers to update their S-1 filings, potentially accelerating the launch timeline. SOL is down nearly 9.5% in the last 24 hours.
“Overnight, reports surfaced that the SEC has asked Solana ETF issuers to update S-1 filings, triggering a sharp rally in SOL,” Jake Ostrovskis, an OTC trader at Wintermute, told CoinDesk.
“Bloomberg ETF analysts Eric Balchunas and James Seyffart remain optimistic, assigning a 90% probability of approval by year-end, with potential approvals coming as soon as July or within three to five weeks of the updated filings,” Ostrovskis said.
As a result, he said, the market is “now relatively underexposed to SOL and related assets, which makes the current setup particularly interesting to watch.”
Despite the optimism and growing inflows into spot crypto ETFs, with BTC funds bringing in $939 million month-to-date and ETH seeing $811 million in net inflows, investors are now focused on the Middle East.
Polymarket traders are weighing a 91% chance that Iran will retaliate against Israel this month, while the perceived odds of U.S. military action against Iran jumped from a mere 4% to 28%. Stay alert!
What to Watch
- Crypto
- June 16: 21Shares executes a 3-for-1 share split for ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB); ticker and NAV remain unchanged.
- June 16: Brazil’s B3 exchange launches 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 15-17: G7 2025 Summit (Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada)
- June 17: The U.S. Senate will vote on the final passage of the bill Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (the GENIUS Act of 2025).
- Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
- June 23 (TBC): HIVE Digital Technologies (HIVE), post-market, $-0.12
Token Events
- Governance votes & calls
- Arbitrum DAO is voting on a proposal to launch DRIP, an $80M incentives program 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.
- Unlocks
- June 15: Starknet (STRK) to unlock 3.79% of its circulating supply worth $15.04 million.
- June 15: Sei (SEI) to unlock 1.04% of its circulating supply worth $9.70 million.
- June 16: Arbitrum (ARB) to unlock 1.91% of its circulating supply worth $31.28 million.
- June 17: ZKsync (ZK) to unlock 20.91% of its circulating supply worth $37.26 million.
- June 17: ApeCoin (APE) to unlock 1.95% of its circulating supply worth $10.43 million.
- Token Launches
- June 16: Advised deadline to unstake stMATIC as part of Lido on Polygon’s sunsetting process ends
- June 26: Coinbase to delist Helium Mobile (MOBILE), Render (RNDR), Ribbon Finance (RBN) and Synapse (SYN).
Conferences
- June 14: Incrypted Crypto Conference 2025 (Kyiv)
- June 18-19: Canadian Blockchain Consortium’s 2nd Annual Policy Summit (Ottawa)
- June 19-21: BTC Prague 2025
- June 25-26: Bitcoin Policy Institute’s Bitcoin Policy Summit 2025 (Washington)
- June 26: The Injective Summit (New York)
- June 26-27: Istanbul Blockchain Week
- June 30 to July 3: Ethereum Community Conference (Cannes, France)
Derivatives Positioning
- Open interest (OI) across top derivatives venues saw a sharp reset.
- After peaking above $55 billion on June 12, total OI dropped to a the month’s low of $49.31 billion, according to Velo data.
- Binance shed over $2.5 billion overnight, alongside broad risk reduction across OKX, Bybit, Deribit and Hyperliquid. The pullback unwinds much of the steady build seen earlier this month.
- Options positioning also turned more defensive, with Deribit data showing the BTC and ETH put/call ratios climbing to 1.28 and 1.25, respectively.
- While upside strikes like $140K (BTC) and $3,200 (ETH) still hold large call interest, the majority of June 27 exposure remains out-of-the-money. The shift suggests growing demand for downside protection alongside lingering upside optionality.
- Funding remains broadly negative, especially across altcoins. ETH sits at –7.99% on Deribit and BTC at –1.06%. Sharp discounts persist for DOT (–15.2%), LINK (–15.1%) and 1000SHIB (–44.5%).
- HYPE (+8.27% on Hyperliquid) and AAVE (+9.95% on Bybit) are among the few to show long bias.
- Despite Tuesday’s $1.16 billion in liquidations, leverage remains elevated. Coinglass data shows 90% of liquidations came from longs. As of June 13, bitcoin liquidation heatmaps highlight up to $84 million in long-side OI between $102K and $104K. These levels remain untriggered, but could amplify downside if breached.
Market Movements
- BTC is down 1.08% from 4 p.m. ET Thursday at $104,889.07 (24hrs: -2.42%)
- ETH is down 4.48% at $2,523.28 (24hrs: -8.81%)
- CoinDesk 20 is down 3.2% at 3,007.21 (24hrs: -6.04%)
- Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is unchanged at 3.11%
- BTC funding rate is at 0.0018% (1.9776% annualized) on Binance
- DXY is up 0.44% at 98.35
- Gold futures are up 1.25% at $3,445.00
- Silver futures are up 0.47% at $36.47
- Nikkei 225 closed down 0.89% at 37,834.25
- Hang Seng closed down 0.59% at 23,892.56
- FTSE is down 0.38% at 8,851.53
- Euro Stoxx 50 is down 1.37% at 5,287.21
- DJIA closed on TKTK up 0.24% at 42,967.62
- S&P 500 closed up 0.38% at 6,045.26
- Nasdaq Composite closed up 0.24% at 19,662.48
- S&P/TSX Composite closed up 0.35% at 26,615.75
- S&P 40 Latin America closed down 0.30% at 2,617.09
- U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is unchanged at 4.365%
- E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 1.16% at 5,979.50
- E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 1.42% at 21,621.50
- E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index are down 1.18% at 42,483.00
Bitcoin Stats
- BTC Dominance: 64.77 (0.70%)
- Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02412 (-3.52%)
- Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 928 EH/s
- Hashprice (spot): $52.43
- Total Fees: 4.86 BTC / $508,710.78
- CME Futures Open Interest: 150,705 BTC
- BTC priced in gold: 30.6 oz
- BTC vs gold market cap: 8.66%
Technical Analysis
- Ether continues to face resistance at the daily order block, with the price dropping below Monday’s high as tensions ramp up in the Middle East.
- Earlier today, it briefly traded below Monday’s low before reclaiming that level.
- A daily close above Monday’s low of $2480 — aligned with the 200-day exponential moving average, which has served as key support since May — would be an encouraging sign of strength.
Crypto Equities
- Strategy (MSTR): closed on Thursday at $379.76 (-1.9%), -2.63% at $369.78 in pre-market
- Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $241.05 (-3.84%), 2.1% at $236
- Circle (CRCL): closed at $106.54 (-9.1%), +1.32% at $108.1
- Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$26.44 (+0.08%)
- MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $15.82 (-3.24%), 3.41% at $15.28
- Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $10.21 (-3.22%), -3.33% at $9.87
- Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $12.14 (-0.9%), -2.55% at $11.83
- CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $9.71 (-2.61%), -2.99% at $9.42
- CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $19.61 (-1.95%)
- Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $30.74 (-3.09%), -2.41% at $30
- Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $31.62 (+1.74%)
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs
- Daily net flow: $86.3 million
- Cumulative net flows: $45.29 billion
- Total BTC holdings ~ 1.21 million
Spot ETH ETFs
- Daily net flow: $112.3 million
- Cumulative net flows: $3.87 billion
- Total ETH holdings ~ 3.92 million
Source: Farside Investors
Overnight Flows
Chart of the Day
- In the past 24 hours, 248,759 traders were liquidated , with total liquidations coming in at $1.16 billion according to CoinGlass data.
While You Were Sleeping
- Bitcoin Tumbles Below $104K as Israel Strikes Iran (CoinDesk): Israel said it launched a “precise, preemptive strike” to neutralize the country’s nuclear program.
- Judge Orders Trump to Return California National Guard to Newsom (The Wall Street Journal): A federal judge ruled Trump violated the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by unlawfully taking control of California’s National Guard. An appeals court has paused the order pending review.
- Bitcoin ‘Skew’ Slides as Oil Prices Surge 6% on Israel-Iran Tensions (CoinDesk): The seven-day skew fell to its lowest since April, indicating increased demand for put options over calls after Israel’s attack. Bitcoin’s price fell to its 50-day simple moving average (SMA) at $103,150.
- Oil Curve Shift Shows Fears of Protracted Mideast Conflict (Bloomberg): A commodities strategist warned that escalation could disrupt Strait of Hormuz shipping, threatening 14 million barrels a day and potentially driving oil prices as high as $120.
- Single Bitcoin Trader Loses $200M as Crypto Bulls See $1B Liquidations (CoinDesk): About 247,000 traders were liquidated in the past day as $1.15 billion in positions were wiped out following overly bullish sentiment fueled by Circle’s IPO and renewed U.S. enthusiasm for DeFi.
- Ripple, SEC File Joint Motion to Release $125M Held in Escrow (CoinDesk): The proposed resolution would return $75 million to Ripple and grant $50 million to the SEC, aiming to avoid further litigation and settle outstanding appeals.
In the Ether
