Bitcoin holds $71,000 as Trump threatens Iran’s Kharg Island oil facility. All major cryptos post weekly gains despite war escalation. Fed meeting looms.
Two weeks into a Middle East war. Bitcoin is still higher than when it started.
The largest cryptocurrency traded at $71,000 Saturday morning, according to CoinDesk. That came after U.S. forces hit military targets on Kharg Island, Iran’s main crude export hub. The drop from Friday’s $73,838 peak was sharp. It stopped at 3.5% and held.
Bitcoin is up 4.2% on the week. That number keeps getting buried in war headlines. But it tells the real story.
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War Headlines No Longer Shake Crypto’s Core
Ether gained 5.5% to $2,090 on the week. Dogecoin added 5%. Solana rose 4.2% to $88. BNB climbed to $655. Every major token posted green weekly numbers despite the conflict getting worse, not winding down, per reporting by Shaurya Malwa at CoinDesk.
The market’s reaction pattern has shifted. Early in the war, each headline sent prices into a spiral. Traders had no framework for pricing the risk. Now they do. Strikes happen. Oil spikes. Bitcoin dips then recovers.
That cycle has repeated enough times that knee-jerk selling has faded. Still, the $73,000 to $74,000 resistance zone has rejected Bitcoin four times in two weeks.
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Trump’s Kharg Island Warning Opens a New Front
Trump added a new variable Friday. In a Truth Social post, he said he spared Iran’s oil infrastructure “for reasons of decency” but would “immediately reconsider” if Iran kept blocking the Strait of Hormuz. That conditional threat did not exist 48 hours ago.
Iran responded that any strike on energy infrastructure would trigger attacks on U.S.-linked facilities across the region. The IEA already called this the largest energy supply disruption in history. If oil infrastructure becomes a direct target, that disruption gets dramatically worse.
Oil above $100 is already in the market. But a confirmed Kharg Island strike changes the calculus entirely.
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Friday’s $371 million in liquidations showed both sides caught off guard. Short liquidations ran $207 million. Long liquidations hit $163 million. The surge to $73,800 squeezed bears first. Then the Kharg headlines squeezed the longs who just entered on that move.
The Fed Looms Larger Than the War Right Now
The March 17-18 Federal Reserve meeting now carries more weight than usual. CME FedWatch prices a 95%+ probability of a hold at 3.5% to 3.75%. The decision itself is not the story.
Powell’s press conference and the dot plot are. Any signal that rate hikes are back under consideration hits risk assets hard. Crypto included. The stagflation case, oil above $100, record energy disruption, and a war with no end in sight, has gotten harder to dismiss.
Bitcoin spent five months pricing in rate cuts that keep not arriving. That tension does not go away next week.
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The resistance band at $73,000 to $74,000 stays. Four rejections in two weeks. The war news is getting priced faster now, but the ceiling has not moved. That combination, stronger weekly floors, the same weekly ceiling, is where bitcoin sits heading into a week that carries both geopolitical and monetary risk at the same time.
