Oil Surges Above $100, Intensifying Inflation Concerns; Bitcoin Holds Firm Around $70K
Summary
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Macroeconomy: As tensions between the United States and Iran continue to escalate, crude oil prices have surged past $100, significantly intensifying concerns about a resurgence in inflation. Meanwhile, U.S. mortgage rates recorded their largest increase in nearly 11 months. Against this backdrop, traders are no longer fully pricing in Federal Reserve rate cuts for 2026, pushing short-term U.S. Treasury yields sharply higher. U.S. equities declined across the board, while the CBOE Volatility Index rose 12.63%, reflecting heightened market anxiety.
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Crypto Market: Despite pressure on global risk assets, Bitcoin has shown notable resilience, decoupling from the U.S. equity sell-off and consolidating around $70,000, marking its fourth consecutive day of gains. At the same time, BlackRock plans to launch a staked Ethereum ETF, pushing the ETH/BTC exchange rate back toward 0.03.
Project Developments
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Trending Tokens: RENDER, TAO, MAXXING
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ETH (+1%): A staked Ethereum ETF under BlackRock is set to begin trading on Nasdaq.
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AI Sector Rally: Broad gains across AI-related tokens, including LYN (+57%), UAI (+57%), TAO (+12%), NEAR (+9%), RENDER (+14%), VIRTUAL (+7%), and AKT (+10%).
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TRUMP (+3%): Donald Trump will host another Mar-a-Lago luncheon for holders of the TRUMP token.
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AVAX (+4%): Grayscale Investments launched an Avalanche staking ETF on Nasdaq.
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AVNT (+15%): Avantis introduced an AVNT token buyback-and-burn program, allocating 30% of daily trading revenue to repurchase and burn AVNT from the open market.
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CYS (+1%): Bithumb will list the CYS token in the KRW market.
Major Asset Changes
Crypto Fear & Greed Index: 15 (vs. 18, 24 hours ago) — Extreme Fear
Today’s Outlook
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U.S. January Core PCE data release
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U.S. Q4 GDP
Macroeconomy
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Iran’s new Supreme Leader stated that the Strait of Hormuz must remain closed.
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The Trump administration is considering suspending the Jones Act to help stabilize oil prices.
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The U.S. Treasury is reportedly providing temporary authorization allowing countries to purchase Russian oil currently stranded at sea.
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U.S. mortgage rates recorded their largest increase in 11 months, driven by inflation concerns linked to the Iran conflict.
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Markets are no longer fully pricing in Fed rate cuts for this year.
Crypto Policy
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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission chair stated that an innovation exemption for tokenized equity securities is expected to be introduced soon.
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The Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued its first regulatory guidance on prediction markets, requiring platforms with high manipulation risks to consult regulators before launching new markets.
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Georgia now allows companies to issue stablecoins backed by reserve assets.
Industry Highlights
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Pump.fun has registered subdomains for Base, BSC, Monad, and Ethereum, suggesting potential expansion to additional networks.
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Vitalik Buterin stated that Ethereum’s core value lies in being a globally shared “bulletin board,” with smart contracts and payments serving as additional functionalities.
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The Base x402 system has processed nearly 100 million real transactions.
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JPMorgan noted that capital flows into Bitcoin and gold ETFs have diverged following the Iran conflict.
Weekly Outlook
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March 13: U.S. January Core PCE and Q4 GDP data release.
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TBD: Continued monitoring of developments in the Middle East situation.