Bitcoin Holds Its Range as Oil Nears $100: Deleveraging and ETF Demand Temper the Drawdown

Oil’s march back toward $100 is rattling risk assets, yet Bitcoin is bending, not breaking. As tensions around the Strait of Hormuz intensify, equities are showing stress while BTC remains boxed in its range—an outcome that traces back to how crypto cleaned up its leverage and how institutions are quietly buying dips through spot ETFs.

Price action first. Bitcoin traded near $68,000 on Sunday, down roughly 2% in 24 hours and about 6% over seven days, per CoinGecko. On a month-to-date basis, that softness is surprisingly muted at a 0.2% loss. U.S. stocks, by contrast, have fallen four straight weeks; the S&P 500 slipped below its 200-day moving average for the first time since last March, with both the S&P and Nasdaq down about 4%–5% this month. Energy is the lone gainer as crude grinds higher.

Geopolitics is dictating the tape. Since the Iran conflict ignited on February 28, oil has become the market’s pressure point. Over the weekend, U.S. President Donald Trump issued Tehran a 48-hour deadline to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face strikes on power plants. Iran threatened a complete closure of the route and warned of targeting U.S.-linked energy infrastructure, escalating an already fraught backdrop.

The more interesting story is why BTC is comparatively composed. Crypto spent months flushing leverage; funding normalized, basis compressed, and weak hands stepped aside. That reset matters when volatility returns. As Coinbase APAC MD John O’Loghlen observed, after several rounds of deleveraging, Bitcoin has outpaced traditional assets on a risk-adjusted basis since hostilities began. He also noted that oil now appears to be feeding inflation expectations directly, and his team is seeing rising institutional allocations into crypto and U.S. Bitcoin ETFs. There are hints we may be past peak pessimism, though he cautioned that a sturdier rally likely needs broader participation.

On-chain and flow dynamics support that view. WazirX founder Nischal Shetty characterized the market as steady consolidation: BTC is finding support toward the lower end of its recent band and meeting resistance near the highs, a tell that buyers remain engaged despite macro noise. VanEck’s mid-March ChainCheck flagged a slowdown in long-term holder distribution, with transfer volumes in older coins declining—reducing the free float that typically pressures price during drawdowns.

This gap between Bitcoin and equities is less about a “safe-haven” label and more about microstructure. Stocks are wrestling with dual shocks—re-pricing margins as oil rises and duration sensitivity as inflation risk lingers. Bitcoin, post-deleverage, is being driven by idiosyncratic demand from ETFs and balance-sheet rebalancing by institutions that increasingly treat BTC as a liquid macro asset. That bid doesn’t eliminate downside; it does thicken the order book at key levels and short-circuit the kind of forced selling that often plagues over-levered crypto markets.

What to watch next is straightforward. Flash PMI prints this week will steer growth and inflation expectations, while crude’s path out of the Strait of Hormuz standoff will influence rate paths and equity risk premia. If oil keeps drifting toward triple digits, equities may continue to de-rate. Bitcoin’s next move likely hinges on whether ETF inflows persist and whether long-term holders keep sitting tight. In that setup, the range can hold longer than many expect—until the macro data or the oil tape tips the balance.