March 13, 2026 | Markets

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Bitcoin rose above $72,000 on Thursday as U.S. equities extended their slide, on pace for a third consecutive losing week, with Brent crude holding above $100 per barrel for the second straight day. The convergence of signals reflects deepening market stress tied to the ongoing U.S.-Israel military campaign against Iran, now entering its third week since joint strikes began on February 28. Those strikes reportedly killed Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, prompting Tehran to impose a near-total closure of the Strait of Hormuz in response.

Equities Fall as Oil Stays Elevated

The S&P 500 reversed an early 1% gain to trade roughly 0.3% lower around 1:15 p.m. New York time. The index has now shed approximately 5% from its recent peak, and analysts note the three-week losing streak is the longest in roughly a year. At its war-driven peak, Brent crude reached approximately $126 per barrel. On March 12, it closed above $100 per barrel for the first time since August 2022. Prices have climbed more than 50% since hostilities began.

The central driver is Iran's near-total shutdown of commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps achieved the blockade largely through cheap drone deployments rather than a formal naval operation, cutting off approximately 20 million barrels per day of global oil supply. The International Energy Agency called it "the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market." Gulf producers including Iraq, the UAE, and Kuwait have collectively cut at least 10 million barrels per day in output, as accumulated barrels have nowhere to go. Qatar's energy minister warned that all regional producers could be forced to halt production entirely if the closure continues, and that prices could spike toward $150 per barrel.

A record coordinated G7 and IEA release of 400 million barrels from strategic petroleum reserves on March 11 did little to move prices. Markets appear unconvinced that reserve drawdowns can offset a disruption of this scale.

Bitcoin Decouples from Risk Assets

Bitcoin's performance stands out against the broader selloff. The asset climbed roughly 2% on Thursday to trade above $72,000, even as the U.S. dollar strengthened, a combination that would typically pressure risk assets lower. The move marks a partial recovery from a low of around $68,000 reached shortly after the war began. Bitcoin's all-time high of approximately $126,000 was set in October 2025, putting the current price approximately 43% below that peak. At the war's onset, Bitcoin fell as far as approximately $68,000, a decline of roughly 47% from that record.

The February picture was messier. Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded approximately $3.8 billion in net outflows during the month, the worst since the products launched in January 2024. Gold ETFs absorbed $16 billion in inflows over the same period as investors rotated toward the traditional safe-haven asset. That pattern has since started to reverse. JPMorgan analyst Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou noted that GLD has seen outflows equal to roughly 2.7% of assets under management since the war began, while BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) has recorded inflows of about 1.5% of assets over the same window. Spot Bitcoin ETFs posted a fourth consecutive day of net inflows on March 12, totaling $53.87 million. MicroStrategy made its largest single-day Bitcoin purchase since its founding on March 12, acquiring more than 4,100 BTC. Bitcoin exchange reserves have fallen to approximately 2.75 million BTC, the lowest level recorded since 2019, according to data from CoinGlass.

Macro strategist Luke Gromen described the shift in plain terms: "During the recent Iran-Middle East military escalation, that pattern changed, as geopolitical tensions rose and Bitcoin held its value or increased in price while other risk assets moved sharply lower."

Regional Impact: South Asia and Africa Bear the Brunt

The stress on energy markets is not distributed evenly. Pakistan imports more than 80% of its oil and approximately 99% of its LNG from Qatar, making the Strait of Hormuz closure a direct budget emergency. The government has imposed a record petrol price hike of PKR 55 per litre and announced broad austerity measures. For Pakistan's roughly 18.2 million crypto users, already accustomed to using digital assets as a hedge against rupee volatility, the current environment intensifies existing incentives.

India has managed to hold retail fuel prices steady so far, drawing on strategic reserves that cover 50 to 74 days of consumption. However, a government-commissioned review warns that sustained oil near $100 per barrel could push CPI inflation to 4.1% and trim GDP growth to 6.6% in the next fiscal year. India leads the 2026 Global Crypto Adoption Index for the third straight year, and inflationary pressure broadly supports continued grassroots activity in stablecoins, savings applications, and cross-border remittance services.

Across Africa, oil-importing nations are absorbing the shock through higher transport costs and food prices. Egypt's president described the country's economy as being in a "state of near-emergency," and Djibouti's Finance Minister warned of "severe economic consequences for developing countries." Not all African economies face the same pressures: oil-exporting nations including Angola, Algeria, and Libya stand to benefit from elevated crude prices. Nigeria, which processed over $92 billion in cryptocurrency value between mid-2024 and mid-2025 and ranks second globally in crypto adoption, has a well-documented history of accelerating Bitcoin and stablecoin use when fiat pressure mounts. Sub-Saharan Africa placed four countries in the global top 20 for crypto adoption in 2026, including debut appearances by Ethiopia and Kenya, its best performance on record.

What Comes Next

The conflict shows no sign of a quick resolution, and oil markets will remain sensitive to any signal from Washington or Tehran. President Trump has indicated he wants the fighting to end, and that signal, alongside the return of institutional inflows to spot Bitcoin ETFs, helped accelerate Bitcoin's recovery from its post-war lows. For crypto markets specifically, the key variables to watch are continued ETF flow data, the trajectory of dollar strength, and whether the Hormuz blockade holds. As Jake Ostrovskis, head of OTC trading at Wintermute, put it: "The oil move matters more for crypto than the geopolitics itself."

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Sources: Australian Financial Review, CNBC, Al Jazeera, IEA Oil Market Report (March 2026), CoinDesk, JPMorgan via CryptoNews, Chainalysis, Crypto News Navigator, Bloomberg, Business Standard, Marketplace.org, CoinGlass, Blockchain.news