Nine weeks after Operation Epic Fury opened with coordinated strikes on Iranian military infrastructure and key regime figures including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the financial consequences are still widening.

The Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted despite a ceasefire agreed on April 7 and 8, and the economic aftershocks are now clearly visible in ASX ETF performance data. Four thematic funds tied to oil, semiconductors, hydrogen, and Bitcoin have dramatically outpaced the broader ASX index, which has lagged global peers throughout the conflict.

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The Oil Trade Is the Headline Number

BetaShares' crude oil ETF (ASX: OOO), which tracks crude futures, has returned roughly 88.4% year to date. That figure tracks closely with Brent Crude hitting $109.38 per barrel (up 78% year to date) and WTI reaching $97.46 per barrel (up 68%). The driver is straightforward: Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz severed roughly 20% of global seaborne oil trade, cutting flows that previously involved approximately 3,000 vessel transits per month. The IEA's chief called the disruption "the greatest global energy security challenge in history."

For context, a less widely held US-listed fund, the Breakwave Tanker Shipping ETF (BWET), surged over 600% since January as oil tankers became strategically scarce assets in a Hormuz-disrupted world.

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Semiconductors and Hydrogen Are Running a Different Playbook

The Global X Semiconductor ETF (ASX: SEMI) is up approximately 37% year to date. Its top holdings, including TSMC, Broadcom, and Nvidia, are benefiting from continued AI infrastructure spending. The Iran conflict adds a supply-side complication: tungsten prices surged over 50% in March 2026 alone and had tripled since December 2025, while helium supplies critical to chip fabrication have also tightened. So far, investor appetite for AI exposure has outweighed concern about those upstream pressures.

The Global X Hydrogen ETF (ASX: HGEN) has gained 168.48% over the past year. Much of that run predates the conflict, but the energy security conversation around the Hormuz closure has renewed institutional interest in hydrogen as a structural alternative to Gulf oil dependency. Top holdings include Bloom Energy at 13.86% of the fund and Plug Power at 8.17%.

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Bitcoin Has Recovered from Its Own Shock

Bitcoin's trajectory since February 28 has been uneven but net positive. The initial weekend of strikes triggered over $300 million in crypto liquidations, and February closed with $3.8 billion in net Bitcoin ETF outflows, the worst single month since US spot ETFs launched in January 2024. That drawdown reversed through March and April, driven by forced short liquidations, falling funding rates (averaging negative 5% over 30 days), and ceasefire optimism.

Bitcoin has since reclaimed $80,000 and is up roughly 20% since the strikes began, though it remains well below its October 2025 all-time high of $126,000. April spot Bitcoin ETF inflows reached $2.44 billion, the strongest monthly figure since October 2025. On ASX, funds including EBTC, QBTC, BTXX, and CRYP have tracked this recovery.

One analyst cited in CoinDesk's March coverage argued that the Hormuz shock was simultaneously tightening real-world energy and food supply and lifting petrodollar settlement risk, and that this combination explained why Bitcoin was the only haven outperforming both gold and the S&P 500 since February 28.

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Regional Exposure Is Severe, Especially in South Asia

For readers outside US and Australian markets, the practical stakes are higher. India sources 40 to 50% of its crude oil imports through the Strait of Hormuz. The Indian rupee hit a record low of 92 per US dollar during the conflict. As a structural baseline, domestic crypto exchange CoinDCX recorded trading volumes climbing from $269 million in December 2025 to $309 million in January 2026, figures drawn from pre-conflict reporting published in early February 2026 that illustrate the underlying growth in Indian crypto adoption before the war began.

Bitcoin accounts for 9.2% of Indian crypto portfolios by holdings and drives 17.4% of trades, with 61.3% of users identified as long-term holders. India also faces a roughly two million tonne urea shortfall by August 2026 as fertilizer costs spike, with subsidy bills potentially reaching a record $18 billion.

Pakistan, which imports 99% of its LNG from the UAE, has shifted to a four-day work week. Bangladesh has closed universities to conserve electricity. S&P Global Market Intelligence identified Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka among the most vulnerable South Asian economies to the Hormuz disruption.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, on-chain transaction volume reached $205 billion in the year to June 2025, the most recent period for which data is available, a 52% increase year over year. That structural growth in adoption makes the region directly relevant to this story: Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana are all advancing crypto regulatory frameworks in 2026, and CNBC Africa has raised publicly whether Bitcoin is "cementing a reputation as a geopolitical shock absorber" in economies where dollar access is restricted and local currencies are under pressure. Nigeria's situation illustrates the complexity. The country is an oil producer, yet domestic households face a weakened naira, rising inflation, and higher import costs, and the Dangote refinery, Africa's largest, has not yet translated oil production into cheaper domestic fuel. A related dimension extends beyond Africa: Chainalysis estimated Iran's domestic crypto ecosystem at $7.78 billion in 2025, and analysts monitoring sanctions-evasion flows have flagged IRGC involvement in digital asset channels as a growing concern for regulators across South Asia and the broader Gulf-adjacent region.

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What Comes Next

The World Bank's April 2026 Commodity Markets Outlook projects energy prices will rise 24% in 2026, their sharpest annual gain since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The ceasefire holds as of May 5, but the strait remains disrupted, according to NPR's May 5 reporting, and a CNBC analysis published May 4 warned that markets may be "sleepwalking into a recession amid Iran war oil price shock." CoinTelegraph analysts have noted that "Iran war fallout will muddy the rest of 2026 for asset markets." For ETF investors, the near-term question is whether ceasefire durability brings a reversal trade in oil and a rotation back into equities, or whether the structural energy security narrative keeps thematic funds elevated regardless of daily headlines.