Bitcoin touched $73,147 on Thursday, pushing toward new highs despite a wave of concerning US economic data and growing uncertainty around the fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran.
Ceasefire cracks emerge
Iranian parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps general, claimed that Israel’s continued campaign in Lebanon, unauthorized military drone incursions into Iranian airspace, and the denial of uranium enrichment all violated ceasefire terms.
Crude oil prices jumped back to $97 per barrel on the news, reversing the sharp drop that followed Trump’s ceasefire announcement on Wednesday.
When Trump first announced the truce, S&P 500 futures surged to their highest level in 30 days while WTI crude fell below $100, illustrating the tight inverse relationship between oil prices and risk assets.
Weak macro data, but markets shrug
The US Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that the core PCE index rose 0.4% in February month-over-month, while fourth-quarter GDP was revised down to just a 0.5% annualized rate.
Rather than triggering a sell-off, the data appeared to lift trader sentiment.
The logic: stagflationary conditions increase the likelihood that the US government will inject liquidity to support markets, which weakens the US dollar and tends to benefit scarce assets like bitcoin.
Bitcoin follows war expectations, not just data
The S&P 500 traded just 2% from its all-time high on Thursday, suggesting investors are not yet pricing in serious risks from private credit stress or AI infrastructure debt costs.
Bitcoin’s 30-day correlation with the S&P 500 remained visible but imperfect, with analysts noting that bitcoin appeared to be tracking geopolitical developments more closely than domestic economic prints.
