decrypt.co
The price of Bitcoin is ticking up, but remains rangebound after having climbed 3% to $71,255 in the past day. Investors have been cautious amid threats from President Donald Trump on social media that "death, fire, and fury will reign" if Iran stops the flow of oil coming out of the region.
Barrels of Brent crude oil were trading for $88.87 at the time of writing Tuesday morning. They were going for $62.53 just two weeks ago, but climbed as high as nearly $120 per barrel on Monday over concerns that the U.S. conflict in the Middle East would disrupt energy supplies.
Trump's messaging on the war with Iran has been mixed. Ahead of planned remarks in Florida, the president said the war was "very complete, pretty much." But later in the day, he took to Truth Social to issue threats.
"If Iran does anything that stops the flow of oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far," he wrote.
That's left Bitcoin staging a tepid recovery, but nothing that'll get it out of its current range, wrote Kaiko research analyst Laurens Fraussen.
"This rangebound behavior marks a shift from the directional volatility that characterized January's decline from $100K+ highs," he said in a note shared with Decrypt. "Rather than continuing lower or mounting a sustained recovery, $BTC has oscillated within this band as markets await clarity on Fed policy."
The Federal Reserve is scheduled to next meet and issue a rate decision on March 18. A month ago, investors thought there was a 20% chance that the Federal Open Market Committee might approve a 25-basis point drop in the rate. But as of Tuesday morning, investors have dropped those odds to 0.6%, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.
Meanwhile, sideways consolidation has resulted in roughly $359 million worth of liquidations on crypto derivatives contracts, according to on-chain analytics platform CoinGlass, with bears and bulls stuck in a tug-of-war over price action.
"Derivatives liquidation distributions show a dense concentration of short liquidation zones between approximately $70,000 and $74,000 above current price levels, while leveraged long liquidity remains clustered near the $66,000–$65,000 range below," Bitunix analysts wrote in a note shared with Decrypt. "After rebounding to around $69,000, $BTC has entered sideways consolidation, suggesting that short-term price action remains dominated by liquidity sweeps both above and below."