Bitcoin Breaks Higher as Iran Deal Lifts Risk Sentiment
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| By Marija Matic |
For days, Bitcoin traders have been staring at $64,000 like a wall they couldn't quite scale.
This week, they walked right through it.
The proximate cause was geopolitical.
Just hours ago, U.S. President Trump, Vice President Vance and Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, speaker of the Iranian Parliament, signed a memorandum of understanding.
This U.S.-Iran agreement aims to open a 60-day window for nuclear negotiations.
The text is set to be released after the U.S. and Iran meet on Friday in Switzerland, after this week’s G7 talks conclude.
The news of this agreement, which seeks to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, sent oil prices lower.
Risk assets exhaled.
And JPMorgan's market intelligence team, which had held a cautious stance, flipped tactically bullish.
Though they did so with a caveat familiar to anyone who has traded through a geopolitical relief rally …
The initial "everything up" impulse tends to fade into concentrated leadership.
In crypto, that 2026 playbook is well-worn — Privacy, DeFi, Real-World Assets and AI tend to pull ahead once the dust settles.
We saw that today. RWAs Stellar (XLM, “C+”) and Privacy’s Zcash (ZEC, “B-”) surged around 25%, and DeFi’s Jupiter (JUP, “D+”) gained around 20%.
But the Iran deal alone doesn't fully explain the crypto’s move. The options market had already been setting the conditions for a stronger reaction.
According to Glassnode data from a few days ago, the largest cluster of negative gamma exposure sat at the $65K strike, above Bitcoin spot at the time, with additional short gamma extending toward $70K.
In that kind of positioning, dealers who sold those options are forced to hedge by buying BTC as price rises.
That flow tends to amplify upward momentum.
Bitcoin is now trading around $67K, having pushed through the $65K gamma cluster, a move consistent with dealer hedging flows adding into strength.
With short gamma still concentrated up to $70K, that structural support has not been fully exhausted, leaving room for further acceleration if momentum holds.
Crucially, the ground was already shifting before the peace deal provided a spark.
Meanwhile, Ethereum spot ETFs last week were calmer than in the prior period. They remained negative overall, but the pace of outflows slowed.
Grayscale's redemptions continued to weigh, while inflows into BlackRock and other issuers were not yet strong enough to fully offset them.
Even so, the moderation itself pointed to improving sentiment. Ethereum (ETH, “B+”) is up over 10% today.
On-chain data tells a similar story.
Glassnode's Accumulation Trend Score3, which tracks buying behavior across wallet sizes, shifted toward accumulation (dark color) as prices dipped into the $60K zone in early June:
In practical terms, falling prices were met with increasing demand. Investors were buying into weakness rather than stepping away from it.
Much of the panic-selling and long liquidations have likely already occurred.
At the same time, a substantial amount of short liquidity has built up overhead — another setup that tends to accelerate moves when prices push into it.
Institutional flows add another piece.
- Strategy acquired 1,587 BTC last week at an average of roughly $63,000, bringing its total holdings to over 846,000 BTC.
- BitMine, meanwhile, added nearly 77,000 ETH, pushing its total Ethereum holdings to 5.62 million, around 4.66% of the circulating supply.
The purchases helped ease the FUD that followed Strategy’s small sale of 32 BTC at the end of May.
The SpaceX IPO on June 12, which drew capital away from risk assets, may also have suppressed some of the move that is now being released.
From a structural perspective, Bitcoin bears had four months to force a weekly close below $60,000 and never managed it.
That repeated defense points to a strong demand zone.
CoinDesk reported that Brian Armstrong appears to agree. He said his “instinct” is that Bitcoin likely bottomed around $60,000, though he cautioned that nobody can know for sure.
Armstrong cited Bitcoin’s historical four-year cycle as a reference point and said he remains long BTC, expecting prices to be significantly higher by 2030.
Still, caution continues to be warranted.
The crypto market is stabilizing after deeply oversold conditions, and volumes remain weak.
That combination often leads to uneven follow-through. Cycle dynamics also leave open the possibility of another test.
If historical four-year patterns hold, a final capitulation phase could still develop in the coming weeks.
Macro uncertainty remains in the background.
Upcoming U.S. data releases and a wave of AI-related IPOs introduce additional variables that could affect risk appetite.
Seasonality provides a broader frame. Bitcoin’s strongest sustained moves have often begun in October, after the summer accumulation phase.
Current conditions fit that pattern and the market structure is becoming more supportive.
Whatever happens next geopolitically remains unclear.
In crypto, it’s crystal clear that the accumulation is on.
Best,
Marija Matić
1 https://research.glassnode.com/btc-market-pulse-week-25/
