Bloomberg: Bitcoin Trades Around the Clock, Emerging as the Most Liquid Asset for Expressing Macro Views When Other Markets Are Closed

BlockBeats News, February 28th, Bloomberg reported that the escalating tensions among the U.S., Israel, and Iran have led traders to turn to cryptocurrency exchanges for round-the-clock hedging. Perpetual contracts on Hyperliquid tied to oil surged approximately 6.2% to $70.6 per barrel, with gold and silver perpetual contracts each rising over 5% and 8% to $5,464 per ounce and $97.5, respectively. Silver perpetual contracts saw a trading volume of over $4 billion in the past 24 hours, while gold contracts saw a volume of nearly $1.4 billion, and stock index contracts on the platform dropped 1% to 2%.

The Iran conflict triggered a safe-haven selloff in the crypto market, with Bitcoin briefly falling 3.8% to $63,038 before stabilizing around $64,000; ETH dropped 4.5% to $1,836 at one point. According to CoinGecko data, the total market capitalization of digital assets evaporated by around $128 billion after the conflict broke out.

Jake Ostrovskis, Head of OTC Trading at Wintermute, stated that due to Bitcoin's 24/7 trading, it has become the most liquid asset for traders to express macro views when other markets are closed, and more asset classes are moving towards round-the-clock trading. Charlie Ambrose, Co-Founder of Felix, mentioned that this was another weekend of round-the-clock price discovery through perpetual contracts on Hyperliquid, potentially driving a macro shift in how global markets operate.