Bitcoin Spikes Over $72K as Trump Announces Conditional Ceasefire With Iran

Bitcoin soared alongside broader financial markets Tuesday, after President Trump announced a two-week conditional ceasefire with Iran.

The leading crypto extended its Tuesday gains, peaking at $72,379 Wednesday morning. Bitcoin is currently trading around $71,610, up 3.5% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data.

The rally liquidated $425 million in short crypto positions, with long liquidations adding another $170 million, per CoinGlass data. Altcoins including Zcash, LayerZero, and Ethena posted double-digit gains on the news.

The S&P 500 index also shot up over 3.6% to $6,838, hovering below its $7,043 all-time high. Similar gains were noted in Japan’s Nikkei and South Korea’s KOSPI indices. U.S. oil, on the other hand, dropped over 22% from over $117 per barrel to $91.

The U.S.-Iran ceasefire deal

Trump stated that, based on conversations with Pakistani leadership, he agreed to “suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks” provided Iran agrees to the “COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz,” according to a TruthSocial post Wednesday. The ceasefire allows Iran and Oman to charge fees on ships transiting the strait, with proceeds going toward reconstruction.

The president’s critics dubbed the deal another example of “TACO”—“Trump Always Chickens Out”—after he walked back his threats earlier in the week that “a whole civilization will die tonight” unless Iran reopened the Strait of Hormuz.

The ceasefire opens the hatch for better global crypto adoption—especially stablecoins—and a potential sharp market-wide rise, Maksym Sakharov, co-founder and CEO of on-chain banking infrastructure provider WeFi, told Decrypt.

“The pause provides fragile breathing room after weeks of escalation, but skepticism remains high over whether it will hold beyond two weeks,” Andri Fauzan Adziima, research lead at cryptocurrency exchange Bitrue, told Decrypt. He noted that while supporters view it as a pragmatic negotiation that calmed markets, detractors argue it “erodes U.S. credibility and deterrence, turning maximalist rhetoric into short-term off-ramps.”

The move echoes past patterns in trade and foreign policy, Adziima said, delivering immediate relief—“better TACO Tuesday than World War III”—but leaving core issues unresolved—especially as the ceasefire does not cover Lebanon, where Israeli air strikes have continued.

“Despite the jitters and moves hinting at a potential breakout, the meme these days is more that nothing ever happens,” Justin d’Anethan, head of research at crypto research firm Arctic Digital, told Decrypt.

ETF inflows continue to provide hope, he said, but are “kept in check by a broader risk-off sentiment.”

“I suspect many will look back on this level not necessarily as the cycle’s bottom but as a place that long-term investors were happy to average in,” d’Anethan added. “For now, all eyes on the Strait of Hormuz.”

Sentiment has flipped on prediction market Myriad, owned by Decrypt’s parent company Dastan. Users now assign a 55% probability to Bitcoin rallying to $84,000 next, up from 43% before the ceasefire, and put an 88% chance on the average number of ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz will return above 15 before May—up from 65% yesterday.

Incoming macro events loom

The optimism comes with a caveat. Sakharov cautioned that incoming macro events must be watched closely. “The US CPI is expected to hike, which can push back any rate cuts or economic growth,” he said.

From a regulatory standpoint, headway was made on Tuesday with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation approving a proposal to implement the GENIUS Act requirements and standards.

Sakharov noted that with stablecoins now requiring 1:1 backing with hard cash, “there won’t be any excuses left for using stablecoins,” increasing trust and adoption.

Though the two-week pause is a relief, Bitcoin’s path forward remains uncertain, hinging on whether the ceasefire holds and how macro data unfolds.