Bitcoin slacks at $75,000 as global stocks take a break from post-ceasefire rally

U.S. stocks opened the session mixed, with the bigger indexes slipping while small caps pushed the other way. The Dow Jones fell 110 points, or 0.2%, soon after the bell. The S&P 500 dropped 0.4%, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.5%.

The move stood in contrast to the Russell 2000, which rose 0.6% and hit a fresh intraday record high. That left the market split early in the session, with pressure on large caps even as smaller names kept climbing.

Traders were still trying to figure out how much war risk to price in. Stocks had already bounced from levels near a correction back to record highs, which made it harder for markets to fully reflect a worst-case outcome.

At the same time, Kevin Warsh used prepared remarks for his Senate hearing to lay out how he sees the Federal Reserve. Kevin said the central bank needs to stay mostly free from political pressure, but he also made clear that independence depends in large part on how the Fed behaves.

He said the Fed should stay focused on its main job, with a clear emphasis on inflation. In the remarks, Kevin mentioned the labor market only once, while returning again to the need for the central bank to keep its attention on price stability.

Kevin also repeated a criticism he has made before, saying the Fed has crossed lines in the past by stepping into issues such as climate policy and social inequality. He said the central bank puts its own independence at risk when it moves into areas where it has neither the authority nor the expertise to act.

He also said elected officials speaking publicly about interest rates does not, by itself, seriously threaten the Fed’s ability to run monetary policy. His view was that political comments are not the same thing as direct interference in operations.

Kevin drew a distinction between the Fed’s rate-setting role and its other duties. He said the central bank does not enjoy the same degree of independence in every part of its work, and he pointed in particular to its handling of public money.

The crypto market was still soft on the day, with total market cap at $2.62 trillion, down 0.46%. 24-hour trading volume came in at $102.54 billion.

But the bigger story was still in the Bitcoin ETF flow data. Spot Bitcoin ETFs pulled in $996 million over the past three weeks, extending their positive streak and showing that demand from big-money products has not gone away.

As of April 17, daily net inflow stood at $663.91 million. Cumulative total net inflow reached $57.74 billion, while total value traded hit $4.80 billion. Total net assets stood at $101.45 billion, equal to 6.55% of Bitcoin’s market cap.

BlackRock’s IBIT posted $283.99 million in one-day net inflows, or about 3.67K BTC, lifting cumulative net inflows to $64.63 billion. Net assets stood at $62.08 billion, with a 4.01% BTC share.

Fidelity’s FBTC brought in $163.42 million on the day, equal to about 2.11K BTC. Its cumulative net inflow reached $11.01 billion, while net assets stood at $14.52 billion.

Grayscale’s GBTC added $4.22 million in daily inflows, but its cumulative figure stayed deep in the red at -$26.16 billion. Net assets stood at $11.81 billion.

Grayscale’s other product, BTC, posted $29.12 million in daily inflows and 376.50 BTC in one-day BTC inflow. Its cumulative total rose to $2.26 billion, with $4.08 billion in net assets. The fund ended at $34.30, up 2.82%, with $152.08 million in value traded.

Bitwise’s BITB recorded $38.22 million in daily inflows, or 494.18 BTC. ARK 21Shares’ ARKB added $117.90 million, equal to about 1.52K BTC. VanEck’s HODL brought in $6.56 million, while Invesco’s BTCO added $3.86 million. Valkyrie’s BRRR, Franklin’s EZBC, and WisdomTree’s BTCW showed no daily inflow, while Morgan Stanley’s MSBT posted $16.63 million.

At the smaller end, Hashdex’s DEFI also showed no daily inflow and kept its cumulative figure at -$1.45 million. Still, most of the table stayed green on price, with nearly all major products rising between 2.64% and 2.87% on the day.

Weekly trading volumes rose 13% week on week to $21 billion, though that was still below the year-to-date average of $31 billion. Even so, total assets under management climbed back to levels last seen in early February.

Meanwhile last week, Bitcoin funds pulled in $871 million over the week, pushing year-to-date inflows to just under $2 billion.

At the same time, bearish positioning did not disappear. Short-Bitcoin products saw $20.2 million in inflows, the biggest weekly total for those products since November 2024.

Bitcoin’s rally has lost steam around $75,000, with prices now at $75,081.5, down 0.29% in the past twenty-four hours, as the market stays weak but not fully risk-off. Ethereum has fallen by 0.76% to $2,304.41, Solana slipped 0.25% to $84.98, and XRP lost 0.91% to $1.4135.

Coinglass data shows crypto open interest at $119.56 billion, down by 0.46%, while total liquidations jumped 51.36% to $419.14 million. The average RSI came in at 47.05, which kept the market in neutral territory, and the Altcoin Season Index sat at 38, also neutral.

This slowdown comes as stock markets also lost momentum on Monday after tensions between the U.S. and Iran escalated over the weekend following the seizure of an Iranian-flagged cargo ship.

Dow futures fell 298 points, or 0.6%. S&P 500 futures dropped 0.5%, and Nasdaq-100 futures also moved lower.

Asia held up better. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 edged up 0.07% to 8,953.30. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.77% to 26,361.07. South Korea’s Kospi added 0.44% to 6,219.09, while the Kosdaq gained 0.41%.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 climbed 0.60% to 58,824.89, and the Topix rose 0.43% to 3,777.02.

In China, the Shanghai Composite gained 0.76% to 4,082.127, while the CSI 300 added 0.61% to 4,757.44. In India, the Nifty 50 was up 0.05% at 24,364.85, while the BSE Sensex traded slightly higher.

In South Korea, SK Hynix rose more than 3% after news that it had started mass production of next-generation AI server memory built for Nvidia’s Vera Rubin platform.

Europe moved the other way. The Stoxx 600 was down almost 1.1% by 12 noon in London, with all major bourses and regional sectors in negative territory by midday.

Oil surged as traders reacted to the geopolitical risk. WTI crude jumped 6.49% to $89.29 a barrel as of press time, while Brent crude rose 6.34% to $96.12.

Precious metals fell. Gold dropped as much as 1.9% before cutting some of the loss to trade near $4,790 an ounce. Spot silver lost 2.1% to $79.07 an ounce, platinum fell 1.7% to $2,066.90, and palladium was down 1.6% at $1,533.64. The Dollar Spot Index was up 0.1%.