The conflict between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas erupted on Monday, becoming the main event of the week. However, unlike in other markets, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) opened the day relatively stable in the face of continued Israeli counterattacks.
According to CoinGecko, the price of Bitcoin opened the day with a slight increase of 0.5%, with its dollar price quoted at just over $27,600. Meanwhile, in Brazil, BTC experienced a slight decrease of 0.1%, but still remained around R$ 141,000. On the other hand, Ether (ETH) opened with a 0.7% drop abroad and a 0.9% drop in Brazil, with its price at $1,563 and R$ 8,133, respectively.
In the top 10 cryptocurrencies, only BNB and Dogecoin (DOGE) opened the day in positive territory. Binance’s cryptocurrency recorded gains of 0.4%, while DOGE slightly increased by 0.2%. On the negative side, ETH led the losses, but XRP also fell by 0.5%, and Solana (SOL) lost 0.3%.
Finally, the market capitalization of cryptocurrencies fell by 0.2% to reach $1.1 trillion (R$ 5.69 trillion). Trading volume increased by 15.5% to $25 billion. BTC dominance rose to 50.2%, while ETH’s dominance slightly decreased to 17.8%, totaling 68% of the market.
The search for store of value assets
Part of the explanation for Bitcoin’s rise amid a new conflict may be related to another phenomenon. According to Fernando Pereira from Bitget, the war in the Middle East has triggered an increase in the global search for gold. However, the dollar quotation has fallen in the last 24 hours.
“An interesting movement we saw today, at the height of the war between Israel and Palestine, was gold appreciating significantly, while oil was rising and the dollar was falling. This means that investors are fleeing to safe-haven assets at the moment, and this could be interesting for BTC, which could also appreciate with this movement,” said Pereira.
This movement indicates that the market, or at least part of it, holds the belief that BTC is not a risky asset but rather a protection against times of crisis. In this sense, seeking safety may benefit the cryptocurrency in the short term.
Futures and liquidations
Just like the price of BTC, futures trading opened the day with a slight increase, according to Coinglass data. Futures volumes rose by 1.78% to $52 billion, with Binance accounting for $8.58 billion. Next came OKX and Bybit, virtually tied with volumes of $3.1 billion each.
While futures started on a positive note, liquidation volume decreased by 31% to $51.4 million in the last 24 hours, of which $46.1 million came from long positions. ETH led the liquidation of long positions with $23 million, while LOOM led the losses among short positions, moving $265,000.
The largest individual liquidation occurred on Binance, where a trader operating with ETH lost $4.53 million. In total, 20,237 traders were liquidated in the last 24 hours.