NEW YORK, March 9, 2026, 1:18 PM EDT
Bitcoin pushed higher to nearly $69,000 on Monday, gaining 2.9% from the prior close after dipping near $65,700 earlier in the day. Latest trades in New York had it at about $69,005 during the afternoon.
Bitcoin’s slide is happening right in the thick of a broader macro selloff, with stocks, bonds, and commodities all under pressure. Brent crude almost touched $120 a barrel as escalating conflict tied to Iran had traders pricing in a bigger inflation jolt and dialing back expectations for near-term rate cuts.
Institutional appetite hasn’t dried up. U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs still managed to pull in a net $568.5 million last week, despite Thursday and Friday outflows slicing into the week’s earlier inflows.
Strategy, the biggest corporate holder of bitcoin, put in another buy. Between March 2 and March 8, the company snapped up 17,994 bitcoin for $1.28 billion, according to a filing. That pushes its total stash to 738,731 coins. Executive Chairman Michael Saylor said on X, “The Second Century Begins.” SEC
In crypto-adjacent trading, ether hovered near $2,030. Shares of Strategy moved up roughly 3.9%, while Marathon Digital, the miner, tacked on about 6.5%.
Some traders are seeing bitcoin diverge from its usual script in the latest turmoil. “Oil’s rally and the inflation concerns it raises have put Bitcoin’s hedge credentials back in focus,” Jake Ostrovskis at Wintermute said, with bitcoin moving higher in New York trading. Bloomberg.com
But not everyone’s buying the bullish argument. Tony Sycamore at IG pointed to the market’s “violent reaction,” saying investors are struggling with “no obvious offramp” for the Middle East tensions. His read: bitcoin’s being pushed around by geopolitical headlines and rates just as much as by anything crypto-related. Reuters
The risk is simple enough. U.S. consumer price numbers land Wednesday, with the PCE inflation readout up Friday, then the Fed meets March 17-18. Jim Wyckoff, senior analyst at Kitco Metals, says if inflation runs hot, the Fed’s caught in a “quandary”—and that scenario could squeeze bitcoin again. The cryptocurrency has already reacted to these swings in risk appetite. Reuters
Bitcoin clawed back some ground on Monday, but it’s still well off the all-time high above $125,000 set in October 2025—and not all that distant from the brief February plunge toward $63,000. Right now, traders are juggling a mix of new ETF and corporate inflows, while the macro environment stays unpredictable.
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