US-Iran Strike Reveals Crypto’s Edge Over Traditional Markets
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The US military strike on Iran over the weekend intensified global tensions and investor anxiety. Yet, Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer at Bitwise, stated that it also highlighted the important role of crypto and on-chain markets. With major stock exchanges closed, on-chain markets stepped in as the primary venue for global price discovery. US Strike on Iran Exposed a Structural Gap That Only Crypto Markets Could Fill In a recent memo titled “The Weekend That Changed Finance,” Hougan noted that when President Trump announced a military strike on Iran at 2:30 a.m. ET on Sunday, global markets were closed. Stocks, futures, forex, and exchanges across Europe and Asia had all gone dark for the weekend. The only traditional markets still running were small Middle Eastern exchanges in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Hougan suggested that on-chain markets were the only venues that responded in real time. Thus, they filled a structural void left by closed traditional exchanges. “In years past, if a major geopolitical shock hit on a Sunday morning, investors would wait until the U.S. futures markets opened at 6 p.m. ET on Sunday to find out what the impact would be. But as this weekend showed, they now have an alternative: They can turn to crypto-based rails, which trade 24/7/365, globally. And this weekend, they did,” he said. BeInCrypto also reported that the impact of the attacks was quickly evident in the crypto market, with Bitcoin (BTC) dropping on the news. According to Hougan, for most of that Sunday, “on-chain finance was the center of the financial world.” He noted that Hyperliquid, a decentralized perpetual exchange, became a “focus.” Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 decentralized exchanges allowed traders to trade synthetic perpetual futures contracts tied to traditional assets. BeInCrypto reported that HIP-3’s open interest exceeded $1 billion. Overall, the platform saw over…
Filed under: News - @ March 4, 2026 8:22 am