Bitcoin Plunges to $101K as US Entry in Israel-Iran Tensions Dim Investor Outlook

Bitcoin prices experienced a sharp drop after tensions in the West Asian region escalated. On Sunday, the US launched targeted attacks on three Iranian nuclear sites, namely, Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. This move has further intensified tensions between the two nations, giving rise to the risk-off sentiment among investors.

While the broader market consensus was hoping for a prospective breather in the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran, the recent attack by the US has dashed all those hopes. On Monday, Bitcoin was trading at $1,01,818.07 price level, experiencing a decline of around 0.95% in the past 24 hours, as per CoinMarketCap data. The overall market cap of Bitcoin dropped to $2.02 trillion. The price of cryptocurrency has declined over 5% over the past 7 days.

Ethereum followed suit and dropped over 0.71% in the last 24 hours. Other cryptocurrencies, including XRP, Solana and Dogecoin also witnessed a similar trajectory, dropping over 2.65%, 0.52% and 2.16%, respectively (in the past 24 hours).

"We have completed our very successful attack on the three nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. All planes are now outside of Iran air space...," Trump said in a social media post yesterday.

Asian Markets

As tensions continue to rise in the region, investors are adopting a more risk-averse stance. This was quite evident in the performance of Asian markets, which opened lower on Monday.

The Hang Seng, Nikkei and Kospi indices all began the day in negative territory before partially recovering. While Japan's Nikkei remained in the red, the Hang Seng erased its losses and closed in positive territory, witnessing a surge of 158 points or 0.67%.

Meanwhile, in a separate development, Texas has officially launched a state-funded Bitcoin reserve. This move might help maintain balanced sentiment among crypto traders amid ongoing geopolitical uncertainty.