Bitcoin trades around $105K amid Middle East tensions: what’s next?

• Bitcoin (BTC) trades around $105K, stuck in a range due to Israel-Iran conflict uncertainty.
• BTC options show decisive flip to puts, signaling heightened investor anxiety and downside hedging.
• Despite near-term jitters, Bitcoin’s current cycle gain of 656% is impressive given its larger market cap.

Bitcoin (BTC) is trading around the $105,000 mark as the Asian trading week gets underway, caught in a holding pattern as market participants grapple with uncertainty over whether the Israel-Iran conflict will escalate into a broader regional war.

While near-term sentiment is dominated by geopolitical anxieties and signs of market “overheating,” longer-term perspectives and discussions around potential network upgrades offer a more nuanced picture for the leading cryptocurrency.

The current market stasis, with Bitcoin seemingly “stuck in this range,” is largely attributed to the precarious geopolitical situation, according to a recent note from trading firm QCP Capital.

In a Friday note published on Telegram, QCP highlighted that risk reversals have “flipped decisively.”

This means front-end BTC put options (which protect against price drops) are now commanding premiums of up to 5 volatility points over equivalent call options (which bet on price increases).

This is a clear indicator of heightened investor anxiety and an increased demand for hedging against potential downside risks.

Despite this defensive shift in options market positioning, QCP noted that Bitcoin has demonstrated notable resilience.

Even amid recent volatility, which saw over $1 billion in long positions liquidated across major crypto assets, on-chain data reportedly shows that institutional buying continues to provide meaningful support for prices.

Nevertheless, QCP emphasized that markets remain “stuck in a bind,” awaiting clarity on geopolitical outcomes, and warned that the digital asset complex will likely remain tightly linked to headline-driven sentiment shifts for the foreseeable future.

Adding to the near-term caution, a separate report from on-chain analytics firm CryptoQuant (as referenced in a related context, though not directly quoted in this specific source text) has suggested that certain metrics indicate the BTC market is “overheating.”

This includes surging demand approaching previous peaks and a slowing pace of accumulation by large “whale” holders.

These indicators suggest the recent rally, which pushed prices to a record near $112,000, might be nearing a short-term consolidation point, with $120,000 identified as a key resistance.

Long-term perspective: cycle gains and maturation

While recent volatility underscores short-term anxiety, data from Glassnode offers some reassurance for investors concerned about Bitcoin’s longer-term direction.

Bitcoin’s current cycle gain stands at an impressive 656%.

While this is lower than the returns seen in previous bull markets (1076% in 2015–2018 and 1007% in 2018–2022), it is arguably more notable given Bitcoin’s significantly larger market capitalization today.

This suggests that investor demand is still keeping pace reasonably well with BTC’s maturation as an asset class, even as near-term macroeconomic jitters dominate current market sentiment.

Beyond ‘spam’: the OP_Return debate and Bitcoin’s evolution

Shifting focus to network-level discussions, Alex Thorn of Galaxy Research, in a recent note, addressed the sometimes contentious debate around OP_Return (a Bitcoin protocol feature allowing small amounts of arbitrary data on the blockchain).

Thorn suggested that the furor over this feature was largely driven by a “loud but small group of critics” and that their reactions, characterized by “wild accusations of the ‘death of Bitcoin’,” were misplaced given the historically low levels of mempool congestion (the queue of unconfirmed transactions).

On-chain data indicates that the mempool is virtually empty compared to a year ago.

This counters the narrative prevalent in 2023 that a congested blockchain was suffocating Bitcoin, a notion that now appears significantly overstated.

Thorn further highlighted the irony of labeling arbitrary data as “spam,” reminding observers that Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, famously embedded arbitrary text—the “chancellor on brink of second bailout” headline—in the blockchain’s very first (genesis) block.

Instead of focusing on such debates, Thorn argued that the Bitcoin community’s attention would be better directed towards potential network upgrades like CheckTemplateVerify (CTV).

CTV is a proposed opcode that would enable more sophisticated and strict spending conditions, often referred to as “covenants.”

“We continue to believe [CTV] is a conservative but powerful opcode that would greatly enhance the ability to build better, safer methods of custody,” Thorn wrote.

He also noted that around 20% of Bitcoin’s hashrate has already signaled support for this upgrade.

Bitcoin upgrades are known to require extensive consensus-building within the community, a reflection of its open-source and decentralized ethos.

Thorn emphasized that this cautious, deliberate approach to evolution remains critical for ensuring Bitcoin’s broader adoption and scalability in the long run.