Bloomberg: Bitcoin Trades Around the Clock, Emerging as the Most Liquid Asset for Expressing Macro Views When Other Markets Are Closed

February 28 (Bloomberg) — Escalating tensions between the U.S., Israel and Iran have pushed traders to flock to crypto exchanges for round-the-clock hedging. Oil-linked perpetual contracts on Hyperliquid jumped ~6.2% to $70.6 per barrel. Gold and silver perpetual contracts each climbed more than 5% and 8%, hitting $5,464 per ounce and $97.5 per ounce, respectively. Silver perpetual contracts traded over $4 billion in the past 24 hours, with gold contracts reaching nearly $1.4 billion; meanwhile, stock index contracts on the platform fell 1-2%. The Iran conflict sparked a safe-haven selloff in crypto markets: Bitcoin briefly slid 3.8% to $63,038 before settling around $64,000, while ETH dropped 4.5% to $1,836 at one point. Per CoinGecko data, the total market cap of digital assets shrank by ~$128 billion following the conflict’s outbreak. Wintermute OTC Trading Head Jake Ostrovskis noted that Bitcoin’s 24/7 trading has made it the most liquid asset for traders to express macro views when other markets are closed, adding that more asset classes are shifting to round-the-clock trading. Felix Co-Founder Charlie Ambrose said this marked another weekend of round-the-clock price discovery via Hyperliquid’s perpetual contracts, which could drive a macro shift in global market operations.