Bitcoin Falls Below $84,000 as Oil Shock Hits Crypto

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When oil goes up, Bitcoin goes down: After Iran stepped up its attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, Bitcoin just slipped below $84,000 and is trading at about €74,800, according to CoinGecko, down about 2.4 percent over 24 hours. Brent crude climbed above $101 a barrel, while Treasury yields and the dollar rose. As so often, smaller crypto assets were hit harder than Bitcoin.

Altcoins Fall Twice as Hard

DeFi tokens lost almost 6 percent over 24 hours, according to CoinDesk, and the memecoin index fell about 5 percent. Ether dropped about 4.5 percent to roughly €2,300 ($2,580), Cardano lost more than 8 percent and Uniswap as much as 10 percent.

Ethereum’s layer-2 networks took a particularly heavy beating. The trigger was news that Abstract, the network behind Pudgy Penguins, has become the second layer-2 network to shut down within a week. Optimism (OP) lost about 10 percent, Mantle (MNT) nearly 10 percent and Arbitrum (ARB) about 7 percent. The Pudgy Penguins token (PENGU) fell more than 7 percent.

Only a few tokens escaped the downturn. The Sandbox (SAND) rose about 9 percent after jumping 37 percent last week, bringing its weekly gain to almost 60 percent. Stacks (STX), a layer-2 network for Bitcoin, gained about 4 percent.