Bitcoin Holds Near $78,000 Through the Iran Strikes as Gold Falls on Fed Repricing

Bitcoin traded near $78,200 through Monday's escalation between the United States and Iran, CoinDesk reported, while oil rose and equities fell. The digital asset gained more than 26% over August, against 13.8% for gold, 4.8% for the Nasdaq 100 and 3.2% for the S&P 500, according to Crypto Briefing. It reached about $81,455 on August 28 before easing back below $78,000.

Gold moved the other way on Monday, falling toward a two-week low near $4,445 an ounce as FXStreet attributed the decline to hawkish Fed expectations even with oil-driven inflation concerns in the background. Silver traded around $66 an ounce.

August produced unusually broad demand for scarce assets. Gold mining equities rose sharply over the month, and gold itself posted one of its largest monthly gains in decades. That combination, metals, mining stocks and bitcoin advancing together while the dollar index held near 99 to 100, is what investors describe as the debasement trade, meaning a shift out of currency exposure and into assets whose supply cannot be expanded by policy. Monday's divergence, with bitcoin steady and gold lower, contradicts the view that bitcoin trades only as a liquidity-sensitive risk asset. CoinDesk noted that the 30-day correlation between bitcoin and gold had reached 0.81 in late August.