The cryptocurrency market experienced significant selling overnight Saturday amid heightened tensions in the Middle East due to an unprecedented Iranian drone and missile attack on Israel. Bitcoin plummeted by about 8% late Saturday as U.S. officials confirmed the attack, marking one of the steepest declines in over a year.
Digital coins, among the few risk assets trading over the weekend, reacted swiftly to the escalation of tensions. Bitcoin, which had been trading around $70,000, fell below $62,000 on the Bitstamp exchange but rebounded to over $64,000 by Sunday morning. Other coins like ether also saw substantial selling, dropping by up to 10% in some cases.
The attack on Israel from Iranian territory is the first direct assault of its kind. Israel reported identifying and neutralizing the majority of the threats, purportedly in response to a suspected Israeli strike in Syria that killed top Iranian officials.
The Iranian currency hit a record low of 705,000 rials/USD on the unofficial market Sunday morning. Meanwhile, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange’s flagship index, the TA-35, declined by 0.38% as tensions continued to escalate.
