Crypto prices spiked during early Asian trading hours Tuesday after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that a ceasefire between Iran and Israel had come into effect, triggering a sharp recovery across major altcoins and largely erasing weekend losses tied to the conflict.
“THE CEASEFIRE IS NOW IN EFFECT. PLEASE DO NOT VIOLATE IT!” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
The rally represents a relief following the seeming resolution of a crisis that sent crypto markets tumbling over the weekend when U.S. forces joined Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
However, questions remain over whether the ceasefire will hold, with Israel declaring that Iran had launched missiles mere hours after Trump’s announcement, and vowing to “respond with force.” Tehran, for its part, denied that it had fired upon Israel, and warned that “any further aggression will be met with a decisive, firm, and timely response by Iran.”
Ganesh Mahidhar, Investment Professional at Further Ventures, anticipated further volatility in the coming days. “In the midst of three very unpredictable heads of governments, the markets are only going to be playing ping pong,” he told Decrypt. The key takeaway, he added, was Bitcoin’s “resilience” in the face of geopolitical developments, pointing to “the continued dominance of the asset despite risk assets going up and down like meme stocks.”
Altcoins surge
For the time being, altcoin prices are up following Trump’s ceasefire announcement.
Sui (SUI) led the surge with a 11.8% jump to $2.80, while Chainlink (LINK) gained 9.7% to $13.04 and Avalanche (AVAX) climbed 5.6% to $18.04, in the last 24 hours.
Solana (SOL) rose 7.4% to $144.14, while XRP (XRP) gained 7.8% to $2.18 and Dogecoin (DOGE) jumped 6.5% to $0.1634, as per CoinGecko data.
Ethereum (ETH) is up by 6.3% to $2,402, and Cardano (ADA) climbed 6% to $0.5799, akin to Monday’s rally.
Market experts attributed the surge directly to the ceasefire announcement, pointing to crypto’s sensitivity to major geopolitical developments.
“While other factors may be at play, the bulk of today’s price movement appears to have been driven by the Iran-Israel ceasefire news,” Min Jung, an analyst at Presto Labs, told Decrypt. “The sharp recovery occurred during early Asia hours, which aligns closely with the timing of the announcement.”
“This represents a textbook example of how quickly crypto markets respond to major geopolitical developments,” Annu Shekhawat, global ecosystem lead at Avail, told Decrypt.
Asia-Pacific markets rallied on the ceasefire announcement, South Korea’s Kospi surged 2.8%, Japan’s Nikkei 225 climbed 1.3%, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 1.8%.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin (BTC) led the crypto recovery, surging 3.1% to top $105,000 and nearly fully recovering to pre-weekend levels.
The world’s largest crypto had fallen below the psychologically important $100,000 level on Sunday before staging its comeback.
Ganesh Mahidhar, Investment Professional at Further Ventures, told Decrypt that “we will see a lot of the pairs fluctuate this week,” due to market volatility.
He pointed to policy and liquidity drivers, saying “on the background of the GENIUS Act and promise of new infusion of capital into all crypto pairs, market is looking for a reason to be up.”
In the short term, Mahidhar said, “that is geopolitical stability,” while longer-term gains depend on “reduced inflation, reducing interest rates, and increasing adoption of stables.”
The sequence of events began over the weekend when U.S. and Israeli forces targeted Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan using more than 125 aircraft.
Iran retaliated Monday by striking Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the largest U.S. military installation in the region, in an operation dubbed “Besharat al-Faith.”
While Qatari officials reported all incoming missiles were neutralized with no casualties, the escalation had kept markets on edge until Trump’s ceasefire announcement.
