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Matt Hogan, chief investment officer at Bitwise, said the U.S. crackdown on Iran exposed the growing role of digital currencies and blockchain-based markets in determining global prices, especially with traditional markets closed.
US President Donald Trump announced the strike on the morning of Saturday, February 28, 2026, when US, European and Asian markets were all out of trading hours, leaving the digital currency platform the only major market available for trading and gauging investor reaction.
Hogan explained that the cryptocurrency market reacted immediately to these events, leading the global trading movement while the traditional financial system remained at a standstill.
The decentralized trading platform Hyperliquid was one of the first to reflect the market reaction, with its associated perpetual oil contracts seeing significant activity over the weekend.
The price of the “HYPE” currency has also increased by about 30% during this period, which shows how quickly the digital currency reacts to geopolitical tensions.
Other assets have also seen notable activity, most notably tokenized gold such as Tether-owned “XAUT,” which has a 24-hour trading volume of over $300 million.
There has also been an increase in activity in digital currency predictions and futures markets as traders try to digest the rapid development of digital currencies.
At the same time, data from a blockchain analysis company showed that capital outflows from Iranian trading platforms increased sharply, with millions of dollars in digital currencies flowing out of accounts in a short period of time after news of the strike broke.
Hogan believes that these events may prompt financial institutions to pay more attention to blockchain-based market infrastructure such as stable wallets and decentralized trading platforms, as ignoring them may leave them in a weak position in a market that operates around the clock and reacts immediately to global news.
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