📈 Bitcoin’s bounce explained

PLUS: ETF inflows surge, geopolitical fears ease, Washington signals a friendlier stance on crypto, and changing Fed expectations push BTC back toward $73K.

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Cryptopolitan News
March 05, 2026 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes

Bitcoin rebounds towards $73K, and here’s what underlies the rally.

Bitcoin’s resurgence this week has been rapid.

The world’s largest digital currency has since rocketed back toward $73,000 after dropping to about $63,000 after the weekend U.S.–Israel strikes on Iran. That level is its strongest in almost a month.

At first glance, the move appears to be a straightforward risk bounce. But several factors are converging on the rally, and they extend beyond simply traders buying the dip.

ETF money is flowing back in

The most pressing impetus is institutional interest.

Fund flow data shows that U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs collected over $680 million in the last two days. That’s among the biggest inflow spikes since January and implies that bigger investors took advantage of the geopolitical selloff to buy in.

These ETFs have emerged as the primary artery linking Wall Street capital with Bitcoin since their launch. Price tends to follow flows when they are accelerating.

This week is another illustration of that dynamic.

Markets are wagering the war won’t snowball

Bitcoin’s weekend fall came at a time when markets feared a broader regional war following the strikes against Iran.

Those worries have not gone away, but traders are more recently starting to price in a limited conflict.

Global equities have rebounded from an initial shock, and oil has stabilized around $75 a barrel. That change in risk sentiment is giving crypto space to move higher once again.

Bitcoin has historically sold off during sudden geopolitical shocks only to rebound as markets reassess.

Crypto policy momentum in Washington

Politics, too, is encroaching on the narrative.

In the United States, the Senate is gearing up to vote on President Donald Trump’s nominee for the Federal Reserve, a candidate believed to be favorable towards Bitcoin and digital assets.

Separately, Trump this week rendered a public endorsement of the crypto industry’s fight against banks over yield-bearing stablecoins.

For markets, the bottom line is clear: Washington may be headed in a more crypto-friendly direction.

Liquidity expectations are shifting again

One other less-talked-about factor is the macro backdrop.

Fresh economic data on U.S. inflation showed it cooling somewhat in the services sector. That has rekindled chatter that the Federal Reserve will eventually shift back toward easing later in the year.

Bitcoin reacts violently to changes in liquidity expectations historically. When traders think the Fed might ease policy eventually, risk assets like crypto in particular often catch a bid.

Traders had already adjusted for a rebound

Finally, positioning mattered.

The decline in bitcoin to $63,000 led to heavy liquidation in derivative markets based on leverage. After that selling pressure lifted, traders were left with a thinner order book and space for prices to snap quickly back.

Open interest has been building back up since then, implying traders are once again leaning long.

The bigger picture

Add it all up and the rally becomes less of a mystery.

ETF inflows and improving risk sentiment, along with policy momentum in Washington and shifting liquidity expectations, all converged at once.

That mix has sent Bitcoin back toward $73,000, and reminded markets that in crypto, the bounce can arrive just as quickly as the drop.

If the Middle East conflict escalates, what happens to Bitcoin?

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📊 Market Watch

🏛️ Bitcoin surges with Trump’s Fed nominee set for Senate vote

Bitcoin jumped to a four-week high as Washington gears up for a vote on Kevin Warsh, President Trump’s nominee to replace Jerome Powell as the head of the Federal Reserve.

Warsh is not your average central banker. Having spoken highly of Bitcoin in the past, it is already fueling speculation that a Warsh-led Fed might have a more open approach towards crypto and financial innovation in general.

Markets reacted quickly.

Bitcoin rose toward the $70,000 resistance level, while altcoins and crypto stocks advanced after weeks of sideways action.

But here’s the catch with that optimism.

Warsh is also considered a policy hawk on inflation, meaning that he could advocate for tighter monetary policy depending on how prices act. That is, historically tends to weigh on risk assets.

For now, traders seem to be reacting to the political rather than the monetary transition.

🤖 Anthropic revenue surges to hit $19B, even amid Pentagon conflict

In a sign of how lucrative things are for AI startups now, Anthropic disclosed it had achieved more than $19 billion in annual revenue: more than double its about $9 billion run rate as of late last year.

The boost is being fueled by interest in its AI models and developer tools, most notably Claude Code, which has experienced rapid adoption across enterprise and coding workflows.

The announcement arrives at a bizarre time.

The Trump administration has recently ordered federal agencies to stop using Anthropic tools, exacerbating a dispute between the company and the Pentagon about ai guardrails.

And yet despite that tension, some of the biggest tech companies, giants like Nvidia, Amazon and Apple, have quietly rallied around Anthropic.

A tech lobby group warned the government that designating the company a supply-chain risk could hinder access to critical American technology.

At the same time, Anthropic is on a global expansion drive, with a three-year agreement with Rwanda to introduce AI in health care and education.

🌍 Markets shrug as Israel-Iran war, costing $3B a week, burns

The Israel-Iran conflict is costing Israel nearly $3 billion a week, the country’s Finance Ministry estimates.

The economic blow results from emergency measures across the country that have kept workers at home, closed schools and called out reservists.

Despite the scale of disruption, global markets have hardly budged.

U.S. stocks opened higher, volatility dropped and investors seemed to view the war as a contained regional shock rather than a threat to the global economy.

Energy markets are less relaxed.

Oil rose above $82 a barrel, shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz are still under stress and a container ship was hit by a projectile in the region.

The more important question now is timing.

David Solomon, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, has cautioned that markets may take weeks to fully price in the actual economic damage from geopolitical shocks.

For now, investors appear to be assuming that the conflict will stay contained.

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