Bitcoin Price Forecast: BTC-USD Crashes Below $64K After U.S.-Israel Strikes on Iran — $60K Support Now in Play

Bitcoin Price Forecast: BTC Crashes Below $64,000 After U.S.-Israel Strikes on Iran — $60,000 Support Now in Play

Saturday, February 28, 2026 | TradingNews.com

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) is trading at approximately $63,956 on Saturday afternoon, down roughly 4% in a single session, after the United States and Israel launched coordinated military strikes against Iranian targets overnight. The session range has been violent — from a low of $63,177 to a high of $66,751 — and there is no indication that the selling pressure is finished. Crypto markets shed an estimated $128 billion in value within minutes of the first strike confirmations, according to CoinGecko. Ethereum (ETH-USD) dropped nearly 6% to $1,864. Solana (SOL-USD) fell 2.5%. The entire digital asset complex is bleeding, and with traditional equity and bond markets closed until Monday, crypto is absorbing the full force of global risk repricing in real time.

This is not an isolated weekend dip. BTC-USD has now fallen more than 50% from its all-time high of approximately $125,000–$126,000 set in October 2025. February alone has delivered a nearly 17% decline, putting Bitcoin on pace for its fifth consecutive losing month. The token closed Friday at $65,399, already down 3.08% before the Iran headlines broke. What was already a brutal downtrend just got significantly worse.

The Iran Strikes — What Happened and Why BTC-USD Reacted Instantly

On Saturday, reports confirmed that the United States and Israel conducted joint military strikes against Iran. Explosions were heard in Tehran. Iran retaliated with missile and drone attacks, hitting a U.S. Fifth Fleet service center in Bahrain. Qatar intercepted incoming projectiles. Critically, explosions were reported near Kharg Island — the hub responsible for the vast majority of Iranian oil exports. The scope and severity of the retaliation suggest this is not a contained, single-round exchange.

Bitcoin's response was immediate and mechanical. Crypto trades 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When geopolitical shocks land on a Saturday, there is no equity market or Treasury market to absorb the initial wave of selling. Digital assets become the only venue where institutional risk desks can reduce exposure, raise dollars, and cut leverage. That is exactly what happened. BTC-USD functioned not as a hedge — not as "digital gold" — but as a funding asset: something liquid enough to be sold globally, at any hour, with minimal friction.

The pattern is now well-established in 2026. When macro policy or geopolitical conditions turn unstable, Bitcoin stops behaving like a long-term store of value and starts behaving like a balance sheet tool — the first thing that gets liquidated when desks need cash. Court rulings, CPI prints, tariff shocks, rate surprises, military strikes — the trigger varies, but the mechanism is identical. Bitcoin sits inside portfolios that treat it as a liquid risk asset, and its derivatives market allows large players to reduce exposure faster than in almost any other instrument.

The Supreme Court Tariff Ruling — A $175 Billion Shock That Already Broke BTC-USD's Structure

The Iran strikes landed on an already fractured market. Eight days earlier, on February 20, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down President Trump's emergency tariffs imposed under IEEPA, ruling that the statute does not authorize a president to levy tariffs. The decision immediately raised a refund question worth more than $175 billion in tariff collections — with no mechanism, no timeline, and no clarity on who gets paid, when, or how.

Bitcoin dropped nearly 5% on that ruling alone, sliding to $64,000. U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced it would stop collecting the invalidated tariffs and deactivate the related codes effective 12:01 a.m. Eastern on the following Tuesday. Three inputs hit the market in rapid succession: a legal constraint on executive tariff authority, a $175 billion-scale refund liability of unknown duration, and an abrupt shift in border collection mechanics. Risk desks responded by doing what they always do — selling the most liquid asset first. Bitcoin was at the top of that list.

Then Trump bypassed the Supreme Court entirely, announcing a new 15% tariff spike that sent BTC-USD flash-crashing below $65,000 during thin weekend liquidity. The whiplash was extraordinary. One source described roughly $100 billion in tariff-related market dislocation within a 48-hour window. Forced liquidations in crypto derivatives compounded the selling. Options markets responded by pricing $60,000 put strikes — a level that, just weeks earlier, would have seemed absurdly bearish.

The second-order effects of the tariff uncertainty are still rippling through corporate planning, working capital management, and the broader risk mood. Companies are already preparing refund claims through the Court of International Trade, with some selling potential refund rights to investors. That kind of prolonged legal uncertainty pushes portfolios toward cash and short duration — and away from assets like BTC-USD that carry volatility without yield.

Prediction Markets Say $150,000 Is a 10% Probability — And $20,000 Is Equally Likely

Polymarket traders are currently assigning Bitcoin a 10% chance of reaching $150,000 by year-end. That is remarkably low by any historical standard. For context, just twelve months ago the consensus view was that BTC would double from $100,000 to $200,000 by the end of 2025. Even in late 2025, price targets of $150,000 to $200,000 were commonplace among major research desks.

The prediction market numbers are striking in their symmetry. There is a 10% chance Bitcoin hits $150,000 — and an equal 10% chance it falls to $20,000. The odds of reclaiming the October all-time high of $126,000 sit at roughly 22% for $120,000 and 19% for $130,000. In other words, the market assigns approximately a 1-in-5 probability that BTC simply returns to where it was four months ago.

At the current price of approximately $64,000, Bitcoin sits 46% below its all-time high. Four months of sustained selling pressure have destroyed the narrative momentum that powered the 2024–2025 rally. The halving cycle, the spot ETF approvals, the pro-crypto White House — none of it has been sufficient to arrest the decline once the macro environment turned hostile.

The Political Bull Case — Midterms, the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, and Cathie Wood's Thesis

The strongest remaining bull argument for BTC-USD is political. U.S. midterm elections arrive in November 2026, and Republicans — facing potential losses in the House and Senate — have every incentive to engineer a market recovery. The Trump administration campaigned on a pro-crypto platform, and if Bitcoin continues to slide, the entire "Bitcoin superpower" policy framework looks increasingly disconnected from reality.

Cathie Wood of Ark Invest has argued publicly that Bitcoin and crypto will become a highly charged political issue as the midterms approach. Her thesis centers on the U.S. government initiating active purchases of Bitcoin for the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve — a move that, if executed at scale, could fundamentally alter the supply-demand dynamics. If the federal government becomes a consistent buyer of BTC-USD, the price impact would be substantial, particularly in a market where selling has already been heavy and positioning is overwhelmingly short.

The political argument has merit, but timing is the problem. The midterms are eight months away. Between now and November, Bitcoin has to survive an active military conflict with Iran, a private credit crisis threatening to infect the banking system, rising unemployment risk, and a Supreme Court-driven tariff refund mess that could drag through the courts for years. Political tailwinds mean nothing if the price hits $40,000 before Washington gets around to buying.

Institutional Flows — $254 Million in ETF Inflows Amid $128 Billion in Market Losses

Thursday's spot Bitcoin ETF data showed $254 million in net inflows — a number that, under normal circumstances, would be constructive. These flows followed what had been described as a "brutal outflow streak" earlier in February, and some analysts pointed to the reversal as setting up the clearest path back toward $90,000.

That optimism lasted roughly 36 hours before the Iran strikes vaporized it. The $254 million in ETF inflows is a rounding error against $128 billion in crypto market capitalization wiped out in a single session. The structural point remains valid — institutional flows into spot ETFs provide a buffer that did not exist in prior cycles — but that buffer is not large enough to absorb geopolitical shocks of this magnitude.

Bitcoin miner MARA Holdings gained nearly 6% on Friday after announcing a deal with Starwood Capital to convert certain mining sites into AI-focused data centers. The move reflects a broader trend of Bitcoin miners pivoting toward AI infrastructure as mining economics deteriorate. It is a rational business decision, but it also signals that the mining industry itself does not have full conviction in near-term BTC price recovery.

Gold and Bitcoin — The Divergence That Tells the Whole Story

Gold futures closed February at $5,230.50 per troy ounce — an 11% monthly gain, the largest since January 2012. Gold is 1.7% from its all-time high. Bitcoin is 50% below its all-time high. The divergence is the most important chart in digital assets right now.

For years, Bitcoin proponents marketed BTC-USD as "digital gold" — an alternative store of value independent of traditional financial systems. The 2026 data has demolished that thesis. Gold rallied on dollar weakness, inflation hedging, and geopolitical fear. Bitcoin sold off on every single one of those catalysts. When markets wanted safety, they bought gold. When they needed liquidity, they sold Bitcoin. The two assets are not moving in the same direction, and they are not serving the same function.

Gold instruments do not trade over the weekend, so Sunday night's Asian session open will provide the first read on how gold responds to the Iran strikes. Historical precedent strongly suggests a gap higher — possibly above previous records. If gold pushes through $5,450 while Bitcoin is struggling to hold $64,000, the narrative gap between the two "stores of value" widens into a chasm.

Oil Supply Risk — OPEC+ Meets Sunday, Brent Could Hit $80

The Iran conflict introduces a direct supply threat to crude oil markets. Brent crude finished Friday at $72.48, up 2% on the day. Barclays has flagged a potential jump to approximately $80 per barrel if the strikes genuinely disrupt Iranian export capacity. The explosions reported near Kharg Island — Iran's primary oil export terminal — make that scenario significantly more probable.

OPEC+ is scheduled to meet Sunday at 1100 GMT, with sources indicating the group could weigh a larger-than-planned output increase in direct response to the strike. If OPEC+ steps in with additional supply, that could cap the oil price spike and limit the inflationary impulse. If they hold steady, $80 Brent becomes the base case for early March, with knock-on effects for inflation expectations, rate cut timelines, and risk appetite across every asset class including crypto.

Higher oil prices are unambiguously negative for BTC-USD. They feed inflation, which delays rate cuts, which strengthens the dollar, which pressures risk assets. The Federal Reserve cannot ease monetary policy if energy costs are spiking — and without rate cuts, the liquidity expansion that Bitcoin bulls have been counting on does not arrive.

The Broader Crypto Landscape — Altcoins, DeFi, and the "Year of Verification"

Ethereum (ETH-USD) at $1,864 is deep in its own correction, weighed down by the same risk-off dynamics hitting Bitcoin. The network is pursuing ambitious upgrades — the Glamsterdam and Hegotá hard forks — focused on scaling, native account abstraction, and post-quantum security research. The DeFi total value locked globally exceeds $210 billion. Real-world asset tokenization is accelerating, with U.S. Treasuries as the dominant category. Decentralized exchange volumes are projected to approach 50% of centralized exchange volumes by year-end.

None of that fundamental progress matters in a weekend session dominated by missile strikes and forced liquidations. The altcoin landscape is a leveraged beta on Bitcoin — when BTC drops 4%, ETH drops 6%, and everything else drops more. The structural improvements in DeFi, L2 scaling, and RWA tokenization create a floor for the next cycle, but they do not prevent the current drawdown from deepening.

Stablecoin regulation has advanced significantly, with the GENIUS Act in the United States requiring 100% reserve backing and transparency. Europe's MiCA framework is fully implemented. The regulatory environment is the most favorable it has ever been for digital assets — and yet prices keep falling. That disconnect between improving fundamentals and deteriorating price action is the central tension of the 2026 crypto market.

Smaller Tokens — FOGO and the Altcoin Graveyard

Tokens like Fogo (FOGO) illustrate what happens at the margins of the crypto market during a sustained drawdown. FOGO trades at approximately $0.0237, down 57% from its all-time high of roughly $0.053 set in January 2026. Market cap sits around $83 million with a circulating supply of 3.78 billion tokens against a total supply of 9.96 billion — just 37% circulation. Daily volume is running at approximately $15–$25 million. Technical signals across 4-hour, daily, and weekly timeframes are uniformly bearish: sell across every rating.

FOGO is a Layer-1 blockchain project marketed for high-speed, low-latency on-chain trading. In the current environment, small-cap Layer-1 tokens with sub-40% circulation rates and declining technical signals are among the highest-risk positions in the digital asset universe. The project may have long-term merit, but the timing is catastrophic. Verdict: sell. There is no reason to hold a small-cap altcoin with bearish technicals during a macro regime defined by military conflict, credit stress, and accelerating institutional outflows from risk assets.

Key Support Levels — Where BTC-USD Goes From Here

The immediate technical picture for Bitcoin is defined by a handful of levels. The $64,000 zone — which served as support after both the Supreme Court tariff ruling and the initial flash crash — has now been broken on an intraday basis, with the session low touching $63,177. If $63,000 fails to hold, the $60,000 round number becomes the next line of defense. That is where BTC bounced after the last major dip, and options positioning is clustered around $60,000 puts.

Below $60,000, the picture deteriorates significantly. One price prediction model that correctly timed the last two major market tops projects a potential bottom at $35,000 by December 2026. That feels extreme from current levels, but a 45% decline from $64,000 is not unprecedented in Bitcoin's history — it is, in fact, typical of bear market drawdowns.

On the upside, the path back to six figures requires several things to happen simultaneously: the Iran conflict must de-escalate rapidly, the labor market must hold steady (the February jobs report arrives March 6), the private credit crisis must remain contained, and institutional ETF flows must resume at a pace that overwhelms the selling pressure. That is a lot of conditions that all need to break favorably.

The Verdict — BTC-USD: Bearish, With a $60,000 Near-Term Target

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) at $63,956 is a sell in the near term and a cautious hold for long-term conviction holders who can stomach another 15–20% drawdown.

The bear case is dominant. A 50% decline from the all-time high. Five consecutive losing months. A military conflict with Iran that is actively escalating. A $175 billion tariff refund crisis with no resolution timeline. A private credit bubble with potential 15% default rates threatening the banking system. Prediction markets assigning just 10% odds to $150,000 and equal odds to $20,000. Gold outperforming Bitcoin by more than 60 percentage points since October. Every technical signal on every timeframe flashing sell.

The bull case exists but requires patience and pain tolerance. Institutional ETF infrastructure is real and provides structural demand that prior cycles lacked. The political incentive for the Trump administration to support Bitcoin ahead of midterms is genuine. Cathie Wood's Strategic Reserve thesis, if realized, would be a game-changer. The regulatory framework has never been more favorable. And $60,000 has proven to be strong support.

The near-term path is lower. $60,000 is the target. If that level breaks, $50,000–$55,000 becomes the range. If it holds and the geopolitical picture stabilizes, a relief rally back toward $70,000–$75,000 is possible by late March — but it would take a rapid de-escalation in Iran, a stable jobs report on March 6, and a reversal in the risk-off positioning that has dominated every trading session this month.

Monday's open will be violent. Asia will set the tone. Oil, the dollar, and ETF flow data are the three variables that matter most. The $60,000 level is the line in the sand. Everything between here and there is noise.

Gold: strong buy. The safe haven is working. BTC-USD is not.

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