At the moment, geopolitics is top of mind for investors and almost nothing else matters to the markets. Whether you put money into the stock market, real estate, bonds or cryptocurrencies, you almost certainly check the worldwide news section of the newspaper very first thing every morning – hoping against hope for excellent news, especially regarding the US-Israel war against Iran.
Unfortunately, for the reason that last edition of this column was written, the war has only gotten worse. The US and Israel are continuing their attacks on targets in Iran, while Iran continues to focus on several Gulf states with US military bases, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and others. Aside from a number of (sometimes contradictory) tweets from President Trump, there may be currently little sign that this war will subside as quickly as we had hoped.
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What does the Iran war must do with Bitcoin (BTC)?
You could also be wondering what a war being fought 1000’s of miles away has to do with BTC and crypto investors in Canada. Unfortunately the reply is every part.
The war led to higher crude oil prices. This could likely result in higher inflation and subsequently higher rates of interest. In fact, in its most up-to-date rate of interest announcement on March 18, the Bank of Canada (BoC) kept rates of interest stable and struck a cautious tone given the inflation potential of the Iran War. The final result? A detrimental impact on growth assets, including stocks and cryptocurrencies.
As the chart below shows, for the reason that current Iran War began on February 28, 2026, the worth of crude oil has risen from about $67 to over $100 (all figures in US dollars unless otherwise noted).
Source: Google Finance on March 29, 2026
The price of crude oil has risen by about 50% in only 30 days. That’s bad enough, but when the situation within the Middle East doesn’t calm down soon, oil prices could potentially rise to $150 or more. No wonder investors are cautious and, frankly, somewhat scared.
How has BTC performed in comparison with other assets for the reason that start of the war?
In the gloom and doom of the present market, here is an encouraging data point for BTC investors: Since the beginning of the Iran War a month ago, BTC has remained kind of flat (up 2.56% as I write this on the morning of March 31, 2026). This is significantly better than the performance of the S&P 500 (down 7.82%), the S&P/TSX 60 (down 6.25%) and gold (down 15.39%).
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Source: Google Finance on March 31, 2026
Does this mean BTC will proceed to outperform other asset classes? Not necessarily. Markets are cyclical and BTC could have performed higher last month just because it has been a laggard since October 2025. In other words, BTC was likely oversold even before the war began.
A positive sign for BTC investors: ETF inflows are turning positive
Even though the geopolitical news is bleak, there may be a vivid spot for BTC investors: we’re seeing some significant buying in Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) within the US.
As the chart below shows, BTC ETFs have experienced net outflows since October 2025, as indicated by the red bars at the underside right of the chart; However, there have been clear green bars in February and March 2026, indicating renewed institutional interest in BTC. It stays to be seen whether this trend will proceed.
Source: Glass knot on March 29, 2026.
Another approach to get a glimpse of the identical story is thru the online flows of the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT), the most important BTC spot ETF on the planet. Each bar below represents one week’s net IBIT flows over the past 12 months.
Source: Coinmarketcap As of: March 31, 2026.
As the chart above shows, the image has been pretty bleak since around October 2025, with most weeks seeing a net outflow of funds from the ETF. In other words, investors withdrew extra money from IBIT than they invested in it. However, as a welcome change to this negative trend, we are able to see 4 consecutive positive weeks in February and March of this 12 months on the far right of the chart. This could mean that institutional investors find BTC attractive at $60,000 to $70,000.
