Trading Moment: Analysts generally believe that BTC will fluctuate downwards. Will Brent crude oil futures be able to close the $32 futures-spot price spread next week?

Daily market data review and trend analysis, produced by PANews.

Macro Market

With the Strait of Hormuz blocked for over a month , Trump declared an "overwhelming victory" over Iran in a national televised address and threatened to "bomb Iran back to the Stone Age" within two to three weeks. This tough stance instantly shattered expectations of a ceasefire, and the global physical oil market suffered its most severe shock in 18 years . The International Energy Agency stated bluntly that this was "the most severe supply shock in the history of the oil market."

Spot Brent crude oil prices surged to $141.37 per barrel, a new high since 2008, far exceeding the Brent futures price of $109, a difference of $32. Financial markets attempted to bet on a ceasefire or return to normalcy through futures trading, but a "buying frenzy" has already emerged in the real market. Analysts believe that if the conflict escalates over the weekend, crude oil futures prices may "converge with spot prices" next week, potentially opening sharply higher and rising rapidly. Baird market strategist Michael Antonelli believes that the October oil price of $82 suggests the market is betting the crisis will end before autumn.

Faced with domestic gasoline prices soaring to $4 per gallon, Trump reassured the public that the U.S. has ample gasoline supplies and confidently stated that "the Strait will open naturally." However, French President Macron refuted this, saying that the idea of forcibly opening the Strait by force was highly unrealistic. Abdulaziz Sager, president of the Gulf Studies Center, also emphasized that a ceasefire must address Iran's ability to control the Strait. The Kobeissi Letter went even further, warning that if high oil prices persist for two months, the U.S. inflation rate could surge to 3.6%.

Friday is Good Friday, and stock markets in Europe and the US are closed. Gold, silver, and oil will not trade all day . However, the March non-farm payroll report will still be released as scheduled at 8:30 PM tonight , with Wall Street expecting an increase of 57,000 jobs. Due to the market closure, this data will not be available for trading today, and investors will have to endure the weekend and wait for Monday's market opening to digest the data.

AI and the Stock Market

Amid the shadow of war, US stocks experienced a rollercoaster ride, but reversed their decline on news that Iran and Oman were drafting a passage agreement for the Straits of Hormuz. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 0.13%, the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.18%, and the S&P 500 gained 0.11%. Notably, all three major indexes closed higher for the first time since the US-Iran conflict began. Goldman Sachs' Chris Hussey pointed out that the rebound was entirely driven by news of downgrade expectations, and the global economy is far from safe.

Brendan Fagan of Bloomberg added that the S&P 500's encounter with resistance at 6601 points was no accident, but rather a result of heavy negative gamma positions held by options market makers suppressing upward momentum. Meanwhile, Cameron Crise of Bloomberg believes that the unclear details of the Iran tariff agreement make both high oil prices and a stock market decline equally unacceptable to the White House.

Amidst current macroeconomic uncertainties, tech giants are showing divergent trends, with computing power demand and transformation pressures becoming the main themes in the AI sector. Nvidia, a computing power giant, is once again leading the market with its H100 chip released four years ago, its leasing fees surging nearly 40% in six months, driving its stock price up nearly 1% against the trend. Intel rose nearly 5% , and AMD rose over 3%. In contrast, ARM and ASML's stock prices fell over 3%, while Lam Research and Applied Materials also declined by more than 1% each.

Tesla's stock price plummeted by over 5% after first-quarter deliveries fell to only 358,000 vehicles, a decline both year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter, marking the second consecutive quarter below expectations. Meanwhile, shares of Globalstar , a low-Earth orbit (LEO) communications satellite company, surged 13% on rumors that Amazon was in talks for a $9 billion acquisition, attempting to challenge SpaceX's Starlink in the LEO satellite field.

Bitcoin price

Bitcoin has been forced to retreat under the dual pressure of macroeconomic geopolitics and institutional selling, with its price falling below the $66,000 mark yesterday. Market data shows that a staggering 44% (approximately 8.8 million Bitcoins, worth $598.7 billion) of the circulating supply is currently in an unrealized loss-making state, with spot demand extremely shrunk, and apparent demand dropping to -1,623 Bitcoins. Meanwhile, the Coinbase premium index has remained negative since March 19th to April 2nd, indicating that US investors have not yet returned to the market on a large scale. In the options market, traders have been frantically buying put options in the $68,000 to $50,000 range, creating a dangerous "negative Gamma" zone, and funding rates have also fallen into deep negative territory. At the same time, institutions led by MARA (which sold $1.1 billion in BTC), Riot (which sold nearly $300 million in BTC in Q1), and Empire Digital (which sold $123 million in BTC), as well as the Bhutanese government, have been selling Bitcoin to repay debts or for business transformation, while MicroStrategy and Metaplanet are trying to absorb some of the selling pressure.

Bearish view

The bears believe that the deterioration of on-chain data, the depletion of spot demand, and the hedging behavior of options market makers will trigger a stampede of consecutive declines, and the market has not yet bottomed out.

KillaXBT: I've held a short position for 29 days, with a target below $60,000. In the short term, BTC will likely consolidate around recent highs or lows, and the market may remain volatile for another 1-2 months. The bottom is expected to form between $45,000 and $56,000 between July and September.
ArdiNSC: Price increases but declining open interest indicate a lack of new capital inflows, suggesting purely short-covering pressure. The Whale indicator has been negative since December, indicating another market downturn is inevitable.
Crypto Seth: Whales are using news of the conflict with Iran to dump shares and liquidate long positions, with short leverage increasing above $69,000.
Aksel Kibar: The daily chart shows a bearish rising wedge pattern. Once it breaks below the lower trendline, the price could drop directly to $52,500.
Glassnode: A large amount of negative Gamma exposure has accumulated below $68,000. A drop into this area would trigger accelerated selling by market makers, potentially pushing prices back to $60,000. The current 44% supply loss is remarkably similar to the bear market structure of Q2 2022.
CryptoQuant: The demand contraction since late November 2025 confirms that the market is still in the distribution phase, and selling pressure from US retail investors persists.
Murphy: The intersection of the on-chain average turnover cost for 1-3 month and 1-2 year holders marks the official entry of Bitcoin into the latter half of a bear market starting April 2, 2026. The $75,000 to $80,000 range is like a "cursed" fault line; the next time this gap is filled will be the starting point of a new bull market.
Ali Charts: Based on the historical crossover of the 50-day and 200-day moving averages, the market may experience a 40%-50% pullback reset.

bullish view

Many believe that the current decline is merely the final shakeout amidst macroeconomic panic, key support levels remain effective, and the long-term fundamentals have not changed.

LP_NXT: The liquidity in the $68,000-$69,000 range has been cleared on a larger timeframe. If the price retraces to the $64,000 area of high trading volume, it will provide an excellent bullish setup for a smaller timeframe.
TurboBullCapital: The $66,000 support level remains solid, and as long as this level holds, the target will continue to be $71,000.
Grayscale: Geopolitical and oil price shocks have investors on the sidelines for now, but cryptocurrency valuations are resilient, and structural adoption trends such as the growth in stablecoin supply (reaching $315 billion) will drive the next round of growth. The current environment presents a good entry point for long-term investors.
Pantera founder: Although Bitcoin still needs 6 to 8 months to bottom out, it has already reached escape velocity.

Ethereum price quotes

Ethereum's outlook is equally pessimistic, with the price plunging 4.4% to around $2050. If the bulls fail to hold the upward trend line, market focus will quickly shift to the $1900 liquidity zone. A break below this level would put ETH at risk of falling below $1736 and hitting a new low for 2026.

The dramatic fluctuations in macroeconomic events directly dominated Ethereum's price action. Within just one hour of Trump's hawkish remarks, Ethereum futures sell-offs on Binance surged by $1 billion. Funding rates fell to their most negative level since October of last year, indicating that traders are heavily betting on shorting. Currently, Ethereum has encountered strong resistance at $2150 as many as seven times, while $2400 remains a formidable barrier for bulls. The liquidation heatmap shows approximately $2.4 billion in long liquidations around $1845, and $1.7 billion in short liquidations around $2255. Although implied volatility remains stable, block trades indicate that demand for Ethereum straddles and put spreads remains strong.

Key data (as of 13:00 HKT, April 3)

(Data source: CoinAnk, Upbit, SoSoValue, CryptoBubbles)

Bitcoin ETF: +8.9926 million USD
Ethereum ETF: -$71,168,800
Fear of Greed Index: 9 (Extreme Fear)
Upbit 24-hour trading volume rankings: XRP, BTC, ONT, ETH, XPL
Sector Performance: The crypto market sector continued its pullback, with the NFT sector falling nearly 4%.

24-hour liquidation data: A total of 121,570 people worldwide were liquidated, with a total liquidation amount of $254 million, including $48.85 million in BTC liquidations, $28.46 million in ETH liquidations, and $29.09 million in XPL liquidations.

Today's Outlook

Binance will launch QQQ, SPY, AAPL, and TSM U-based perpetual contracts on April 6th.
US March unemployment rate: expected 4.4%, previous value 4.4% (April 3, 20:30)
US March Non-Farm Payrolls Change (in thousands): Expected 65,000, Previous -92,000 (April 3, 20:30)
US stock markets are closed on Good Friday (April 3).
Opinion (OPN) will unlock approximately 32.09 million tokens, worth about $6.1 million, on April 5th.

The top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization with the largest gains today are: Algorand up 17.8%, Render up 11.2%, Quant up 8.1%, Cosmos up 6.1%, and Pepe up 4.7%.