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NEAR $4.39 -2.97%For a few days this week, the price of a barrel of oil was the most reliable guide to where Bitcoin was heading. When crude eased early in the week, Bitcoin climbed back above $82,000. When oil surged late in the week, ETF flows turned negative. Bitcoin finishes at $80,408, down 1.6% on the week, and Ether at $2,335, down 3.1%. Beneath the swings, corporate treasuries kept accumulating, and the industry kept counting new security breaches.
Oil Down, Oil Up
The week started well. Investing.com had Bitcoin up 1% early in the week as risk appetite returned, though it noted that elevated oil prices limited the gains. Bloomberg tied the move above $82,000 directly to oil's retreat. By Tuesday Bitcoin was above $83,000, and on Wednesday it was helped by strong US earnings, as ET Crypto reported.
Glassnode offered a note of caution. The analytics firm identified $87,700 as the key level. On Thursday, reports suggested the rally had stalled despite ETF inflows. Commentators could not agree on what came next. Finbold laid out the case for downside risk, while CryptoQuant's chief executive pointed to a positive signal in the same inflows. Bitcoin Magazine, meanwhile, argued that a SpaceX-Tesla combination could bring more Bitcoin exposure into the S&P 500 through passive funds.
Then oil turned. On Friday, Cointelegraph reported that Brent crude had hit its highest level since March and that Bitcoin was looking for support above $81,000. Bitcoin Magazine counted more than $635 million in ETF outflows in a single day.
Oil and ETF flows made headlines side by side this week, though no clear link between them has been established.
The pressure continued into the weekend. Nigeria's Bonny Light crude reached $115 as attacks in the Strait of Hormuz increased. Crypto Briefing reported that an Apollo economist was warning the AI boom may be unsustainable as stocks fell.
The Buyers Did Not Blink
Strategy stayed busy all week. Coindoo noted that it was buying back its own stock faster than it was buying Bitcoin. The company's weekly update confirmed both more Bitcoin and repurchases of preferred shares, bringing its reserve to 848,250 BTC worth $69.45 billion, and Michael Saylor hinted that more purchases were coming. Strive added $335 million in Bitcoin to reach 36,818 BTC. El Salvador's reserve passed 7,800 coins despite IMF limits. On the Ether side, Bitmine's treasury topped 6 million ETH, and SharpLink split $400 million between Lido and Ether.fi.
New products kept arriving too. Thailand's Bitcoin and Ether ETF rules took effect. Circle Gateway added cirBTC and EURC balances, and US Bank's Stellar stablecoin entered a live US-EU cross-border pilot. The Ethereum Foundation postponed its Glamsterdam upgrade.
The ledger was also active. About $1.2 billion in BNB went from an unlabelled address to a dead address, and roughly $1.09 billion in BTC moved from Trade Republic to an unlabelled address. Another $497 million in WBTC left Morpho Blue, and $195 million in ETH flowed out of Binance.
Halted Chains, Disputed Breaches
Security problems surfaced throughout the week. Qubic halted its network after a $1.3 million wallet drain, and a bridge exploit minted 10 million tokens without a single deposit. Blockaid found that issuer blacklists had recovered nothing across 60 exploits. Blockchain investigators told Protos that CoinDCX was not telling the truth about a $16 million hack. Initia halted its chain after an exploit reportedly drained more than $2.6 million. Coinkite now faces a proposed class action over a hack, and proceeds from the X100 exploit were split into four 400-ETH wallets. Austin Griffith showed how quickly bots can drain weak Ethereum keys.
The new week opens with the Iran question unresolved and oil still setting the tone.
