Geopolitical stress is back in the market and lifting oil, yet Bitcoin traded steadily during Asian hours — outperforming both gold and stocks in what has become a recurring theme through August.Oil rose on both sides of the Atlantic after the US attacked an Iranian island in the Strait of Hormuz, a major tanker route disrupted since the conflict began six months ago. The attack drew retaliatory action from Iran.WTI crude futures jumped nearly 2% to $85.10, with Brent rising 1.9% to $92.39, per TradingView. Gold fell 0.8% to $4,418 an ounce, and Nasdaq futures slipped 0.5% alongside losses in Asian equity markets.Bitcoin traded near $77,580, largely unchanged since midnight UTC. Other major tokens edged lower — XRP down 0.8%, Solana down 0.6%.Bitcoin Is Up 23% in August Against Gold's 9% and the Nasdaq's 4%The monthly numbers are the context that makes Monday's non-reaction meaningful. Bitcoin has surged 23% in August, roughly triple gold's 9% and nearly six times the Nasdaq's 4%.That ranking is unusual for a month defined by geopolitical escalation and a hawkish Fed. In prior episodes of this conflict, oil spikes reliably pressured Bitcoin through the inflation-to-yields-to-risk-assets chain that Fidelity's Jurrien Timmer described. Bitcoin sitting still through a direct US strike on Iranian territory, while gold falls and equities decline, is a different response than the same headline would have produced in July.The Hormuz Strike Reverses the De-escalation TradeThe attack undoes the diplomatic progress that helped drive last week's price action.Brent had eased below $90 on Friday, down more than 5% on the week, after Iran and Oman agreed terms on administering the Strait of Hormuz — the resolution markets had been pricing since mid-August. That agreement removed an energy-driven inflation shock from the table right as the Fed weighed whether it was finished hiking.Brent at $92.39 puts that back. The strait carries roughly a fifth of the world's oil and shipping had fallen to near zero earlier in the month — five vessels on one Saturday, none the following Sunday, against 31 the prior weekend.ETF Inflows and Fed Intervention Hopes Underpin the ResilienceBitcoin's outperformance is linked to strong spot ETF inflows and expectations of aggressive Fed intervention following the Treasury's bond buyback program.Spot Bitcoin ETFs pulled roughly $2.8 billion across nine consecutive sessions before a $201.9 million outflow Friday broke the run. August cleared $3 billion regardless — the strongest month of 2026 and roughly double April. Ethereum funds have extended their own streak to 12 sessions.The Treasury dimension matters as much. Secretary Bessent's buyback expansion pulled long-end yields down from multi-decade highs and weakened the dollar, cracking a six-week Bitcoin range and driving the move from roughly $62,000 to above $81,000.MUFG: Markets Price 58% for September, Roughly 1.5 Hikes by Year-EndWarsh's Friday Jackson Hole speech pushed against that backdrop. He said inflation remains insufficiently contained, argued current financial conditions are not restrictive, and added that recent improvements are not yet enough to signal meaningful progress on underlying price pressures."The speech prompted a repricing of U.S. rates," said Lloyd Chan, FX strategist at MUFG. "Markets now assign a 58% probability of a September hike and price roughly 1.5 hikes by year-end."The year-end figure is the more consequential number. A 58% September probability leaves genuine optionality — Bianco Research's Jim Bianco called it "a lean hike not a done deal," noting the Fed typically validates expectations only above 60-70%. But 1.5 hikes priced by December describes a market expecting a sustained tightening path rather than a single defensive move.Giottus Advises Staggered Entries With $79,400–$80,800 as Key ResistanceVikram Subbaraj, CEO of India-based FIU-registered exchange Giottus, urged caution on positioning."Investors should avoid aggressive leverage while macro uncertainty remains high. Staggered entries and smaller positions are preferable," he said. "Bitcoin has immediate support near $77,000. The $79,400–$80,800 range remains the key resistance zone ahead of the September 4 U.S. jobs report."That resistance zone maps closely onto the supply data. Glassnode shows nearly 8% of Bitcoin's supply was acquired between $80,000 and $82,000 — the largest concentration at any comparable range — with the US spot ETF cohort's average cost basis in the same band and the 50-week moving average at $81,081.The Bitfinex analyst team framed the current level as "a squeeze that has run into a defined population of sellers," pointing to spot demand absorbing overhead supply between $77,100 and $80,000. Subbaraj's $77,000 support sits at the floor of that zone.Friday's August payrolls report is the variable both the rate path and the resistance test turn on. July printed −23,000 with May and June revised down by a combined 103,000, and Bloomberg Chief Economist Anna Wong has argued there is no modern precedent for the Fed hiking after two consecutive negative readings.
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