Major tokens snapped back on Tuesday as ceasefire optimism rippled through risk markets.
Ether reclaimed $2,029, up 2.6% over the past 24 hours and back above the $2,000 level that has served as a psychological pivot for weeks. Solana led the recovery at 2.9% to $85.67. BNB added 2.6% to $639. XRP gained 1.7% to $1.37. Dogecoin lagged at just 1% and remains down 1.4% on the week, continuing to underperform the broader market on every bounce.
The catalyst was U.S. president Donald Trump telling reporters late Monday that the Iran conflict would resolve “very soon” and that U.S. military objectives were “pretty well complete.” Asian equities surged 2% after Monday’s 3.7% plunge. Tech stocks in the MSCI Asia Pacific index jumped 3.5%. Oil fell from Monday’s spike above $100.
Analysts at Nansen said in an email that crypto had “already absorbed the negatives and priced them in,” arguing the market was responding to headlines rather than broader macro deterioration.
The institutional flow data supports that read. CoinShares reported $619 million in crypto fund inflows for the week ending Friday, with $521 million going to bitcoin products and total AUM reaching $108.3 billion.
That capital came in during a week where the S&P lost $1 trillion in a single session and the economy shed 92,000 jobs. “Spot Bitcoin ETFs continue to attract capital even as price weakens, which suggests institutional allocators are treating this as a tactical entry rather than capitulation,” said Ryan Kirkley, co-founder and CEO of Global Settlement, in an email to CoinDesk.
Ethereum’s position above $2,000 is the one to watch this week. The second-largest cryptocurrency has been fighting to hold that level since late February, and FxPro analysts flagged $2,500 and the 200-week moving average as the zone that would confirm a genuine recovery rather than a series of dead cat bounces. The gap between $2,000 and $2,500 is where the narrative shifts from “surviving the drawdown” to “starting a new trend.”
For solana, the recovery has been structurally weaker. SOL remains down roughly 55% from its cycle highs and has underperformed ether on every major bounce since the October crash.
The memecoin economy that fueled solana’s 2024 rally has evaporated, and without that speculative engine the token is trading more on macro sentiment than ecosystem activity.
XRP has been the most range-bound of the majors, hovering between $1.30 and $1.45 for most of March. ETF inflows have been positive and the legal clarity from Ripple’s settlement should be a tailwind, but the token has failed to decouple from broader market direction.
The Fed meeting on March 17-18 looms as the next real test.
Global Settlement’s Kirkley noted that the 90-day correlation between bitcoin and the S&P 500 has climbed to 0.78, one of the highest readings since mid-2022. When bitcoin trades in lockstep with equities, altcoins amplify every move in both directions.
A hawkish dot plot or any hint that rate hikes are back on the table would hit the higher-beta end of crypto hardest.