The missiles over Hormuz and the appointment emails in Manhattan's glass curtain walls almost simultaneously rewrote the pricing framework for encrypted assets: on one side, there was the U.S. military airstrike on Iran's Hormozgan Province on July 18, 2026, resulting in 3 deaths and 8 injuries, destroying bridges and tunnels, which prompted Iran to claim it would strike at U.S. camps and bases in Kuwait and Jordan. Reyzai publicly accused the U.S. of tearing up the already vague memorandum of understanding from 2025, declaring that the framework for de-escalation was "a mere facade." The war premium for the Strait of Hormuz, a lifeline for crude oil and refined oil, was instantly raised, forcing the market to recalculate expectations for energy and inflation, with the safe-haven dollar and Treasury bonds reclaiming the spotlight; on the other side, amidst the flames of the Middle East illuminating the oil price curve, one of the largest commercial banks in the U.S. was doubling down on the future at the board level: appointing Sonali Theisen to lead the global digital asset platform, Adam Dixon to oversee tokenized deposits, and Kevin Milsom to drive the platform's AI transformation, continuing previous experiments by JPMorgan and Citigroup in wholesale CBDC and on-chain settlements, collectively sending a signal — no matter how the flames of war disturb the cycle, Wall Street is viewing on-chain financial infrastructure as a long-term necessity. The resulting tension is: the short-term Middle Eastern conflict and Hormuz risk elevate energy and inflation expectations, strengthening the dollar as a safe-haven and risk aversion, putting pressure on high-beta assets like BTC and ETH, but in the long run, the mainstream banking system is betting on tokenization and digital assets, leading these assets, which are also priced in dollars and deeply embedded in the global trading network, to start gaining a "new anchor" from the structural demand of traditional finance, with the pricing of the crypto market being shaped by both wartime fears and Wall Street's future allocations.
The Flames of Hormuz: Energy Risk Premium Repriced
On July 18, 2026, the U.S. military carried out airstrikes in Iran's Hormozgan Province, resulting in 3 deaths, 8 injuries, and the destruction of 3 bridges and a tunnel, targeting southern infrastructure. Tehran characterized it as a "massive assault" on Iran's southern infrastructure and quickly released retaliatory signals via Iranian state television: the Iranian military had struck U.S. camps and bases in Kuwait and Jordan, with the fire of conflict spreading from Iran to the U.S. military networks stationed in the Middle East. Geographically, the conflict is closely tied to the Strait of Hormuz — a crucial choke point connecting the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the lifeline for major Middle Eastern oil-exporting countries. Historical experience tells traders that whenever tensions rise here, the implied probability of supply disruptions and shipping insurance costs will surge in tandem, and the so-called "Hormuz risk premium" will be swiftly elevated; meanwhile, the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding being described by Reyzai as "a mere facade" signifies the abandonment of the old anchor points for such premiums.
Once the energy risk premium is marked up, the market first rewrites the global inflation trajectory: higher and more uncertain oil price ranges force traders to raise their inflation expectations for the near future, thereby increasing assumptions about the endpoints and durations of nominal and real interest rates set by the Federal Reserve. The overall discount rate curve rises, putting pressure on all risk assets with "long duration," compelling higher valuation tech stocks to recalculate future cash flows using higher discount factors, and BTC and ETH, driven by narrative and liquidity, find themselves equally affected — in the early stages of the pandemic in 2020 and the initial phase of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022, they experienced sharp short-term declines alongside U.S. stocks, showcasing high volatility and high beta characteristics. Currently, the flames near Hormuz are effectively tightening the discount rates for global risk assets by half a notch, making it more likely for BTC and ETH to be viewed as risk positions that need to be cut back rather than as "digital safe havens" that can be relied upon.
Risk Aversion Selling and Digital Gold: BTC/ETH Swinging Amidst War
With oil prices and interest rate uncertainties rising due to the flames in Hormuz, BTC/ETH is being priced under two simultaneous logics: one treats them as "high beta tech assets" highly correlated to the Nasdaq, while the other still adheres to the narrative of "digital gold" and "cross-border safe haven warehouse." Which narrative prevails depends not on ideology, but on time dimension and capital constraints. In the early stages of the pandemic in 2020 and during the onset of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022, when global risk appetite plummeted, BTC sharply fell alongside U.S. stocks, indicating that during the first wave of stress testing, it was more like a risky position that needed to be cut; following that, in a high-inflation and extremely loose monetary phase, the market quickly switched scripts and elevated it to the "anti-inflation asset" table, attracting some funds to shift away from gold and fiat currency. Currently, the combination of the U.S.-Iran conflict and Hormuz risk forms a "rising oil price + uncertain inflation and interest rate path + increasing risk aversion" assault. High-leverage crypto circle funds, facing margin calls and tightened risk control limits, are forced to reduce their positions in the most liquid BTC/ETH, as the dollar and U.S. Treasury markets regain safe-haven buying interest, and a stronger dollar further compresses the positional space of dollar-denominated crypto assets. In the derivatives market, this dynamic often reflects early — the implied volatility is up, demand for puts increases, and short-term price actions are more reminiscent of "risk assets undergoing passive deleveraging" rather than proactive accumulation as safe-haven tools.
However, as the timeline extends into the mid to later stages of conflict and sanctions games, the narrative power may again tilt towards the "digital gold" side. In Middle Eastern and surrounding markets, capital controls, currency depreciation expectations, and limitations on cross-border transfers are not new stories; historically, whenever tensions rise, investors in these regions show noticeably increased interest in cross-border portable assets like BTC. Meanwhile, the U.S. and its allies have frequently included on-chain dollar-related activities under compliance reviews while implementing financial sanctions on countries like Iran and Russia, reinforcing the understanding that "fiat currency and banking systems are also part of the geopolitical risk." In such an environment, some institutions and high-net-worth funds have begun treating BTC as a configuration spare under the shadow of sanctions: it may not necessarily hedge against oil price shocks on the day it is acquired but can, in a broader timeframe, hedge against the combination risks of domestic currency credit, settlement systems, and asset availability. The result is that during the short-term shock phase, BTC/ETH bears the dual pressure of leveraged liquidations and dollar liquidity absorption; yet in a narrative context of continuous conflict and sanctions, they can attract safe-haven buying and higher volatility risk premiums, with prices oscillating between "high beta selling" and "digital gold pricing."
The Wartime Function of On-Chain Dollars: Where Might Middle Eastern Funds Flow?
When Iranian state television proclaimed an attack on U.S. camps and bases in Kuwait and Jordan, the frontline on the map advanced significantly westward. For business owners and high-net-worth families in Kuwait, Jordan, and surrounding countries, the issue is no longer just about oil prices and shipping insurance but whether local banks can survive the next round of sanctions. From experiences of multiple emerging market and regional conflicts, once safety and political risks are repriced, the instinctive reaction is to increase dollar holdings: dump local currency, reduce local deposits, and convert them into higher-grade dollar assets to hedge against currency exchange, banking system, and capital control risks. However, in the current context of U.S.-Iran tensions, traditional dollar channels have also become fragile — cross-border remittances now face stricter sanction screenings, and regional banks tighten compliance out of concern for "triggering landmines," meaning some funds, even if willing to pay higher costs, may not be able to flow in and out smoothly.
In this intermediary position, the appeal of dollar-denominated on-chain assets stands out remarkably. They have already captured a significant share of global crypto trading and cross-border payments, long serving as a means of value storage and settlement tool for emerging markets and sanctioned regions. For funds in Kuwait and Jordan today, it represents a backup channel that bypasses local banks: exporters can receive payments in on-chain dollars and then transfer to wallets in third locations, and family funds can move overnight from local accounts to multi-signature addresses. However, this route is marked with the word "cost" from the outset. The U.S. and its allies have long included on-chain dollar activities in key reviews when imposing financial sanctions on countries like Iran and Russia, using stricter KYC and on-chain monitoring to identify suspicious addresses and transaction paths. If the current conflict continues to escalate, regional funds, while increasingly relying on on-chain dollars for hedging and cross-border arrangements, are also likely to be included in sanction lists and tracking visibility. For Middle Eastern funds, on-chain dollars are both a wartime lifeboat and a narrow channel subjected to high-intensity regulatory scrutiny.
American Banks Betting on Tokenization: Wall Street Increases Investment in On-Chain Infrastructure During Wartime
As the risk premium for the Strait of Hormuz rises, and U.S. Treasuries and dollars are once again viewed as safe havens, American banks in New York provided another avenue for bets: appointing Sonali Theisen as the head of the global digital asset platform, responsible for overseeing the bank's overall layout in digital assets and related trading infrastructure; simultaneously, Adam Dixon took over business lines such as tokenized deposits, directly incorporating "how to move traditional deposits and liabilities on-chain" into the job description; pairing it with Kevin Milsom's platform AI transformation, American banks combined "on-chain + algorithms" into a unified infrastructure project. This is not a fringe experiment of a mid-sized brokerage, but rather a structural business signal delivered by one of the largest commercial banks in asset size amidst an environment still broadly interpreted as cautious by regulators and heightened global uncertainties stemming from U.S.-Iran conflict: the digital asset platform has been incorporated into the core rather than relegated to the corner of an innovation lab.
Putting this appointment into a longer timeline perspective makes it clearer: during 2023-2024, JPMorgan and Citigroup have conducted multiple rounds of experiments in tokenized deposits, wholesale CBDCs, and on-chain settlement networks, and now American banks directly establishing a global platform and tokenized deposits manager signify that Wall Street is shifting from "whether it can go on-chain" to "which chain to use, what tech stack to adopt, and which customer groups to connect with." For the crypto market, this migration from wholesale settlements to the liability side essentially strengthens one expectation: the scale of dollar-denominated on-chain assets will only grow, and the demand for compliant funds regarding on-chain settlements and custody will continue to rise. Specifically, in terms of asset pricing, it enhances long-term demand imaginings for Layer 2, public chain infrastructure, and custodial service providers of Ethereum — more on-chain dollars and tokenized deposits mean higher block space utilization and stickier institutional traffic — thereby providing a more stable "utility value anchor" for underlying assets like ETH; on the other hand, in an environment where Hormuz conflict heightens uncertainties of nominal and real interest rates and short-term discount rates are on the rise, Wall Street's investment in on-chain infrastructure itself presses down the market's long-term risk premium regarding "the crypto world being marginalized or fully blocked," laying the groundwork for reopening valuation elasticity for BTC/ETH in a future rate decline cycle.
War and Code Parallel: Reshaping the Pricing Framework of Crypto Assets Amidst Global Chessboard
From the U.S. military airstrike on Hormozgan Province and infrastructural damage, to Iran claiming retaliation against U.S. military bases in Kuwait and Jordan, and Reyzai publicly declaring the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding as "merely a facade," the conflict occurs near a global oil artery, forcing the market to recalculate discount rates and safe-haven positions amidst heightened energy risk premiums and inflation uncertainties: geopolitical escalations typically raise costs for crude oil and shipping, push up inflation, nominal and real interest rate expectations, and elevate demand for dollars and U.S. Treasuries as safe havens, temporarily compressing allocations for high-volatility assets including BTC and ETH — historically, whether during the early pandemic in 2020 or the onset of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022, BTC has often behaved more like a high beta asset dropping alongside U.S. stocks rather than being viewed as "digital gold" at first. Only in phases where high inflation compounds with monetary easing does the anti-inflation narrative attract allocation again. In parallel, American banks have centralized appointments under wartime conditions, with Sonali Theisen leading the global digital asset platform, Adam Dixon in charge of tokenized deposits, coupled with previous JPMorgan and Citigroup experiments on on-chain settlements and wholesale CBDCs, solidifying Wall Street’s medium to long-term demand for tokenization and on-chain dollar settlements into realistic buying expectations for infrastructure and public chain assets. For crypto traders, the pricing framework must grasp both chains: one is "U.S.-Iran conflict — Hormuz risk — oil prices and real interest rates — dollar, U.S. Treasury safe havens — BTC/ETH and on-chain dollar risk appetite"; the other is "Wall Street tokenization trials — on-chain settlement demand — underlying public chains and long-term valuation elasticity for BTC/ETH," with close attention to four indicators forthcoming: whether the situation in Hormuz continues to escalate and spill over, the mid-term trends for oil prices and real interest rates, the Fed's statements on interest rate paths amid inflation and growth assessments, and whether cross-border flows of dollar-denominated on-chain assets are accelerating due to sanctions and risks, along with the actual rollout timeline and scale of tokenization products and on-chain settlement schemes from organizations like American banks, because only within the coordinate system where the intensity of conflict, oil prices and interest rate curves, on-chain dollar flows, and Wall Street product rhythms intersect, will the new pricing center for BTC/ETH truly take shape.
Join our community to discuss and grow stronger together!
AiCoin exclusive Hyperliquid benefits: https://app.hyperliquid.xyz/join/AICOIN88
AiCoin exclusive Aster benefits: https://www.asterdex.com/zh-CN/referral/9C50e2
On-chain Telegram community: https://t.me/AiCoinWhaleData
On-chain community: https://www.aicoin.com/link/chat?cid=N6OVMor5g
AiCoin on-chain Twitter: https://x.com/aicoinwhaledata
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
