Bitcoin declined on Thursday, giving back part of the week’s advance as mixed messages surrounding ceasefire talks in the Middle East continued to dampen investor risk appetite.
Crypto markets also came under pressure from uncertainty over the progress of the Clarity Act, a major U.S. cryptocurrency regulatory bill, after reports highlighted divided industry views on the latest proposals.
As of 11:20 GMT, Bitcoin was down 2.6 percent at $69,446, after climbing as high as $71,419.0 earlier in the day.
Regional tensions weigh on risk-sensitive assets
The world’s biggest cryptocurrency moved lower in line with a broader pullback in risk-sensitive assets, as Asian equities and Wall Street futures also weakened. At the same time, oil prices recovered, leaving investors uneasy about the potential energy-market fallout from the Iran conflict.
Crypto and other risk-sensitive assets had rallied on Wednesday after reports indicated that the United States had put forward a 15-point ceasefire plan to Iran. However, those gains faded after Iran reportedly dismissed the proposal.
Later in the day, Iranian state media said Tehran was reviewing the U.S. offer, while signaling that direct negotiations with Washington remained largely off the table.
The conflicting developments around tensions in the Middle East kept markets cautious about the conflict’s next phase, weighing on demand for speculative assets such as cryptocurrencies. Although Bitcoin has held up better than gold since the war began, it remains in negative territory for 2026.
Market reacts to long-awaited Clarity Act draft
In U.S. regulation, participants across the crypto industry responded in different ways to the latest draft of the long-awaited Clarity Act. One of the main sticking points in the Clarity Act, which is intended to create a formal regulatory framework for crypto, is how yield payments on stablecoin deposits should be treated.
Large U.S. banks have generally pushed for tighter oversight of such payments, or even a full ban, arguing that they could pose broader systemic risks.
Meanwhile, crypto advocates, led in particular by Coinbase, have taken the opposite view, saying that restricting stablecoin yield payments would hurt the United States’ competitive position. Coinbase’s objections have also emerged as a major obstacle to the bill’s advancement in Congress.
Most major cryptocurrencies moved lower on Thursday, following Bitcoin’s decline. Ether, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency, dropped 5.49 percent to $2,065.89, while XRP lost 4.08 percent to $1.37.
Solana and Cardano fell 5.87 percent and 5.67 percent, respectively, while BNB was down 3.06 percent.
