Bitcoin Briefly Climbs Above $68,000 as Crypto Market Rebounds After Iran Confirms Supreme Leader's Death

Bitcoin briefly advanced 2.21% to $68,196 on March 1 before easing to about $67,300, after Iran confirmed the death of Supreme Leader Khamenei in a U.S.-Israel military operation, Bloomberg reports. Ethereum jumped as much as 4.58% to reclaim the $2,000 mark, while the overall crypto market recovered around $32 billion during early Asian trading on Sunday, following a roughly $128 billion loss the previous day. Derivatives analytics firms reported about $1.8 billion in Bitcoin derivatives selling volume in a single hour on Saturday, signaling heightened short-term risk-off sentiment as Iran launched counterattacks against targets in Israel, Qatar, the UAE and Bahrain and threatened additional strikes on U.S.-linked bases. Some traders suggested fuller price discovery may come after U.S. stock markets and Bitcoin ETFs reopen on Monday, while tokenized commodity contracts tied to crude oil, gold and silver on decentralized exchange Hyperliquid also recorded price gains.