Bitcoin climbed back toward $68,000 after US-Israeli strikes on Iran and the confirmed death of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
Bitcoin (BTC) prices reached $68,200 in early trading on Sunday morning on Coinbase, according to TradingView.
The asset has now recovered all losses from its dip to $63,000 on Saturday, adding $5,000 in less than 24 hours following the news that the United States and Israel had commenced air strikes on Iran.
BTC is currently trading back at Friday’s levels, around $67,350 at the time of writing, but remains within a three-week range-bound channel.
Over the past 24 hours, around 157,000 traders were liquidated, with total liquidations coming in at $657 million, roughly evenly split between leveraged longs and shorts, according to CoinGlass.
Iranian Supreme Leader Killed
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said Ayatollah Khamenei was killed on Saturday at his office, reported the BBC.
US President Donald Trump described the hardline Islamist cleric as “one of the most evil people in history” on his social media platform, Truth Social.
“This is not only justice for the people of Iran, but for all great Americans, and those people from many countries throughout the world, that have been killed or mutilated by Khamenei and his gang of bloodthirsty thugs,” he said.
The commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Mohammad Pakpour, and the secretary of Iran’s Defense Council, Ali Shamkhani, were also killed in the US-Israel strikes.
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“After news of Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei’s death, the market pumped because people are taking it as the end of the US-Iran war,” commented analyst Ash Crypto on Sunday.
“If this conflict shows signs of resolution before Monday’s open, I think Bitcoin can hold its gains and move higher,” he added.
Source: Ash CryptoBitcoin’s third-worst February ever
Despite the recent gains, Bitcoin has just closed its third-worst February in history and only the fourth time since 2013 that the asset has ended the month in the red.
BTC shed just under 15% last month, but its worst February was in 2014 when it lost 31%, followed by 2025 when it fell 17.4%, according to CoinGlass.
The asset is also on track to close its worst-performing first quarter since 2018, having lost almost 23% so far since the beginning of the year.
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Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-recovers-to-68k-following-reported-death-of-iranian-supreme-leader?utm_source=rss_feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss_partner_inbound
