Iran missile strike on US base sends oil up 4%, tests Bitcoin rally

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired multiple ballistic missiles at US forces in Jordan on Tuesday, ending a four-day pause in hostilities and sending WTI crude nearly 4% higher as traders priced a renewed risk premium into oil markets.

"Any disruption to the Strait of Hormuz chokepoint — through which nearly 20% of the world's oil flows — immediately reprices the geopolitical risk premium across crude benchmarks," said Elena Fischer, geopolitical risk analyst at Edgen. "The timing is particularly destabilizing because it follows the first sustained diplomatic signal from Washington in weeks."

All missiles were successfully intercepted by US air defenses, with no casualties or damage reported, according to US Central Command. The attack came at 5:45 p.m. ET, just three days after President Donald Trump suspended a two-week bombing campaign against Iran-linked targets and said both sides were holding "good talks." Trump had warned Monday that military operations would resume if negotiations failed.

The strike threatens to unravel what had been a fragile period of de-escalation. Trump paused operations on Saturday after 13 nights of strikes that followed a drone and missile attack on the same Jordanian base that killed two US service members. The last time Iran directly targeted US forces with ballistic missiles was in January 2020 at Al Asad Airbase in Iraq, a strike that sent Brent above $70 a barrel and triggered a 2% decline in the S&P 500 over the following week.

WTI crude rose as much as 3.9% to $78.45 a barrel in afternoon trading, the largest single-day gain since the initial US strikes on Iranian proxies began two weeks ago. The move pushed the risk-off signal across asset classes: gold gained 1.2% to $2,415 an ounce, while the 10-year US Treasury yield slipped 6 basis points to 4.12% as investors rotated into safe havens.

Bitcoin, which had rallied roughly 8% during the four-day diplomatic pause on optimism that easing Middle East tensions would reduce risk premiums across markets, fell 2.3% to $67,800. The cryptocurrency's correlation with oil has strengthened over the past month, with a rolling 30-day correlation coefficient of 0.42, up from 0.18 in June, as both assets respond to the same macro risk driver.

The attack raises the stakes for any diplomatic resolution. Iran's decision to launch ballistic missiles — a significant escalation from the drone and rocket attacks that characterized earlier phases of the conflict — suggests Tehran is testing the limits of Trump's stated willingness to negotiate. With no further talks announced and both sides returning to active hostilities, oil markets face the prospect of sustained supply disruption risk through the third quarter.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.