Bits + Bips: What Iran, Oil Shocks, and No Rate Cuts Mean for Crypto
Key Takeaways
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Sticky inflation and geopolitical tension are stalling Bitcoin's momentum - rate holds by the Fed and ECB combined with Iran-linked oil shocks have pushed BTC under $69k as liquidity shifts and markets brace for higher-for-longer volatility.
“Agentic commerce could reshape how crypto payments work entirely.”
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Regulatory clarity is finally arriving but the market is unfazed - joint guidance from the SEC and CFTC classifying major assets like Solana and Ether as digital commodities provided long-awaited legal certainty but failed to trigger a meaningful price rally.
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Agentic commerce is the next major frontier for crypto payments - new protocols from Stripe, Google, and Coinbase are building the infrastructure for AI agents to conduct autonomous machine-to-machine micropayments, potentially solving the long-standing demand issue for crypto rails.
“Agentic commerce could reshape how crypto payments work entirely.”
Episode Description
Bitcoin dropped under $69K even as the SEC and CFTC create more clarity for crypto, and agentic commerce looks like it will reshape the sector. --- Thank you to our sponsor, MultiChain Advisors --- Bitcoin dropped under $69K after the Fed, ECB, and Bank of England all held rates steady this week, while Australia hiked. Kaiko's Laurens Fraussen joins to explain what's actually happening beneath the surface, from collapsing liquidity to a quiet geographic shift in who's buying. He also makes the case that agentic commerce could reshape how crypto payments work entirely and we break down why the market mostly shrugged at the latest crypto guidance from the SEC and CFTC. Host: Steven Ehrlich, Host of Bits + Bips: The Interview Guest: Laurens Fraussen, Research Analyst at Kaiko Links: Bitcoin, Markets, and the Iran Conflict Bitcoin Holding at $70,000 as Iran War Stokes Inflation Concerns — Bloomberg These 3 Charts Show Bitcoin’s War-Linked Selloff Keeps Shrinking as Iran Conflict Worsens — CoinDesk What Bitcoin’s Falling Hash Rate Might Mean for Prices — CoinDesk What’s Next for Bitcoin Price Amid Iran War and Oil Prices Surge — DL News Central bank rate decisions Fed Interest Rate Decision March 2026: Holds Rates Steady — CNBC Fed Meeting Recap: Powell Says Inflation Isn’t Coming Down as Much as ‘Hoped’ — CNBC Bank Rate Maintained at 3.75%, March 2026 — Bank of England ECB, BOE, Swiss National Bank, Riksbank Interest Rate Decisions — CNBC ECB Holds Rates, Predicts 2.6% Inflation for 2026 — Central Banking SEC/CFTC Interpretive Guidance SEC Clarifies the Application of Federal Securities Laws to Crypto Assets — SEC.gov Joint Interpretation From the SEC and CFTC on Certain Types of Crypto Assets — Free Writings & Perspectives SEC Names Bitcoin, Ether, Solana and 13 More Crypto Assets Digital Commodities — FinTech Weekly Agentic Commerce and Payments Stripe-Led Payments Blockchain Tempo Goes Live With AI Agent Protocol — CoinDesk Stripe and Paradigm’s Tempo Mainnet Goes Live for Machine Payments — Crypto.news Coinbase-Backed AI Payments Protocol Wants to Fix Micropayments but Demand Is Just Not There Yet — CoinDesk Google Agentic Payments Protocol + x402: Agents Can Now Actually Pay Each Other — Coinbase Google Debuts ‘Universal’ Protocol for Agentic Commerce — PYMNTS Coinbase and Cloudflare Will Launch the x402 Foundation — Coinbase World Launches AgentKit With Coinbase-Backed x402 to Verify Human Identity Behind AI Agents — CoinDesk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices