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Spot bitcoin ETF inflows froze late last week as institutional investors grew cautious ahead of U S President Donald Trump s Iran response More than billion in crypto positions were liquidated in hours majority from overleveraged long bets Bitcoin s correlation to tech stocks is rising again signaling it s behaving more like a threat asset than an inflation hedge Bitcoin fell to its lowest level since May over the weekend as rising tensions in the Middle East and renewed inflation fears triggered a sharp selloff across digital assets Bitcoin dropped below the mark on Sunday its lowest level in more than a month while ether plunged over at one point as the digital asset sphere became the first to price in rising geopolitical pitfall Solana XRP and dogecoin also posted steep losses dragging the entire crypto complex sharply lower By late Sunday digital assets had started to recover Bitcoin was trading just under down just over the past hours while ether has pared a few losses off to around The sell-off appears to be a combination of geopolitical shock and macroeconomic concern Iran has reportedly threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz a vital shipping lane that handles about of global oil supply JPMorgan warns that a full closure could drive oil prices as high as per barrel One prominent macro research firm notes that such a spike could send U S inflation back toward a level not seen since March when the Fed was still actively raising rates That outlook has traders reassessing the path of interest rates and rotating out of speculative assets like crypto While bitcoin is often pitched as an inflation hedge it s in the present behaving more like a high-beta tech stock According to crypto input provider Kaiko bitcoin s correlation with the tech-heavy Nasdaq has climbed sharply in contemporary weeks after hitting a multi-month low earlier this year a period that coincided with surging inflows into spot bitcoin ETFs Institutional positioning also appears to have shifted More than billion flowed into spot bitcoin ETFs from Monday through Wednesday last week according to evidence from CoinGlass But those inflows collapsed heading into the weekend with zero net movement Thursday and just million on Friday coinciding with President Donald Trump s early G departure and the announcement of a two-week review of U S options on Iran The technical breakdown added fuel to the selloff CoinGlass research shows bitcoin s drop below triggered forced selling across offshore derivatives platforms like Binance and Bybit At its peak on Sunday more than billion in crypto positions were liquidated during a -hour span with over coming from long bets underscoring just how overexposed the field was heading into the weekend