Bitcoin climbed back above $77,000 on Thursday afternoon in New York, trading at $77,750 by the cash close, the first daily gain in eight sessions and breaking the seven-consecutive-day stretch of net outflows from spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds. The price has now retraced roughly half of the decline from the early-May peak above $82,000.
The proximate catalyst was the Iran framework. Bitcoin had tracked the broader risk-on rotation that the Axios report on the sixty-day US-Iran memorandum of understanding triggered through the morning, and its thirty-day correlation with the Nasdaq 100 — back above 0.6 since the start of May — kept it pinned to the equity index for most of the session. Late-afternoon equity strength translated cleanly into a bitcoin grind higher.
ETF flow data made the recovery look durable. BlackRock's IBIT, the largest spot bitcoin fund, recorded net inflows of $312 million through the four-o'clock close, its first net positive day since May 18; Fidelity's FBTC and ARK's ARKB recorded smaller inflows of $84 million and $61 million respectively. The seven-day cumulative outflow figure across the spot complex stands at roughly $2.9 billion, and analysts at Bernstein said it would take "a clean fortnight of inflows" to fully reset positioning.
Ether outperformed on Thursday, rising 4.6 per cent to $3,680 in part on positive flow from the late-stage EigenLayer integration cycle. ETH/BTC, which had reached a year-to-date low at the start of the week, has now retraced almost fifty per cent of the May decline. The spot ether ETF complex continued its quiet uptrend in flows, taking the year-to-date cumulative figure to $11.4 billion.
Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, did not provide any update on its previously announced bitcoin purchase pause. Common stock rose 4.1 per cent on the day, slightly outperforming bitcoin's underlying move and giving back a portion of the prior month's relative underperformance. Solana lagged again, up only 0.9 per cent in a strong tape.
Bitcoin's year-to-date return has now narrowed to a positive one per cent against the S&P 500's plus seventeen per cent and the Nasdaq Composite's plus twenty-three per cent. Standard Chartered, in a Thursday morning note, retained its $120,000 year-end target and said the May drawdown had been "a positioning unwind rather than a structural break." JPMorgan now sees $115,000 by year-end, marginally tighter than its $120,000 call last month.