US, Iran edge toward war-ending memo as crypto watches risk trade

The White House believes it is “getting close to an agreement with Iran on a one-page memorandum of understanding to end the war and set a framework for more detailed nuclear negotiations,” Axios reported on Wednesday, citing two US officials and two additional sources briefed on the talks. The US expects Tehran’s response on several key points within the next 48 hours, making this “the closest the parties have been to an agreement since the war began,” according to the report.

Memo could end war and reopen Strait of Hormuz

Under the draft, Iran would commit to a moratorium on uranium enrichment, while Washington would agree to lift some sanctions and release billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets, Reuters summarized in its own write‑up of the Axios story. Both sides would also lift restrictions on transit through the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint that handles roughly 20% of global oil trade and has been partially shut by Iranian measures and a US naval blockade during the conflict.

The memorandum, described as a 14‑point, single‑page document, is being negotiated by Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner with several Iranian officials, using a mix of direct and mediated channels. In its current form, the memo would formally declare an end to regional hostilities and trigger a 30‑day period of intensive talks on a fuller agreement covering strait access, nuclear limits, and sanctions relief, with venues under discussion including Islamabad and Geneva. During that 30‑day window, restrictions on shipping and the US blockade would be phased out; if the talks collapse, US forces would retain authority to restore the blockade or resume military action.

What a deal would mean for Bitcoin, gold, and risk assets

Markets have already shown how sensitive they are to each turn in the Iran story. When the war first escalated in late February, Bitcoin fell from about $66,000 toward $63,000 within hours, erasing over $120 billion in crypto market cap, while gold spiked toward fresh highs and oil briefly jumped more than 10%, as detailed in a Blockhead post‑mortem and a broader Economic Times review of safe‑haven flows.

As the conflict shifted from escalation to uneasy ceasefire, Bitcoin’s behavior flipped. When President Donald Trump signaled an initial pause in escalation and a conditional ceasefire tied to reopening the Strait of Hormuz, BTC jumped roughly 5% in a single session to above $72,700, according to Bitcoin Magazine. A later extension of the truce helped push Bitcoin toward $78,000, its highest level in more than ten weeks, Yahoo Finance reported.

Analysts quoted by MEXC and other outlets have framed this pattern as a classic “de‑risking, then re‑risking” sequence: in the initial shock, traders dump Bitcoin alongside equities and rotate into cash, gold, and oil; once a ceasefire or de‑escalation looks durable, capital rotates back into higher‑beta assets, with BTC often outperforming in the relief phase. A recent MEXC scenario analysis on the Iran‑Israel war laid out this exact path—oil easing back, inflation expectations softening, the Fed resuming cuts, and “Bitcoin breaking higher” under a ceasefire case.

If Washington and Tehran now ink even a preliminary memorandum that ends the war and reopens the Strait, traders will likely replay a similar macro script: crude prices and gold could cool from crisis highs, rate‑cut expectations might firm, and Bitcoin could benefit from both a weaker dollar and renewed risk appetite. Crypto’s response will not be linear—macro, ETF flows, and idiosyncratic factors all matter—but the market has already shown that for this conflict, peace headlines have tended to coincide with BTC reclaiming the high‑$70,000 to $79,000 zone, as noted by CryptoBriefing.

Over the medium term, a durable US‑Iran understanding that normalizes the Strait of Hormuz would remove one of the biggest geopolitical tail‑risks hanging over both traditional markets and crypto. That could shift the narrative away from “war hedge” trades in gold and oil back toward structural stories like Bitcoin ETF adoption, Ethereum’s roadmap, and the broader on‑chain capital rotation that crypto.news has been tracking in recent coverage, including this ETF inflow analysis, a safe‑haven comparison, and a macro‑driven market outlook.