Bitcoin Bulls Set Sights on $125,000 Amid US-Iran Peace Talks

Bitcoin was trading at around $74,700 in Asian morning hours on Friday, down 0.4% over the past 24 hours but still up 3.5% for the week, as the 10-day rally in global equities paused ahead of the US-Iran ceasefire expiration next week. Ether dropped 1.4% to $2,327 but still led the majors with a 6% weekly gain, extending its outperformance from earlier in the week. Other notable movers included XRP, which held at $1.43 with a 6.4% weekly gain, solana, which ticked up 2.7% to $87.67, BNB, which added 0.7% to $629.89, and dogecoin, which rose 5.6% on the week to $0.0976. The MSCI All Country World Index reached a record high on Thursday before slipping 0.1% in Asia, while the S&P 500 also hit an all-time high. Brent crude fell 1.2% to $98.20 after President Donald Trump stated that prospects for a permanent Iran ceasefire were 'looking very good.' However, Tehran has not confirmed the concessions claimed by Trump, including giving up nuclear ambitions and reopening the Strait of Hormuz. A separate 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon was announced, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirming the truce in a video message. Markets are reacting to the headlines as if a deal is closer than it actually is, resulting in equities unwinding most of the war premium while crude remains near $98 and the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively shut. Beneath the flat bitcoin price action, some traders are focusing on the setup, particularly the deeply negative bitcoin perpetual funding rates, which have reached levels last seen in 2023. According to Daniel Reis-Faria, CEO of ZeroStack, 'Funding rates this negative tell you the market is heavily short. If Bitcoin continues to move higher despite that, a lot of those positions could get liquidated, and the move can accelerate quickly.' Reis-Faria expects bitcoin could reach $125,000 in the next 30 to 60 days if the short base gets squeezed out. On the other hand, on-chain analyst CryptoVizArt notes that bitcoin's 'True Market Mean,' a metric estimating the average cost basis of active investors, suggests the average active holder is currently underwater. Historically, meaningful stretches below the True Market Mean have aligned with bitcoin's worst periods. The two reads are not mutually exclusive, as a short squeeze from negative funding and a structural drawdown from underwater holders can both be true, with the former potentially triggering an outsized rally that ultimately gets sold into by the latter. The dominant scenario likely depends on whether the US-Iran ceasefire extension holds past next week.