Bitcoin has now dropped from the $70,000 level three times since the Feb. 5 crash as Wednesday’s Asian session found the market back at $67,600 after another failed attempt earlier in the week.

BTC was trading at $67,612 as of Asian morning hours on Wednesday, down 0.7% over the past 24 hours but up 3.4% on the week as the post-strike recovery held. Ether slipped 2.2% to $1,957, giving back some of its bounce but still up 2.6% on a seven-day basis. BNB was the quiet outperformer, up 5.2% on the week at $629.

The damage was concentrated further down the board. Dogecoin fell 2.9% in 24 hours and is down 3.9% on the week. Cardano dropped 4.2% on the day and 3.5% over seven days. Solana lost 0.8% to $85.16 and remains the worst-performing major on a weekly basis at -4.2%, still carrying the weight of Saturday’s sell-off. XRP held relatively flat, down 1.3% to $1.35 with a modest 1.5% weekly gain.

The pattern across the board is the same. Most majors recovered from the weekend lows but couldn’t hold Tuesday’s highs, leaving the market in a holding pattern while it waits for clarity on the Iran situation and Monday’s traditional market reaction to settle.

“BTC bouncing back to $70K looks like a classic shock, flush, rebuild move. A lot of the weekend selling was forced, and liquidity was thin, so the rebound can be fast once pressure lifts,” said Wojciech Kaszycki, CSO of BTCS SA, said in an email. “After BTC’s move back above $70K, the real signal isn’t the price spike. It’s whether ETF inflows stay steady this week.”

FxPro chief analyst Alex Kuptsikevich noted that Tuesday’s rejection “forces us to consider a decline to $63K as a working scenario” if the upper boundary continues to hold.

The macro backdrop isn’t helping. Asian equities sold off hard Wednesday, with South Korean stocks posting their biggest two-day decline since 2008 as the Iran conflict continued to rattle investors.

Tech stocks across the MSCI Asia Pacific index fell 4%, dragging Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea lower. The Indian rupee dropped to a record low on the oil price hit. Gold climbed higher, pulling silver with it for the first time this week.

Oil remains the key variable. Brent jumped again Wednesday despite the U.S. announcing plans to escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been effectively closed since the weekend strikes.

Meanwhile, U.S president Donald Trump floated an insurance scheme for oil tankers but provided no details. The longer the strait stays disrupted, the more energy prices feed into inflation expectations, which pushes rate cuts further out, which tightens the liquidity environment that drives risk assets.

“We think that Bitcoin is an emerging reserve asset,” said Gracy Chen, CEO at Bitget. “Many people simply cannot fully accept this yet because it is easier to invest into gold, which has existed for many years, than into Bitcoin, which is still young and risky.”

Chen pointed to the broader disappointment in crypto markets following earlier crashes, noting that “the current decline in Bitcoin is largely driven by this disappointment, especially against the backdrop of rising equities, gold, silver, and stock indices reaching new highs.”

Australia could unlock 24 billion Australian dollars ($17 billion) annually from advances in tokenized markets and digital assets, but only if lawmakers start moving forward with regulation, according to a new report from a local fintech research group.

In a report titled “Unlocking Australia’s $24b Digital Finance Opportunity,” which was published on Monday, the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC) said regulatory uncertainty, coordination challenges and limited pathways for pilot projects to grow are the biggest constraints facing the industry. 

One way to address the shortcomings would be to establish a sandbox for testing new technology, such as tokenized financial market use cases, said the DFCRC. This would lead to ongoing collaboration between regulators and industry participants and improve licensing frameworks, it said. 

The research group also suggested deploying tokenized government bonds and a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the sandbox to underpin the development of tokenized markets, collateralized lending, and related financial services.

The DFCRC report was jointly produced with the Digital Economy Council of Australia and was financed by crypto exchange OKX.

Better markets, payments and assets are the key 

DFCRC estimates that billions could be generated annually from markets with broader investor access, deeper liquidity and higher market participation, creating additional gains from trade. 

At the same time, tokenized money, such as stablecoins and CBDCs, could streamline cross-border and domestic transactions, creating gains by reducing reliance on correspondent banks, which charge high fees. 

Tokenization will create assets with increased transparency, usability, and flexibility, which could also increase their utility and make them directly “usable within automated trading, lending, and collateral-management systems,” according to the report. 

“Nearly half of the asset-related economic gains arise from enabling collateralized lending, repo, and invoice financing markets on tokenized rails, where smart contracts automate collateral management, margining, and settlement,” the report states. 

Without better regulation, the $17 billion is off the table 

Kate Cooper, the CEO of crypto exchange OKX, said that without better regulation, the estimated economic gains will be much smaller over the next few years. 

Related: Australian crypto execs upbeat on progress despite lingering issues

On the current trajectory, and without substantial industry-wide changes, DFCRC estimates that Australia will secure only 1 billion Australian dollars ($710 million) in economic gains from crypto by 2030.

“Long-term economic benefits will only be realised through clear regulatory frameworks and infrastructure built to institutional standards. That is how Australia strengthens trust, attracts capital and secures its place in the next era of global finance,” Cooper added. 

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