Bitcoin Slips as US Strikes Iran's Qeshm Island and Crypto Hacks Pile Up

Bitcoin is getting hit from two directions at once. US officials confirmed Washington bombed Iran's Qeshm Island in what they called a series of limited, defensive strikes, the WSJ reported. The target sits near the Strait of Hormuz, and traders wasted no time dumping risk. Brent crude climbed toward $105 a barrel.

That waterway isn't a footnote. It previously carried around one-fifth of the world's oil and natural gas supplies, so any whiff of disruption ripples straight into energy prices and inflation expectations. The strike lands inside an eight-month conflict that has already snarled shipping through the strait, and talks between Washington and Tehran have yet to produce a breakthrough.

Asia felt it first. MSCI's Asia-Pacific index excluding Japan dropped 1.4%, and South Korean shares slid as much as 4.1%, according to Reuters. Technology weakness and jitters ahead of US midterm elections added to the gloom. Bitcoin, for its part, keeps trading like a risk asset rather than a safe haven when markets get shaky.

The crypto industry's own mess isn't helping. Binance is dealing with a breach involving $6.3 billion in crypto assets, and customers pulled billions in the aftermath. The exchange said it would cover the losses, and withdrawals later started to stabilize.

Binance isn't alone. Mercado Bitcoin disclosed a security incident touching customer-related systems, and Polymarket saw unauthorized withdrawals through a compromised third-party provider. Security reports also flag attacks on older BTCPay Server installations and a vulnerable WordPress crypto-payment plugin.

The timing stings. Crypto needs fresh capital and confidence to mount a recovery, and repeated breaches push investors toward self-custody or out the door entirely. Watch two things from here: whether US-Iran tensions cool, and whether Binance's outflows settle. Another escalation near Hormuz, or a fresh hack headline, keeps the pressure on.