The U.S. Senate passed a War Powers Resolution on Tuesday, voting 50-48 to rein in Trump’s war with Iran. Bitcoin (BTC), often pitched as a geopolitical hedge, barely moved.
The measure is the first of its kind to clear both chambers of Congress. Yet traders treated it as a formality, since the U.S.-Iran ceasefire is already weeks old.
A Historic Rebuke Markets Had Already Priced
Four Republicans broke ranks to support the resolution. Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Rand Paul joined the Democrats. Senator John Fetterman was the only Democrat to oppose it.
Congress has reached for the 1973 War Powers Resolution against this president before. In 2020, after the Soleimani strike, the Senate passed a binding Iran measure that Trump vetoed.
This one is a concurrent resolution, so it never reaches his desk.
The vote followed a U.S.-Iran ceasefire reached earlier this month. That truce reopened the Strait of Hormuz and pulled oil back from its wartime highs.
Equities and crude had reacted to the earlier ceasefire relief long before Tuesday.
The White House dismissed the result as meaningless.
“Concurrent resolutions do not go to the president and have no force of law,” a White House official made that point to CNN.
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The S&P 500 barely moved, just like oil, after tech sector sell-off hit the markets earlier in the day. However, oil price saw modest gains.
Bitcoin Marches to its Own Drum
BTC traded near $62,667 on Wednesday, down about 2.5% over 24 hours. Its recent price action has followed crypto-specific stress, not the politics in Washington.
A record 13-day run of outflows drained about $4.4 billion from U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) through early June. It was the longest streak since the funds launched in January 2024.
BlackRock’s IBIT, the largest fund, lost roughly $980 million in its worst week yet. A Federal Reserve in no hurry to cut rates has added to the strain. BTC now trades near half its October record around $126,000.
The slide undercuts the safe-haven story crypto promoters often repeat. During the U.S. strikes on Iran this year, BTC slid with equities rather than rising like gold.
The pattern is familiar. BTC fell about 8% the day Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, then quickly rebounded. The move echoed its Ukraine war playbook.
For now, BTC trades on liquidity and interest rates, not geopolitics. Whether ETF flows turn around may matter more than any vote in Congress.
Bitrue