West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures settled at $69.23 per barrel on June 26, dropping $2.69, or 3.74%, from the previous close of $71.92. The culprit: a US-Iran peace deal that pulled the rug out from under months of geopolitical risk premium baked into energy prices.
Oil price spikes earlier this month had contributed to Bitcoin falling below $63,000 as traders fled risk assets amid inflation fears.
What drove the sell-off
The single-day decline traced directly to the announcement of a US-Iran peace agreement, paired with confirmed safety measures for tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. That narrow waterway handles roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply on any given day, and threats to it have historically sent crude prices spiraling.
Current prices sit approximately 40% below the peaks reached during recent Iran-Israel conflict escalation.
