Author: Orange Insight Technology
01War Becomes the Global Asset "Pricing Engine"
The conflict between the US and Iran on February 28 is essentially not a regional military event, but a high-speed operating“global pricing machine”.
The US and Israeli strikes against Iran, and Iran's retaliation against Gulf countries, spread the flames of war to several nodes such as the UAE, Bahrain, and Qatar within hours. The UAE's air defense system intercepted a large number of missiles and drones, but falling debris still caused civilian casualties and port fires, affecting the infrastructure of Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
The UAE, a country known for its “safety”, “neutrality”, and “free flow of wealth”, is being revalued by war.
The market's response path is very typical: first energy, then shipping and insurance, followed by equities, bonds, currencies, and risk assets including cryptocurrencies.
War does not need to destroy cities; it only needs to make "certainty" disappear, and asset prices will begin to be rewritten.
02 Hormuz: The "Throat" of 20% of Global Oil is Choked
The Strait of Hormuz carries about one fifth of global oil shipping volume. Once shipping is obstructed, the market faces not just a simple reduction in supply, but an unpredictable delivery timeline.
After the escalation of the conflict, multiple energy companies suspended transport through the strait, tankers were attacked, and ships were stranded, forcing shipping companies to divert. Brent crude oil quickly surged above $80. The rise in oil prices is symbolically significant, but what truly changes the logic of global trade is the hesitation in forward contracts and the tightening of trade financing.
When traders begin to worry about "whether goods can arrive on time," the global supply chain shifts from a pricing issue to a timing issue. For the industrial system, this uncertainty is far more damaging than the oil price itself.
03 Insurance Explodes First
In war, changes in shipping insurance often occur faster than the freight rates themselves. War risk premiums on Gulf shipping routes surged by about 50% in a short time, increasing the cost of a single journey by $100,000 to $200,000. This cost ultimately will not remain on the shipping company's books, but will be transmitted through trade and logistics.
Transmission mechanisms will directly lead to:
Increased landing costs of imported goods
Manufacturing raw material prices being passively raised
Profit margins in cross-border trade being compressed
This is a “delayed inflation.” It will not be immediately reflected in the statistics but will appear in the prices of daily necessities, appliances, and industrial goods in the coming months.
04 Global Movement of People is Put on Hold
After the conflict, multiple countries temporarily closed their airspace, European and Asian airlines canceled or rerouted Gulf air routes, leaving hundreds of thousands of passengers stranded. Dubai, one of the world's busiest international aviation hubs, saw disruptions in flights, significantly diminishing the efficiency of global east-west movement of people.
The 3.8 million return tickets are just the tip of the iceberg; the deeper impacts include delays in business travel, slowdowns in cross-border project advancement, and rising air freight costs for high-value goods. One of the most important infrastructures of globalization shows extreme vulnerability in the face of war.
05 The Standard Script for Financial Markets: Risk-off
Energy shocks quickly transmitted to macro expectations. High oil prices mean rising inflation pressures, while the elevation of inflation expectations willcompress interest rate cut expectations, causing the interest rate curve to move upward passively
The market then enters a typical risk-off state (a shift in market risk preference): funds flow towards bonds, gold, andinflation-sensitive commodities (such as energy, precious metals, industrial metals, agricultural products, etc.), while equity assets come under pressure.
Since growth stocks and AI sectors rely on future cash flows, whenthe discount rate rises again, the present value of future earnings declines rapidly, which is why high-valued sectors like Nasdaq are the first to suffer pressure around the time of the conflict news.
06 Cryptocurrency Market: Fully Entering the Global Macro Pricing System
If we turn the clock back three years, the impact of geopolitical conflicts on the cryptocurrency market largely remained at the emotional level; however, in recent geopolitical conflicts, the response path of on-chain assets has almost synchronized with that of traditional financial markets.
(1) BTC and ETH
On the weekend when news of the conflict broke, traditional markets had not yet opened, but BTC had already begun to decline, falling from about $68,000 to around $64,000, while ETH dropped even more sharply, exceeding 8% at one point. At the same time, a large-scale deleveraging occurred in the on-chain derivatives market, with over $1 billion in contract liquidations within 24 hours and a rapid decrease in open contracts, leading to negative funding rates.
The logic behind this is completely consistent with the decline of Nasdaq under high interest rate expectations: when the market begins to reprice the path of interest rate cuts, the first assets to be sold off are always those most sensitive to liquidity. Unlike gold, BTC's core pricing anchor is still dollar liquidity, not safe-haven demand.
However, compared to traditional risk assets, the cryptocurrency market exhibits a distinct characteristic: a faster recovery speed. As stock index futures stabilize and oil price increases narrow, Bitcoin rebounds in sync. This V-shaped structure is fundamentally due to the absence of trading hour limits and the lack of cross-market clearing delays. In the event of sudden macro events, the cryptocurrency market has become the first asset class to complete “price discovery - deleveraging - rebalancing.”
(2) Stablecoins
If Bitcoin reflects a change in risk preference, then stablecoins reflect the flow direction of on-chain dollars. After the escalation of the conflict, the on-chain transfer volume of USDT and USDC and net inflow into exchanges significantly increased, as when investors sell risk assets but do not leave the market, the funds will stay in stablecoins waiting for reallocation. Therefore, changes in stablecoin market capitalization essentially represent an on-chain “cash position.”
(3) Tokenized Gold
Tokenized gold and on-chain RWA can continue to price traditional assets when traditional markets are closed. During the weekend, PAXG and XAUT experienced premium trading, and their price trends were highly consistent with the direction after the opening of physical gold. This indicates that on-chain assets are becoming a “shadow price discovery mechanism” for traditional assets.
(4) Summary
Gold remains the ultimate safe-haven asset.
US Treasuries remain the anchor of global liquidity.
BTC is the high-beta asset most sensitive to dollar liquidity.
Stablecoins are the on-chain dollar cash.
On-chain RWA is the time-extension market for traditional assets.
The on-chain market is no longer just a high-volatility fringe asset class, but is beginning to assume the same functions as traditional financial markets—risk pricing, liquidity buffering, and cross-market arbitrage. This structural change is particularly evident in sudden macro events like geopolitical conflicts.
07 China Provides More Certainty for Global Assets
When the three globalization arteries of energy, shipping, and aviation are simultaneously impacted, what the market is truly seeking is not the “assets that rise the most,” but a structure that can provide certainty.
In this round of conflict, China's role is essentially not a safe-haven market in the traditional sense, but asupporting layer in global volatility.
(1) China: "Shock-Resistant Premium" from Supply Stability
When Hormuz risks push up energy and freight costs, the true challenge for global manufacturing is not the cost issue, but delivery uncertainty.
China's uniqueness lies in its possession of the world's most complete industrial system. Data from the World Bank and UN Industrial Development Organization show that China's manufacturing value added has long accounted for about 30% of the global total, nearly double that of the second-ranked US. This means that rising external transportation costs will not linearly translate into disruptions in domestic supply chains.
More crucial is the concentration of production capacity for key industrial products. In sectors like new energy equipment, consumer electronics, and photovoltaic components, China's global production share generally exceeds 60%. When European shipping routes are diverted and capacity in the Red Sea and Gulf is tight, this localized manufacturing capability directly translates into stable orders.
During the Red Sea crisis in 2024, the global shipping price index once surged by over 120%, but the delivery cycle for Chinese exported goods fluctuated significantly less than that of Southeast Asian manufacturing centers. This smaller fluctuation in supply capability itself is a form of premium.
While the world is repricing energy, China is pricing for “stable delivery capability.”
(2) China Hong Kong: The "Pricing Interface" in Turbulent Cycles
During the geopolitical conflict phase, the biggest fear for capital is not decline, but the inability to exit. Hong Kong remains one of the few markets in Asia that has a USD clearing system, is an offshore RMB center, directly connects to Chinese assets, and has common law pathways for asset disposal.
In 2023-2024, the daily trading volume of Hong Kong's stock market has maintained around HKD 100 billion, with continuous two-way flow of north-south capital; the number of participating institutions in CIPS (Cross-Border Interbank Payment System) has exceeded 1,400, covering over 100 countries and regions. This means that when global volatility rises, capital can still be allocated and exited through a well-established market.
In the field of virtual assets and RWA, with the establishment of a licensed trading platform system in Hong Kong and the advancement of projects like tokenized bonds and tokenized funds, Hong Kong is forming a new financial structure: traditional assets can compliantly enter on-chain markets, while on-chain assets can be settled under the traditional legal system.
During periods of geopolitical conflict, this structure provides continuous pricing capabilities across time zones. When European and American markets are closed on weekends, Hong Kong is still trading; when there are settlement time differences in traditional markets, the on-chain market continues to price.
This makes Hong Kong the time interface between traditional finance and on-chain finance.
08 A New Asset Pricing Anchor is Forming
This conflict changes not only energy prices or shipping route choices but also the global capital's re-understanding of “safety and liquidity.”
The future asset pricing center must possess three capabilities simultaneously:
A robust industrial foundation for production, a financial system to complete transactions, and a market structure to offer continuous pricing.
As the world prices uncertainty, those who can provide certainty will become the new anchor.
END
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