Bitunix analyst: The progress of the US-Iran ceasefire continues to move forward, but what the global market is truly worried about is no longer just the war.

BlockBeats News, May 25 — While the focus of the global markets still revolves around US-Iran negotiations and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the real attention of funds has shifted to another, deeper issue — when high inflation, high interest rates, and sovereign debt risks coexist, do global central banks still have the capacity to maintain market stability as they have over the past decade?

Currently, although the US-Iran agreement is gradually emerging, including limited reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, a 60-day framework agreement, and the restart of nuclear negotiations, there are still significant disagreements on core issues such as highly enriched uranium, sanctions relief, asset thawing, and the Lebanon front. This indicates that while the market has begun to trade as if the "war is cooling down," funds have not truly returned to a full risk appetite mode.

More importantly, the market is now beginning to see another phenomenon that has been rare over the past two years — "rate hike expectations are back." The US interest rate futures market has started pricing in a Fed rate hike as early as October, with a full 25 basis points hike priced in by the end of the year. Fed Governor Waller explicitly stated that if inflation expectations lose their anchor, the Fed will still need to raise interest rates; the European Central Bank is even more directly discussing the possibility of a rate hike in June. This means that the narrative of "cutting rates to rescue the market," which was previously expected, is being replaced by the "long-term high interest rate" scenario.

Behind this, the core issue is that the global bond market is beginning to resist the logic of the past decade — "central banks will always backstop." Arian pointed out the biggest risk currently: whether it was financial crises, pandemics, or wars, markets believed that central banks would ultimately rescue risk assets through rate cuts, QE, and fiscal stimulus, making "buying the dip" the most successful trading strategy worldwide. But now, high inflation, high debt, and sovereign credit pressures are starting to limit central bank intervention capacity, and markets are facing a situation of "policy wants to help but may not be able to."

This is also the reason for the recent significant divergence in global assets. On one hand, US stocks, AI, and tech stocks remain high due to liquidity inertia and growth expectations; on the other hand, US Treasury yields, Japanese long-term bonds, and European bond markets are experiencing intense volatility. This indicates that funds are reassessing: if future central banks can no longer provide unlimited liquidity, then all currently overvalued assets will face renewed pressure from "real interest rates" and "cash flow discounting."

In the crypto market, BTC will still be supported in the short term by risk appetite recovery driven by the cooling of Middle East tensions, but if global interest rate markets continue to reflect rate hike expectations, high leverage and high valuation assets will still face liquidity tightening pressures. The biggest variable in the market now is no longer just the war, but whether the influence of global policy tools on the market is beginning to decline.