Binance Report: If oil prices remain above $110, Bitcoin may break its correlation with US stocks, triggering the "digital gold" narrative

According to the macro briefing released by Binance Research, a review of eight major energy supply disruptions from 1979 to 2019 shows that oil price trends exhibit a "two-phase" pattern: the first phase is the "hesitation period" (0-30 days), where market pricing reflects uncertainty rather than scarcity, with a historical average increase of only about 2%. However, on the fifth day of the current conflict, Brent crude oil has already risen by 9%, indicating that the market is pricing in tail risks in advance.

The second phase is the "scarcity digestion period" (30-360 days), which begins when the 25-day inventory buffer of Gulf countries is exhausted, leading to forced production cuts. The historical average increase during this phase is 44%, with extreme cases reaching 110%-140%. The report notes that the daily oil flow through the Strait of Hormuz has dropped from a normal 16 million barrels to 4 million barrels, and Gulf countries have only 25 days of buffer left. When the tank utilization rate reaches the critical threshold of 85%, oil fields will be forced to shut down, and oil prices will enter an accelerated phase of the "scarcity digestion period." If oil prices remain between $85 and $95, a CPI increase of 30-40 basis points is manageable; if oil prices rise to $115-$130, CPI will increase by 110-150 basis points, potentially delaying Federal Reserve rate cuts until 2027; if oil prices exceed $180, CPI will rise by over 300 basis points, possibly triggering stagflation.

Currently, Bitcoin maintains a correlation of over 0.9 with tech stocks. If oil prices remain above $110, a CPI rise to 3% and real interest rates exceeding 2.5% will trigger a sell-off in tech stocks, at which point the correlation between Bitcoin and U.S. stocks may break, triggering a shift in the "digital gold" narrative. Key indicators to watch include: vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, inventory utilization rates in Gulf countries, CPI data on March 11, Federal Reserve guidance on March 18, whether the 10-year TIPS real interest rate exceeds 2.5%, whether the 30-day correlation between Bitcoin and the IGV index falls below 0.5, and whether ETF fund flows turn into net inflows.