Crypto heads into the week of March 2 with five clear catalysts on deck: a worsening US-Iran conflict under President Donald Trump, a privacy-focused Bitcoin wrapper from Starknet, Polygon’s March 4 agentic-payments gas upgrade, Avalanche’s new incentive round, and Friday’s US jobs report.
Crypto Watchlist For This WeekOil followed a similar pattern: Brent briefly surged to $82.37 before giving back part of the move and easing back into the upper-$70s, which matters because crypto traders are now watching inflation risk and rate expectations more than the initial geopolitical headline itself.
What matters now is not simply that Washington and Tehran are in open conflict, but that the political signals are mixed. Trump has said he is willing to talk to Iran’s “new leadership,” while the White House has also made clear that military operations are continuing.
On the product side, Starknet is preparing to roll out strkBTC, a wrapped Bitcoin asset issued on Starknet and redeemable for native BTC, with optional shielding for balances and transfers. The design matters because Starknet is not pitching privacy as mandatory. In its own words, “Privacy is available when needed. Transparency remains available when required for compliance.”
Avalanche’s watch item is the Retro9000 C-Chain Round, which starts on March 2 and draws from the Foundation’s $40 million Retro9000 funding pool. The key shift is methodological. Avalanche says the program is moving from rewarding who built to rewarding what gets used, with projects ranked by AVAX burned through smart-contract activity and the top 40 becoming eligible for rewards.
The cleanest scheduled macro event arrives on Friday, March 6, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the February US employment report at 8:30 a.m. ET. Reuters expects payroll growth of 60,000 after January’s 130,000 gain, making the release an important test of whether the prior month was a false signal or the start of a firmer labor backdrop. For crypto, that report matters because it can quickly reset rate-cut expectations just as markets are trying to price geopolitical stress.
This leaves crypto focused mainly on macro. If Middle East risk keeps oil, the dollar and broader risk sentiment in motion, Bitcoin and the wider altcoin market could remain exposed to sharp headline-driven swings. But if US-Iran tensions cool, Friday’s jobs report may become the next major trigger, with markets likely to judge it through one question above all: whether it strengthens or weakens the case for Fed easing.
At press time, the total crypto market cap stood at $2.25 trillion.
