The commodity and crypto markets have gained upside traction on the back of the U.S. airstrike that killed one of Iran’s commando in chief, Qassem Soleimani, who happened to be a senior Iranian influential military official, the news bolstered the apprehensions in the Middle East.

Qassem headed militias that fortified Iran’s power, is shot dead in a drone attack in Baghdad authorized by Trump, the Defence Department reported late Thursday.

As a result, almost entire commodity markets and major cryptos have surged in green including BTC, XRP, ETH, Crude and Gold.

WTI and Brent rose by 4% each on that day of airstrike within a spur of the moment. The precious yellow metal Gold (XAUUSD) spiked higher more than 1.30% to $1,550.38 an ounce and has been extending six and a half years highs. While the silver prices have also rallied about 1.3%, the Platinum and Palladium are no exception, they also have advanced.

While the price surge in the crypto segment has also been exuberant, the pioneer crypto ‘Bitcoin’ price has surged almost more than 9.75% in just 7 days (the New-Year rallies).

Such a bullish rout soon after the U.S. army assaulting of a top-notch Iranian army general reignited a prolonged ruckus between U.S. and Iran that has in-turn led an apprehensive debate among crypto-investors’ community as 2019 has given mixed bag of sentiments whether the ongoing buying interests sustain with a safe-haven sentiment asset like gold especially during geopolitical or economic turmoil.

We have got President Trump’s threats to foil some more Iranian camps organized for a bombing plans in the recent past, as a result, the prices of major cryptos and commodities like bitcoin, gold and crude have are stimulated quite a bit.

Besides, we have got quite a few constructive driving forces for the crypto-derivatives facilities that are regulated, while the new cryptocurrency start-up, Bakkt established by the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), has already launched bitcoin options, futures contracts with physical delivery as well as cash-settled facilities, CME has also scheduled to unveil the options trading mechanism for bitcoin, likely to commence from January 13, 2020.

Amid both positive as well as destructive geopolitical news, hedging and trading ‘bitcoin’ has been crucial, it needs strategically establishing derivatives trades so that regardless of a gain or loss in the underlying exposure should offset by the changes to the value of the other position.

Hence, we are positioned with the prudent longs in CME BTC Futures of January deliveries in our previous write-up on both hedging and trading grounds (advocated when spot reference: $7,305). The underlying price of bitcoin (BTCUSD at Coinbase) has reclaimed $8k levels today, Currently, the pair is trading at $7,890 levels. For trading, maintain a strict stop losses at 7,085 and 6,603 for the targets up to $8,500 levels.

On the other hand, we also advocate longs in gold via ITM call options as they look to be the best suitable at this juncture.

Buying 3m XAUUSD (1%) in the money calls on hedging grounds with a very strong delta (0.69 delta) will move in tandem with the underlying. If expiry is not near, delta movement wouldn’t be 1-point increase with 1 pip in the underlying movement, which means if the spot moves 1 pip, depending on the strike price of the option, the option would also move less than 1.