A US-Iran Pause Sends Crude Tumbling as Equity Futures Jump

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In Today's Note

• Oil plunged at the open after the US and Iran paused strikes over the weekend, Brent falling around 7% toward $90 and lifting S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures by 0.95% and 1.60%. BTC rebounded to $65.1K, up 1.1%, and ETH rallied to $1.96K, up 4.5%, ahead of a week headlined by FOMC, Bank of England and Bank of Japan decisions plus megacap earnings from Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Amazon.
• BitMart announced a phased shutdown by January 2027, its global CEO saying he was dismissed and not consulted on the wind-down. Robinhood is reportedly in talks with Crypto.com to add event contracts to its prediction markets, Storj Labs filed for Chapter 11 while operating normally, and Strategy logged a fourth straight week without a bitcoin purchase.

Market Snapshot: Overnight Moves

Macro & Markets

• Oil prices plunged at this week’s market open after the US and Iran paused strikes against each other over the weekend, after almost two weeks of tit-for-tat attacks.
• According to the New York Times, President Trump has decided to hold off plans to escalate US strikes for now, partly due to concerns that the war could further drain the Pentagon’s already-diminished stores of Patriot anti-missile interceptors and other air defense weapons in the region.
• Tehran claimed that it will stop retaliatory attacks on neighbouring Gulf countries as long as the US maintains its pause on Iranian facilities also, army spokesman Mohammad Akraminia said, "Our strategy has essentially been retaliatory, we have also halted our retaliatory operations”.
• Brent crude fell around 7% at the market open, down from $98 per barrel and is currently hovering around $90.
• According to a spokesman for the White House, President Trump has consistently emphasised that "he prefers a diplomatic solution, but he continues to retain all options if Iran continues terrorist activities in the Strait of Hormuz or against allies”.
• Talks between the Deputy Foreign Ministers of Iran and Oman over the weekend also indicated an attempt to resolve issues around the Strait of Hormuz, while mediators in Pakistan have equally pushed for a new path to resume talks after a push initiated by China.
• Exploratory discussions took place during a visit by Iran's Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni to Islamabad.
• China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it "supports the mediation efforts made by Pakistan and other parties."
• Still, elsewhere in the region, hostilities remain tense: Tehran-backed Houthis in Yemen struck facilities linked to Saudi Aramco in the port towns around the Red Sea on Friday and attacked three Saudi-linked oil tankers in the region.
• BTC slowly rebounded from $63K to $65K as the weekend progressed and is up 1.2% over the past 24 hours. ETH on the other hand has rallied much harder, closing in on the $2,000 mark and up 4.5% over the same period.
• Trading activity in US spot Bitcoin ETFs fell to its lowest level for a full five-day trading week since October 2024.
• Bitcoin ETFs recorded approximately $8.05B in weekly trading volume, down 14% from the previous week.
• The funds attracted a modest $33.8M in net inflows after nearly $500M of inflows recorded through Wednesday were largely erased by heavy withdrawals over the final two trading sessions of the week.
• Meanwhile, US spot Ethereum ETFs continued to outperform, attracting $103.9M in net inflows for the week, more than three times the amount recorded by Bitcoin ETFs. This marks the second consecutive week Ethereum-focused funds have surpassed their Bitcoin counterparts in attracting new capital.
• On Friday, signs of strength in the wider US equities market counteracted yet another day of retreat from semiconductors and chipmakers.
• The S&P 500 index ended Friday’s session up a very modest 0.05%, while its equal-weighted version advanced nearly 0.4%.
• The Nasdaq-100 on the other hand declined 1.15% for its first back-to-back weekly loss since late March and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index plunged 4.25%. That has brought the index down 17% so far in July, putting it on track for its worst month since June 2022.
• So far today however, both S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.95% and 1.60% respectively, in line with the sharp drop in oil prices.
• Looking ahead into the week, the main focus for the market will be the FOMC’s second meeting under new Chair Kevin Warsh. Market expectations currently point towards a 66.3% chance of a pause at current levels and a 33.7% probability for a 25bps hike.
• The Fed’s meeting will then be followed by monetary policy decisions from the Bank of England and Bank of Japan.
• Markets will also parse earnings reports from megacaps including Microsoft Corp., Meta Platforms Inc., Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.
• Last Thursday, shares of Alphabet Inc. fell more than 7% after the firm reported that free cash flow had turned negative in Q2 2026 for the first time since its IPO in 2004. Negative cash flow refers to when a company spent more cash than it generated over a certain period.
• That raised concerns amongst market participants around the huge burst in AI-related capital expenditure from large tech firms.

DeFi / Web3 / Altcoins / Crypto

• Cryptocurrency exchange BitMart has announced a phased shutdown of its trading platform, marking a significant development for the digital asset industry. The company has begun suspending new deposits and trading activity, with all trading scheduled to end on 26 August 2026.
• The platform is expected to cease operations entirely by 31 January 2027.
• The announcement was followed by an unexpected statement from BitMart Global CEO Nenter (Nathan) Chow, who said he had not been consulted about the decision.
• Chow stated that he was informed on Friday that his employment was being terminated and only became aware of the platform's wind-down after the news was made public.
• BitMart has indicated that the closure will be carried out in stages, allowing customers time to manage their assets before operations officially end.
• Robinhood is reportedly in discussions with Crypto.com to add its event-based contracts to the brokerage’s prediction markets platform.
• The proposed arrangement would allow Robinhood users to trade yes-or-no contracts supplied by Crypto.com directly through the Robinhood app.
• However, the talks remain ongoing and may not result in a final agreement.
• Storj Labs, a decentralized, open-source cloud platform for secure and private data storage, has voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States as part of a financial restructuring aimed at resolving legacy obligations and supporting future growth.
• The company said its core operations will continue as normal throughout the process, with no expected disruption to customer services. Storj will also continue meeting its obligations, subject to court approval and applicable bankruptcy rules.
• Management described the filing as a necessary step to strengthen the business and remove liabilities linked to earlier stages of the company’s development. Storj is also reviewing previous acquisitions and non-core operations as it refocuses on its original decentralised cloud infrastructure business.
• Michael Saylor, executive chairman of Strategy, a bitcoin treasury company, posted the firm's bitcoin acquisition chart with the cryptic message, "We're gonna need another color," hinting that Strategy could be preparing to announce a new type of treasury transaction beyond its traditional bitcoin purchases.
• Strategy's acquisition chart currently uses orange dots to represent bitcoin purchases, while Saylor has previously used green to signal cash reserve additions, though the company has not explained what any new colour would represent.
• Strategy has reported no bitcoin purchases for four consecutive weeks since buying 520 BTC for $34.9M in June, and as of July 20 held 843,775 BTC acquired for $63.69B, leaving the position at an unrealized loss of roughly $9.3B with bitcoin near $64,650.
• The U.S. State Department launched the Freedom Tech Excellence Program, a talent-exchange initiative that will embed specialists from the Bitcoin Policy Institute (a Bitcoin-focused think tank), Palantir (a data analytics and defence software company) and Anduril (an autonomous defence technology company) in limited-term diplomatic assignments.
• While remaining employed by their organisations, participants will support work on online freedom of expression, privacy-enhancing technologies, digital surveillance, online scams and responsible AI governance.
• The Bitcoin Policy Institute joins as a founding partner alongside the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, as the administration broadens its technology and crypto policy agenda, including the creation of a national bitcoin reserve and digital asset stockpile from seized assets.
• World Foundation, the nonprofit overseeing the World identity protocol, raised $52.5M in the first close of a strategic WLD token sale led by Pantera Capital, a crypto-focused investment firm, with all purchased tokens locked for one year.
• The proceeds will fund the global expansion of World ID, a privacy-preserving proof-of-human system, which has generated more than 475M verification proofs since launching into production three years ago and is being integrated with platforms including Zoom, DocuSign, Okta, Vercel and Tinder.
• As of the announcement, more than 39M people had joined World Network, including over 18M who completed Orb verification, while the project’s total funding had reached approximately $492.5M, comprising about $240M in venture equity and $252.5M from WLD token sales.
• Wise, a UK-based cross-border payments company, plans to reapply for a U.S. national trust bank charter under the GENIUS Act framework after the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency rejected its earlier application.
• The application comes as the OCC has conditionally approved several crypto and stablecoin firms for national trust charters, while Wise continues addressing anti-money laundering concerns raised in a July 2025 multi-state consent order and maintains that it is agnostic about whether payments move through stablecoins or traditional rails.

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