Trump Declares US-Iran Ceasefire Over as Oil Jumps and Risk Assets Slide

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In Today's Note

• US equities and crypto sold off after Trump declared the US-Iran ceasefire over, following fresh US strikes and the revocation of the Iranian oil waiver; the S&P 500 fell 0.45% and Nasdaq-100 1.77% as the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped 4.65% (-10.79% over five days), while Brent jumped to $78 from $70 and the 2-year Treasury yield rose to 4.22%, and BTC slid from a $64.6K high to below $62K.
• The SEC added crypto rulemaking to its 2026 agenda and the CFTC charged a North Carolina trader over a $14M crypto fraud, while Ondo Perps enabled tokenized stocks as collateral, Kraken's parent won a $22M arbitration award against auditor Mazars, and Bitmine added 40,000 ETH ($71.6M).

Market Snapshot: Overnight Moves

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Macro & Markets

• A new bout of tension between the US and Iran has resulted in risk-off moves across financial markets with President Donald Trump claiming the tentative Washington-Tehran ceasefire was over. 
• In Ankara, Turkey, Trump said yesterday, “For me, I think it’s over. As far as I’m concerned it’s just a waste of time.”
• Preceding his remarks, the US launched a new wave of strikes against Iran and the US Treasury announced it was revoking the waiver that had allowed the global sale of Iranian oil. 

• According to the US, that series of strikes was a retaliatory response to recent attacks on three ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz by Iran which has said repeatedly it will not allow vessels to transit the waterway without its permission.
• Ending attacks on commercial shipping and the US waiver to allow Iranian oil sales were both key pillars of the memorandum of understanding that was agreed between the two sides on June 17. So far, the US has blamed Iran for the attacks on shipping with the Central Command stating that the "powerful strikes" were meant to "impose heavy costs for targeting and attacking commercial shipping”, while Iran claims the military strikes and waiver revocation have violated the ceasefire agreement.

• Both US equities and crypto assets came under pressure following the escalations. The S&P 500 ended the day down 0.45% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 fell by a larger 1.77%. 
• Selling continued in chipmakers and semiconductor firms, with the closely followed Philadelphia Semiconductor plunging 4.65%, bringing its five-day performance down to 10.79%. 
• As we have noted previously, despite the risk-off moves away from tech, most companies in the S&P 500 actually rose. 
• BTC fell from a high of $64.6K and currently trades below $62K. 
• The biggest moves occurred in oil and US treasury markets. Having returned to pre-war levels of $70 per barrel last week, Brent crude now trades at $78, driven both by the escalation in the conflict and the US Treasury’s decision to block Iranian oil sales.
• The yield on the US two-year treasury has jumped from 4.15% to 4.22% over renewed worries of higher energy costs that could fuel inflation. 

• Despite Trump’s comments, he still showed signs of a willingness to continue negotiations. The US president claimed, “There’s something wrong with them … They can talk, but I think they’re wasting their time.”

• Speaking around the time of the escalations, Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams reiterated his view that monetary policy is in a good place for now and that he expects declining energy prices to help contribute to a drop in headline inflation to drive a drop in overall inflation. 
• Speaking in an interview on Fox Business, Williams said, “I do feel a little bit more positive about the near-term inflation outlook because of the energy price declines that we’re going to see. My view is that monetary policy is well-positioned”  to achieve the Fed’s mandate.
• On forward guidance, which has become a focus since new Chair Kevin Warsh took the helm, Williams said there was “strong agreement” across FOMC members that “Given the uncertainties that we face in terms of inflation, the economic outlook, trying to give explicit forward guidance about where interest rates are going to be was no longer appropriate. The uncertainties are too great.”

DeFi / Web3 / Altcoins / Crypto3

• The US SEC has included crypto rulemaking in its 2026 Regulatory Agenda, with planned proposals aimed at updating rules for exchanges and broker-dealers that handle crypto assets.
• The agency is considering changes to broker capital, customer asset protection and recordkeeping rules to address how those requirements apply to crypto, while also weighing new exchange rule amendments for crypto issuance, custody and trading.

• The CFTC has charged North Carolina trader Trevor Vernon and his firm, Argent Capital Management LLC, over an alleged $14M fraud involving crypto, futures, and options trading. 
• In a complaint filed in federal court, the agency said Vernon raised money from about 60 participants while falsely presenting himself as a successful trader.
• According to the CFTC, Vernon instead suffered at least $8.6M in trading losses and misled investors through financial updates and performance emails.
• The agency also alleges Vernon and his company were not properly registered and made false statements during the investigation. 
• The CFTC is seeking penalties, restitution, disgorgement, trading bans, and a permanent injunction.

• Ondo Finance, a real-world asset tokenization platform, said select users of Ondo Perps, its perpetual futures trading platform, can now use tokenized stocks as collateral to trade perps tied to commodities such as oil and gold and stocks such as Apple and Tesla.
• The 24/7 service is available to traders outside the U.S., Panama and other prohibited jurisdictions, with Ondo saying the feature is designed to give tokenized stocks more utility as onchain collateral rather than only tradable assets.

• Prediction market Kalshi lost its bid for a preliminary injunction after a federal judge declined to block New York, whose gambling regulator oversees state gaming laws, from enforcing those laws against Kalshi’s sports-event contracts.
• Judge Analisa Torres of the Southern District of New York said New York’s gambling laws, as applied to Kalshi’s sports-event contracts, are not preempted by the federal Commodity Exchange Act and that Kalshi had not shown it was likely to succeed.
• Kalshi has appealed the decision to the Second Circuit, the federal appeals court covering New York, while the ruling could affect its broader fight with state regulators over whether sports prediction markets fall under federal commodities rules or state gambling laws.

• Kraken’s parent company Payward, the operator of the crypto exchange, won a $22M arbitration award against Mazars USA, an auditing firm, after accusing the auditor of abandoning a nearly completed audit during Operation Choke Point 2.0.
• Operation Choke Point 2.0, a term used by crypto industry figures for alleged Biden-era pressure on banks and service providers to cut ties with crypto firms, coincided with Mazars pulling back from crypto work and citing legal and regulatory uncertainty around Kraken.
• Payward is asking the Delaware Court of Chancery, a state business court, to enter final judgment on the award

• According to onchain data, Bitmine Immersion Technologies, the largest public Ethereum treasury company chaired by Tom Lee, reportedly added 40,000 ETH, worth about $71.6M, across two wallet addresses on Tuesday.
• The purchase has not been officially confirmed by Bitmine, but the company’s latest disclosure showed holdings of 5.74M ETH, equal to about 4.8% of Ethereum’s circulating supply.

• Zcash, a privacy-focused cryptocurrency, published a blog post after the recent Orchard counterfeiting bug, outlining why undetectable counterfeiting risks are possible in shielded pools where transaction values are private and monetary soundness depends on cryptographic checks.
• The post says counterfeiting bugs can come from protocol specifications, software implementations or broken cryptographic assumptions, but argues that only specification bugs can create undetectable counterfeiting while implementation bugs would leave evidence in the chain history.
• Zcash said its formal verification effort for Ironwood, the replacement shielded pool, is designed to mathematically rule out undetectable counterfeiting bugs in the protocol specification, with AI-assisted proof tools helping shorten the work from years to weeks.

• Jack Mallers’ bitcoin payments firm Strike has launched bitcoin-backed loans designed to protect borrowers from forced liquidation during BTC price swings. 
• The company says falling bitcoin prices will not trigger margin calls or automatic collateral sales, as long as borrowers continue making required payments.
• Strike said the product removes price-based loan-to-value liquidation triggers, allowing users to borrow dollars while keeping their bitcoin collateral intact. 
• However, collateral may still be partially liquidated if a borrower misses an interest or maturity payment and fails to cure it within a 10-day grace period. 
• The loans are available as term loans in select U.S. states.

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Charts of the Day

Figure 1. Block Scholes BTC Risk-Appetite Index (white, left-hand axis) and BTC spot price (orange, right-hand axis).

Figure 2. Block Scholes ETH Risk-Appetite Index (white, left-hand axis) and ETH spot price (purple, right-hand axis).

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Figure 3. BTC at-the-money implied volatility across selected tenors. Source: Deribit, Block Scholes.

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Figure 4. ETH at-the-money implied volatility across selected tenors. Source: Deribit, Block Scholes.

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Figure 5. BTC 25-delta put-call skew ratio across selected tenors. Source: Deribit, Block Scholes.

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Figure 6. ETH 25-delta put-call skew ratio across selected tenors. Source: Deribit, Block Scholes.