US-Iran Peace Talks Break Down

is an FCA-regulated institutional crypto derivatives analytics platform. Live data, IV surfaces, and backtesting available via blockscholes.com.

Recent Research from Block Scholes

• Tokenised Markets on Bitget UEX: Liquidity Conditions in Bitget’s Real World Asset Perpetual Markets
• Tokenised Markets on Bitget UEX: How Traders Are Utilising 24/7 Real-World Assets For Real Time Macro Hedging
• Block Scholes x Panoptic: Bridging The Onchain Convexity Gap
• 2026 – the year of RWA perps?

In Today's Note

• BTC is trading around $62.5K, down ~3% over the past 24 hours, with ETH similarly off ~3%, as Middle East tensions weigh on sentiment alongside continued spot ETF outflows.
• The US-Iran interim peace deal is in effect and the Strait of Hormuz blockade has been lifted, though Iran's Supreme Leader signalled the agreement should not be read as acceptance of US positions, and direct talks have been postponed after JD Vance pulled out of the Switzerland meeting — pushing Brent crude back above $77.
• The Bank of England held rates at 3.75% in a 7-2 MPC vote, with Governor Bailey cautioning that inflationary pipeline pressure remains despite progress on energy; the Malta FSA published a discussion paper exploring how DeFi protocols fit within MiCA's scope; and Kalshi is reportedly in early IPO discussions after surpassing $2B in annualised revenue.

Market Snapshot: Overnight Moves

Macro & Markets

• Risk sentiment has once again taken a dive, with both BTC and ETH down 3% over the past 24 hours. 
• BTC fell from $64K yesterday and has since ranged sideways around $62K as tensions in the Middle East simmer once more. 
• Sentiment in the majors has also been hampered down by another day of spot ETF outflows. BTC products sold $90.7M worth of Bitcoin in trading yesterday, while spot Ethereum ETFs saw outflows of $12.8M.

• Volatility in options markets has picked up slightly since the later half of this week, with 7-day ATM implied vol jumping from 32% on Wednesday to 43% yesterday evening. That move higher in at-the-money IV has been accompanied by an increased demand for put options.
• 7-day 25-delta put-call skew for BTC has fallen from -3.5% at the beginning of the week to -8.5% now as spot price has struggled to hold momentum in the mid-$60K region. 
• Similarly, for ETH, short-dated put-call skew has declined from -1.3% at the start of the week to -6.2% currently. 

• Brent crude oil prices jumped up past $77 a barrel as the expected next round of direct talks between the US and Iran in Switzerland was “postponed”, as confirmed by the Swiss Foreign Ministry. 
• The exact reason for canceling the negotiations was unclear, but the White House announced late Thursday that Vice-President JD Vance would not be travelling to the talks and said the logistics had not been "simple or predictable".
• Negotiators from both sides were due to meet for "technical discussions" on the next steps of the agreement signed earlier this week.
• Meanwhile, over the past 24 hours, Israel has continued to carry out strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon; despite the 14-point memorandum of understanding electronically signed by the US and Iran calling for an end to the conflict in the region. 

• Nonetheless, with the interim peace deal now in effect, the US declared an end to its blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. 
• The US Central Command confirmed the end of the blockade on X "in accordance with the President's direction", while President Trump wrote on Truth Social that the “oil is flowing”. 
• As such, US risk-on equities finished yesterday’s session higher, though are closed today for the Juneteenth holiday. 
• The S&P 500 finished up 1.08%, while the Nasdaq-100 rallied nearly 2.5%. Both S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures are down today however by 0.18% and 0.25%, respectively.  

• Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said he had approved the deal with the US, claiming that President Trump had "out of desperation, used all kinds of leverage" to get Iran to sign. 
• The supreme leader warned that while there would be "in-person negotiations in the future", it should not be taken as “acceptance of the enemy's position".

• The Bank of England kept its benchmark interest rate on hold at 3.75% yesterday, with Governor Andrew Bailey stating he was “very encouraged” by the US-Iran peace deal. 
• The bank’s Monetary Policy Committee voted 7-2 to keep rates on hold, in line with economists' expectations. 
• Despite the moves towards reopening the Hormuz Strait, Governor Bailey said that it was too soon to declare the inflation threat over — "Whatever happens in the future, the higher energy prices of the past four months means there's already some inflationary pressure in the pipeline".

DeFi / Web3 / Altcoins / Crypto

• In a discussion paper published on Wednesday, the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) explored how DeFi could fit within the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework. 
• According to the authority, MiCA excludes cryptocurrency services provided in a "fully decentralised manner without any intermediary." However, many DeFi projects retain centralised features such as administrator keys, governance concentration, protocol upgrade rights and control over user-facing interfaces. 
• The regulator is seeking feedback on whether decentralisation should be assessed as a spectrum rather than a binary concept and whether a standardised framework should be developed to determine when a protocol falls outside MiCA's scope.

• According to various news sources, prediction markets platform Kalshi has begun preliminary discussions with investment banks over a potential initial public offering as the company surpasses $2B in annualised revenue. 
• In a Series F round in May, the prediction markets platform raised $1B, bringing its valuation to $22B

This Week's Calendar

Charts of the Day

‍