South Korea has arranged crude oil shipments for July and August at levels exceeding 110 percent of the previous year’s average, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced on July 21.

The ministry indicated that September arrivals are projected to reach at least 90 percent of last year’s volume. Officials expect no significant supply disruptions through the end of September.

Red Sea shipping traffic remains normal at present, with authorities monitoring the situation closely. In the event of disruptions, the government plans to pursue alternative routes, including the Suez Canal.

BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink stated that the leverage-driven selloff in cryptocurrencies has concluded and that Bitcoin is demonstrating greater stability at current price levels.

Fink offered the assessment during a July 15 television interview following the release of the asset manager’s record second-quarter results. He noted longstanding concerns regarding the use of leverage in Bitcoin and broader cryptocurrency markets but did not provide any specific price forecasts.

Exodus Movement, a cryptocurrency wallet provider based in Omaha, Nebraska, disclosed plans to cut approximately 25 percent of its global workforce as part of a strategic pivot toward a full-stack stablecoin payments platform.

The restructuring, detailed in a Monday regulatory filing, aims to support integration of recent acquisitions and generate annual cash operating expense savings of $10 million to $13 million, with full benefits expected in 2027. The company will incur one-time pre-tax restructuring charges of $2.5 million to $3.5 million, primarily related to severance.

The moves follow the acquisitions of Monavate, a European electronic money institution, and Baanx, a cryptocurrency payments firm. These deals provide regulatory licensing, card issuance capabilities and infrastructure to expand into payments services. The company intends to leverage its existing wallet user base as a distribution channel for the new offerings.

Shares of Exodus Movement rose 2.2 percent in early trading on the announcement. The stock remains down approximately 85 percent over the past year.

The workforce adjustments reflect a shift in required skills from blockchain development and user experience to compliance, banking relations and payments expertise. The changes are intended to align costs with the demands of building a vertically integrated payments business.

The South Korean won advanced against the U.S. dollar on Tuesday as foreign investors maintained net purchases of local stocks.

The currency traded at 1,474.3 won per dollar in late afternoon, 5 won firmer than the prior close. It opened at 1,477.6 won and reached an intraday high of 1,471.1 won per dollar, the strongest level since May 11.

SK Hynix contributed to the currency’s gains by converting portions of proceeds from its Nasdaq American depositary receipts offering into won. Foreign investors acquired a net 295 billion won, equivalent to $199 million, of South Korean equities.

The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index rose 3.56 percent to close at 6,474.95 points.

Capital Economics has forecast further narrowing of the spread between 10-year and 2-year U.S. Treasury yields in coming months, with potential for full inversion driven by escalating tensions in the Strait of Hormuz and higher interest rate projections.

The research firm anticipates the Federal Reserve will implement 75 basis points of rate increases over the next year, compared with the roughly 40 basis points currently priced into markets. Short-term yields have risen faster than longer-term ones, propelled by stronger-than-expected economic data and energy price pressures. The 10-year yield reached 4.59 percent on Monday.

Geopolitical risks in the Strait of Hormuz have contributed to higher oil prices, with Brent crude trading between $82 and $85 a barrel. This dynamic feeds into near-term inflation expectations, lifting two-year yields while 10-year yields remain more anchored by longer-term growth outlooks. Historically, yield curve inversion has served as a reliable precursor to U.S. recessions.

The firm attributes the flattening to diverging real rate expectations, with short-term rates responding more strongly to recent labor market resilience, consumer inflation expectations at 3.7 percent, and energy costs. Softer June payroll figures have not offset these pressures.

Capital Economics’ more hawkish outlook implies markets may be underestimating the extent of required monetary tightening. The next Federal Reserve meeting on July 28-29 will provide further guidance on policy direction amid these developments.

ZHIPU, traded on the Hyperliquid platform, rose sharply Tuesday, climbing 31.1 percent from its session low to a high of $149.52 before trading around $146.71.

The rebound inflicted losses on short sellers, including a leveraged position initiated at $127.50 and increased up to $143.20. The address maintains a 5 times isolated short position valued at approximately $198,700, with a liquidation price near $163.83 and an unrealized loss of about $14,100, representing a 38.1 percent decline in returns.

Seven additional short positions exceeding $50,000 were established during the rebound, with combined holdings of roughly $953,200 and collective unrealized losses around $70,800. Among larger long positions, one carries an average entry near $149.66, only slightly above current levels, while another at approximately $159.41 faces ongoing pressure.

The token had previously dropped about 50 percent from its placement price following the July 13 issuance of 19.78 million new H-shares. The decline accelerated after the July 17 release of an open-source artificial intelligence model before partially recovering on Tuesday.

U.S. stocks retreated Monday as early gains faded amid rising geopolitical tensions between the United States and Iran, elevated oil prices and investor caution ahead of key corporate earnings reports.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian described the situation with the United States as a full-scale war, while Houthi rebels announced plans to blockade Saudi ports. Brent crude futures rose 1.3 percent to settle at $89.22 a barrel after briefly exceeding $90. U.S. gasoline prices climbed above $4 a gallon.

The S&P 500 lost 0.2 percent to close at 7,443. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.6 percent to 51,839. The Nasdaq Composite declined less than 0.1 percent to 25,508.

Market participants remained uncertain whether upcoming technology company results would justify high valuations linked to artificial intelligence spending.

Shares of Bitcoin mining companies expanding into artificial intelligence infrastructure rose sharply Monday after Hut 8 and IREN announced a combined $12.6 billion in new contracts, easing concerns about softening demand for data center capacity.

Hut 8 advanced as much as 17 percent following a 15-year, $9.8 billion lease agreement for the second phase of its Beacon Point AI data center campus in Texas. The deal with an investment-grade tenant doubles the customer’s commitment to 704 megawatts and fully commercializes the site’s 1 gigawatt capacity.

IREN gained as much as 19 percent after securing $2.8 billion in multiyear cloud services agreements with Microsoft, Nvidia, Perplexity and Figure AI. The company raised its year-end artificial intelligence cloud annualized revenue run-rate target to more than $4 billion.

The CoinShares Bitcoin Miners ETF climbed 8.5 percent amid the broader sector rally. Other participants, including Cipher Mining, TeraWulf, Riot Platforms and MARA Holdings, posted gains ranging from 5 percent to 11 percent.

The agreements address recent investor doubts stemming from advances in open-source artificial intelligence models and potential increases in supply from cloud providers. Hut 8’s long-term lease and IREN’s diversified customer base across the AI value chain signal sustained demand for high-performance computing capacity.

IREN plans to expand its AI cloud capacity to 480 megawatts in 2026 and 1.2 gigawatts in 2027. Customer prepayments cover about 45 percent of associated capital expenditures, reducing execution risks.

The developments validate the strategic shift by former Bitcoin miners toward artificial intelligence infrastructure, reinforcing confidence in long-term revenue visibility for the sector.

Solv Protocol isolated an attack on its SolvBTC+ contract after a leak of the deployer private key enabled unauthorized minting of the asset.

The company completed its emergency measures within three hours of detecting the incident. Officials confirmed that all underlying Bitcoin holdings remained secure.

Deposits and redemptions for the product have been suspended as a precaution. The protocol expects to restore these functions within two weeks.

SpaceX will publish its second-quarter 2026 earnings on August 4, clearing the way for the first significant unlock of insider shares two days later under the terms of its share offering prospectus.

The initial release on August 6 will involve shares representing 8 percent of total outstanding stock, equivalent to 20 percent of the early lockup pool. An additional 10 percent could become available if the share price rises at least 30 percent above the initial public offering level and sustains that threshold for five of the preceding 10 trading days, raising the potential maximum unlock to 12 percent.

Subsequent smaller unlocks of 2.8 percent each are planned for August 21, September 10, September 25, October 12 and October 26, ahead of the company’s third-quarter earnings release.