Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Oil prices erase all war-related premiums in 11 days, Brent crude falls below pre-war levels, but critical inventory shortages could spark a rebound.

International oil prices have quickly fallen back to pre-US-Iran conflict levels, erasing all gains made during the conflict in just 11 days – a move that has surprised markets widely. Brent Crude dipped as low as $72.06 on Thursday, breaking below the pre-conflict last trading day’s settlement price of $72.48, and has plunged more than 39% from its March peak of $118.35. WTI Crude closed at $71.92, down roughly 36% from its high. This round of decline has far outpaced expectations. The industry had widely estimated that mine clearance in the strait would take time and Gulf production capacity would need months to recover, but actual progress has been much faster. JPMorgan analysts noted that the market rebalanced through a "distinctly different combination of demand loss and inventory drawdown", which is very different from initial assumptions. However, the rapid easing may not be stable. S&P Global data showed that 78 oil tankers transited the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, hitting a post-conflict high, but this is still only 57% of pre-conflict levels, with many of these vessels being those trapped earlier and departing in a concentrated manner. TD Securities’ head of commodity strategy warned that the market may have overestimated the pace of supply and inventory recovery, and inventory pressure has become a key variable. U.S. Cushing inventories fell to 19 million barrels last week, about 1 million barrels below the level needed to keep the system stable. TD Securities forecasts that an additional 600 million barrels of global inventory may be drawn down by October; once inventories fall below a critical threshold, oil prices could rebound quickly. For the outlook, Mizuho Securities analysts believe the market is already in an "oversold" state, and expect oil prices to rebound to the $80 range in the coming weeks. Full production recovery in countries like Iraq and Kuwait is not expected until this autumn, when the supply-demand pattern may change again.

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Ansem: Pessimism Hits Extreme Levels, Entering Bitcoin Now Is a Favorable Trading Opportunity

Crypto KOL Ansem has published a post reaffirming Bitcoin’s long-term investment thesis, stating that despite his previous bearish stance, the current price level presents a strong buying opportunity. He noted that Bitcoin’s core narrative as the “hardest currency” remains intact: it cannot be seized by governments, enables instant cross-border transfers, and is insulated from the long-term depreciation of the U.S. dollar, making it an ideal vehicle for long-term wealth storage. Between 2024 and 2025, gold outperforming Bitcoin temporarily dented the “digital gold” narrative, but he believes market confidence will rebound once price momentum picks up. On the macro front, Ansem argues that with the Strait of Hormuz reopening and inflation pressures set to ease, the Federal Reserve’s hawkish stance may have peaked, at which point the Fed and Washington policymakers will have room to cut rates rather than continue hiking. A strong U.S. dollar and rising interest rates have weighed on gold, but if capital from profit-taking in AI stocks flows into real estate, cash, and long-term value storage assets, both gold and Bitcoin will benefit. Institutional investors like Paul Tudor Jones still hold interest in Bitcoin. Earlier, Ansem admitted he was bearish on Bitcoin due to risks in the holdings of Saylor, founder of Strategy, and had previously thought $60,000 would be hard to defend, but he noted he is now reacting to buy-side entry signals. He pointed out that current price action is already pricing in the worst-case scenario of Saylor being forced to sell, and even if he does need to offload, it would not happen for at least six months. He concluded that Bitcoin is currently at the intersection of its long-term historical support levels and what he describes as the most pessimistic market sentiment he has ever seen, making entry in early Q3 a notable trading opportunity.

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Polymarket suffered a vulnerability attack from a third-party vendor, leading to the theft of approximately $3 million, and the platform has pledged full compensation.

Prediction market platform Polymarket disclosed on Thursday that a third-party vendor of its was hacked, with attackers injecting malicious code into the platform’s frontend to steal roughly $3 million in Polymarket’s proprietary stablecoin pUSD from fewer than 15 user accounts. The funds were later converted to ETH and aggregated into a single Ethereum wallet, and as of press time, the assets have not been moved. Polymarket noted that the frontend vulnerability has been identified and patched, with affected users to receive full compensation, though the platform declined to name the specific compromised vendor. This marks Polymarket’s second security incident in two months. Last month, hackers exploited a private key leak to breach an internal wallet used for user deposits and reward distributions, leading to approximately $700,000 in losses. Both incidents were peripheral breaches that did not impact the core protocol, but the consecutive security lapses underscore the potential risks stemming from the platform’s reliance on third-party vendors. Polymarket had recently faced controversy over a Wall Street Journal investigation that alleged it illegally marketed to U.S. users through simulated trades and fake profit videos; the latest security incident has added further pressure on the platform.

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Hashrate metals supply and demand face major shift, countdown to U.S. copper tariff decision.

Last July, the U.S. government unveiled a copper tariff plan. Previously, it imposed a 50% tariff on semi-finished copper products, while refined copper was temporarily exempted, but the plan aims to phase in additional tariffs on refined copper starting in 2027. Whether the plan will take effect will be decided by the end of June. The U.S. Department of Commerce is required to submit its investigation report on Section 232 tariffs before June 30, and will make a final decision based on the findings. As the deadline for the U.S. Section 232 tariff report approaches on June 30, the global market for metals linked to AI computing power will face a new round of volatility. International investment banks including Goldman Sachs analyze that if the U.S. implements the new copper tariff policy, U.S. buyers may launch large-scale stockpiling. Currently, U.S. COMEX copper inventories have exceeded 650,000 tons, hitting a record high. Meanwhile, in the international market, supply tensions for small metals closely tied to the AI computing power industry chain—such as tungsten, tin, tantalum, and indium—are likely to further intensify. (Jinshi)

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ARK Invest added to its holdings in Coinbase, Circle, Bullish, and Robinhood stocks amid market dips.

With crypto-related stocks declining broadly on Thursday, Cathie Wood’s investment firm ARK Invest once again added to its positions at discounted levels, boosting its holdings in stocks of Coinbase, Circle, Bullish, and Robinhood.

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Ansem: Solana has hit its bottom, bullish on SOL/ETH pair trading.

Crypto KOL Ansem has published a bullish view on the SOL/ETH trading pair. Earlier today, Ansem stated: "Solana has hit its bottom — I was the first to call it! Right now, everyone is extremely bearish on SOL, just like when it fell to $8 in 2023. I believe buying SOL at current prices with a holding period of over six months is a solid trade."

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PANews reported on December 27th that on-chain analyst Specter published an article on the X platform stating that crypto KOL and Instagram influencer Andrew Tate may be involved in crypto money laundering activities, with his associated wallet depositing $30 million into Railgun over the past two years. Specter obtained Andrew Tate's wallet address through a screenshot of a private message he posted on June 9, 2024. Tracing this wallet address revealed a connection to a Texas "pig butchering" scam. Although Andrew Tate was not listed as a defendant in the case, the fund flows in the associated wallet were highly suspicious, exhibiting common money laundering techniques, including small and large transfers through nested services and high-risk exchanges.

3 Mid-cap Privacy Coins Saw Heavy Accumulation by Whales in January.

Railgun [RAIL] has hit a key milestone that could scale privacy for DeFi like never before. The privacy mania has been so loud on token price gains, but the underlying protocols haven’t been very useful or scalable until now. 

From Zcash to Tornado Cash, users could only deposit funds and shield them (hide) from the public or explorers. You can only park the funds there with limited utility. 

However, to swap into a DeFi or use a lending protocol, one had to unshield and move the funds, making it easy to correlate and track the activity – A zero usability apart from hiding balances that limits legacy privacy protocols. 

Now, the Ethereum [ETH]-based project has successfully tested Railgun_connect on CowSwap, effectively allowing private wallets to use DeFi platforms without unshielding and moving funds. 

The project said, 

“RAILGUN_connect is a first-of-its-kind tool for privacy and is a huge leap in making private addresses as functional as public ones.”

The team billed the feature as a ‘universal plug-and-play’ that will ‘eliminate the heavy work needed to build an integration to use a DeFi application from a private balance.’

Railgun leverages zero-knowledge proofs for shielded transfers, so interactions with DeFi frontends don’t compromise decentralization or privacy. 

Railgun traction hits record high The push for DeFi privacy at scale aligns with Ethereum’s vision and increasing appetite for such solutions. 

In fact, the number of shields per day for tracking private wallets has been rising sharply since 2025. In early 2026, the daily average shield hit a record high of 326, further confirming the massive demand for privacy.

Source: X/Etherscan Additionally, the cumulative volume on the privacy protocol reached a record $4.5 billion, up from $2.4 billion a year ago. This translated into nearly 100% growth, or 2x, on a year-on-year (YoY) basis. 

Source: Dune The native governance token, RAIL, didn’t fall behind amid this growing network traction. In fact, after the pullback earlier in the week, the token recovered 25%.

This was part of a broader privacy coins rally after the E.U.-U.S. tensions eased, following U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff pause in favor of a potential Greenland deal. 

Source: RAIL/USD, TradingView  Final Thoughts  Railgun unveiled Raingun_connect, a ‘plug and play’ feature to scale DeFi privacy  The privacy project has seen a record daily shield of 326 amid rising demand for privacy solutions. 

April 1st — Onchain Lens monitoring reports Vitalik has again sold gifted meme tokens, with each fetching 14.5 ETH (valued at roughly $30,000). He also transferred 70,000 USDC and 44 ETH to Railgun for a private transaction.

Relevant content

Vice President of Strive: Strategy's STRC Has Essential Differences from the Luna/UST Model

Strive Vice President Joe Burnett wrote in an article that prior to the TerraUSD collapse, roughly $18.7 billion in UST was in circulation, backed by just $3.1 billion in Bitcoin reserves, and UST allowed immediate redemptions. Currently, Strategy holds around $51.5 billion in Bitcoin, corresponding to a circulating STRC supply of approximately $10.5 billion, while STRC is not an immediately redeemable asset. He stressed that the two differ significantly in collateral structure, asset coverage ratio, and redemption mechanism, noting "they are clearly completely different models."

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trade.xyz launches contract trading for Japanese storage stock Kioxia (KOXIA)

According to official announcements, trade.xyz has launched contract trading for Japanese storage stock Kioxia (KOXIA), supporting up to 10x leverage. The Kioxia (KIOXIA) product tracks the value of each common share of Kioxia Holdings Corporation, listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (stock code: 285A). Its price conversion mechanism converts the underlying Japanese stock price from yen to U.S. dollars based on the current USD/JPY exchange rate. Kioxia manufactures NAND flash memory and solid-state drives (SSDs) for use in data centers, consumer electronics, mobile devices, and enterprise storage.

1 minutes ago

Japanese storage chip manufacturer Kioxia's share price rose more than 12%

According to Bitget market data, the share price of Japanese storage chip manufacturer Kioxia Holdings (铠侠) surged by 12%.

1 minutes ago

Coinbase secures Luxembourg’s MiCA license, to base its EU operations in Luxembourg.

According to an official announcement, Luxembourg has officially become Coinbase’s registered MiCA Home under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework. Moving forward, Coinbase will use Luxembourg as its EU business hub to provide compliant crypto asset services for users across EU member states.

1 minutes ago

The KyberSwap attacker has transferred another 2000 ETH to Tornado Cash, with over 80% of the stolen funds now laundered.

According to PeckShield’s monitoring, an address identified as the KyberSwap attacker has once again transferred 2,000 ETH to Tornado Cash. Over the past two years, this attacker has cumulatively transferred and mixed 16,100 ETH via Tornado Cash, equivalent to roughly $40 million at current prices, accounting for over 80% of the $48.8 million lost in the KyberSwap attack in November 2023. Some of the stolen funds have not yet been fully transferred.

1 minutes ago

James Wynn closed out his 40x Bitcoin short position, netting $30,000 in profits, and shifted to opening a 50x S&P 500 short position.

According to monitoring by OnchainLens, James Wynn has liquidated his 40x leveraged Bitcoin (BTC) short position, pocketing roughly $30,000 in profit. He subsequently opened a new 50x leveraged S&P 500 (SP500) short position at a price of 334.42, betting on a future decline in the US stock market.

1 minutes ago

study producing major crypto privacy news found that zero-knowledge proof systems including Railgun, PrivacyPools, Aleo, and Aztec are mathematically immune to quantum attacks, because they rely on information-theoretic security rather than encryption, meaning they remain safe even against infinitely powerful attackers including future quantum computers.

Summary

The Coinbase-led study, co-authored with Stanford and Ethereum Foundation researchers, found that ZK proof systems derive their security from how information is structured and shared. Bitcoin wallets with exposed public keys remain the most immediately vulnerable category in any quantum attack scenario, while ZK-based privacy tools are unaffected by the same class of attack. The finding provides a concrete security advantage for privacy-preserving DeFi infrastructure at a moment when the broader crypto industry is still debating how and when to implement post quantum cryptography across base-layer networks. Crypto privacy news arrived Tuesday with a significant finding: the same quantum computing threat that has triggered emergency roadmaps at Ripple, Bitcoin, and Ethereum appears not to apply to privacy-preserving zero-knowledge proof systems. A study co-authored by Coinbase researchers alongside teams at Stanford and the Ethereum Foundation concluded that networks like Railgun and PrivacyPools rely on a fundamentally different security model than the one quantum computers are designed to attack.

The study was shared with DL News and concludes that zero-knowledge proof systems “rely on information-theoretic systems which are secure even against infinitely powerful attackers because of how information is structured and shared, not because of encryption.” That distinction is not a matter of degree. It is a categorical difference between computational security and information-theoretic security.

Why Zero-Knowledge Proofs Are Structurally Immune Standard blockchain security, including the protection on Bitcoin wallets and Ethereum accounts, relies on computational hardness: the assumption that breaking the underlying math problem requires more computation than any attacker possesses. Quantum computers using Shor’s algorithm can in theory solve certain categories of these math problems exponentially faster than classical computers, which is why Bitcoin’s elliptic curve signatures are considered potentially vulnerable.

Zero-knowledge proofs work differently. They allow one party to prove knowledge of a secret without revealing the secret itself, and the security guarantee comes from information-theoretic principles rather than computational difficulty. Even a computer with infinite processing power cannot extract more information than the proof was designed to reveal. That structural property makes ZK-based privacy tools immune to Shor’s algorithm and to any quantum attack that targets computational hardness.

What This Means for Railgun, Aztec, Aleo, and PrivacyPools Railgun is a privacy protocol that shields transaction amounts and addresses using ZK proofs on Ethereum. PrivacyPools is a protocol designed to allow compliant privacy by letting users prove their funds do not come from sanctioned sources without revealing their full transaction history. Aleo is a Layer 1 blockchain built natively around ZK proofs. Aztec is an Ethereum Layer 2 with private smart contract execution via ZK proofs.

All four rely on information-theoretic security for their core privacy guarantees. The Coinbase study’s conclusion means that when quantum computers eventually mature to the point of threatening Bitcoin’s key security, the privacy properties of these networks will remain intact. Their vulnerability, if any, would come from other components of their architecture, such as the underlying elliptic curve signatures used for account authentication, which is a separate security layer from the ZK proof system itself.

The Broader Implication for DeFi Privacy Infrastructure The finding arrives as the broader Bitcoin quantum risk debate is producing governance friction across the ecosystem. The quantum threat debate in Bitcoin has centered on whether to force coin migration or rely on optional upgrades. ZK-based privacy infrastructure sidesteps that debate entirely, because its core security model was already quantum-immune by design.

For DeFi developers and institutional users evaluating infrastructure choices over long time horizons, the study provides a concrete basis for treating ZK-based privacy tools as categorically more future-proof than traditional transparency-based blockchain accounts with respect to the quantum threat. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has publicly endorsed protocols like Railgun on broader grounds, arguing that privacy should be a default option for blockchain users. The quantum immunity finding adds a security dimension to that argument.

PANews reported on May 11 that, according to PAShield's monitoring, the TrustedVolumes attackers have transferred and laundered $278,000: depositing 10.2 ETH ($23,600) into TornadoCash, converting 110 ETH ($250,000) into BTC via THORChain, and also attempting to deposit 0.5 ETH into Railgun but changing their minds and returning the deposit.

TrustedVolumes was attacked on May 7, resulting in a loss of approximately $6.7 million.

On May 24, HTX Markets data shows RAIL—the token of privacy protocol Railgun—briefly spiked above $4.7 before pulling back. It is now trading at $4.01, boasting a more than 73% gain in value over the past 24 hours.

Relevant content

Vice President of Strive: Strategy's STRC Has Essential Differences from the Luna/UST Model

Strive Vice President Joe Burnett wrote in an article that prior to the TerraUSD collapse, roughly $18.7 billion in UST was in circulation, backed by just $3.1 billion in Bitcoin reserves, and UST allowed immediate redemptions. Currently, Strategy holds around $51.5 billion in Bitcoin, corresponding to a circulating STRC supply of approximately $10.5 billion, while STRC is not an immediately redeemable asset. He stressed that the two differ significantly in collateral structure, asset coverage ratio, and redemption mechanism, noting "they are clearly completely different models."

1 minutes ago

trade.xyz launches contract trading for Japanese storage stock Kioxia (KOXIA)

According to official announcements, trade.xyz has launched contract trading for Japanese storage stock Kioxia (KOXIA), supporting up to 10x leverage. The Kioxia (KIOXIA) product tracks the value of each common share of Kioxia Holdings Corporation, listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (stock code: 285A). Its price conversion mechanism converts the underlying Japanese stock price from yen to U.S. dollars based on the current USD/JPY exchange rate. Kioxia manufactures NAND flash memory and solid-state drives (SSDs) for use in data centers, consumer electronics, mobile devices, and enterprise storage.

1 minutes ago

Japanese storage chip manufacturer Kioxia's share price rose more than 12%

According to Bitget market data, the share price of Japanese storage chip manufacturer Kioxia Holdings (铠侠) surged by 12%.

1 minutes ago

Coinbase secures Luxembourg’s MiCA license, to base its EU operations in Luxembourg.

According to an official announcement, Luxembourg has officially become Coinbase’s registered MiCA Home under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework. Moving forward, Coinbase will use Luxembourg as its EU business hub to provide compliant crypto asset services for users across EU member states.

1 minutes ago

The KyberSwap attacker has transferred another 2000 ETH to Tornado Cash, with over 80% of the stolen funds now laundered.

According to PeckShield’s monitoring, an address identified as the KyberSwap attacker has once again transferred 2,000 ETH to Tornado Cash. Over the past two years, this attacker has cumulatively transferred and mixed 16,100 ETH via Tornado Cash, equivalent to roughly $40 million at current prices, accounting for over 80% of the $48.8 million lost in the KyberSwap attack in November 2023. Some of the stolen funds have not yet been fully transferred.

1 minutes ago

James Wynn closed out his 40x Bitcoin short position, netting $30,000 in profits, and shifted to opening a 50x S&P 500 short position.

According to monitoring by OnchainLens, James Wynn has liquidated his 40x leveraged Bitcoin (BTC) short position, pocketing roughly $30,000 in profit. He subsequently opened a new 50x leveraged S&P 500 (SP500) short position at a price of 334.42, betting on a future decline in the US stock market.

1 minutes ago

PeckShield: WUSD/GLOVE liquidity pool attacked, resulting in losses of approximately $207,000.

PANews reported on May 25th that, according to PeckShield monitoring, the WUSD/GLOVE project on Ethereum suffered an attack, resulting in a loss of approximately $207,000. After obtaining the funds, the attackers converted the stolen assets into approximately 98 ETH and transferred them to the privacy protocol Railgun.

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The Ethereum Foundation's Kohaku Initiative released an SDK enabling seamless integration of shielded pool protocols like Railgun, Tornado Cash, and Privacy Pools directly into wallet interfaces, with 4337 relaying now operational.

The Ethereum Foundation's Kohaku Initiative announced the release of its SDK for integrating privacy protocols into Ethereum wallets without intermediaries.

The team achieved a major milestone with v0.0.1-alpha.21 of the kohaku-eth/railgun integration, which now features operational 4337 mempool relaying for private transactions. Tornado Cash and Privacy Pools integrations are in development.

Kohaku aims to make end-to-end privacy the default for Ethereum users by abstracting away the complexity of interacting with existing shielded pool protocols.

Rather than relying on protocol-specific relaying infrastructure, the SDK enables all privacy protocol transactions to route through the 4337 mempool—a shift the team describes as a major contribution toward user-controlled privacy without dependence on centralized relayers.

Wallets in the worksThe initiative is actively demonstrating practical applications of the SDK beyond theoretical research. Developers have created a CLI-based wallet that consumes the Kohaku SDK to showcase real-world functionality. Wallet integrations are underway, with production wallets including Ambire preparing implementations. A browser extension experimental wallet developed in collaboration with breadcoop is also in progress.

Kohaku's scope extends beyond the work currently highlighted. The initiative is also developing infrastructure for post-quantum accounts, multisigs, and hardware wallet support, according to the team.

The SDK documentation is being expanded to improve developer experience, with the team emphasizing that wallet integration timelines require patience as production implementations move forward.

The Kohaku Initiative represents the Ethereum Foundation's focus on bringing privacy solutions from the research phase to real user adoption. Code is available on GitHub, and vision documentation for the CLI wallet component is publicly accessible. The team plans to showcase progress at Berlin Blockchain Week.

Sources: Ethereum Foundation Kohaku GitHub | Kohaku CLI GitHub Repository | Kohaku Vision Documentation | X Announcement

What is Railgun? A Guide to the EVM Privacy Protocol