Ukraine has complicated President Donald Trump’s efforts to stabilize oil markets amid the Iran war, amplifying risks for financial markets, including cryptocurrencies.

For nearly a month, markets have been gripped by a single concern: the Iran war. Disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz – a critical oil chokepoint – have driven prices sharply higher, stoking fears of sticky inflation, a risk-off shift, and renewed Fed rate hikes.

To cool things down, the Trump administration quickly lifted sanctions on Russian crude for the short term, opening the tap to compensate for oil supply disruptions caused by the Iran war.

It came across as a solid plan to stabilize energy markets until Ukraine blew it up.
This week, Ukraine launched drone strikes on ports and refiners in Russia’s Leningrad, leading to what one observer described as “the most serious threat” to the country’s oil exports since Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The damage is significant, with roughly 40% of Russia’s oil export capacity offline. Oilprice.com editor Michael Kern described it as “a logistics problem first – and a supply problem second,” underscoring that moving oil to buyers is now as difficult as producing it.

“In conjunction with the war in the Middle East and de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz and subsequent oil/LNG production outages, the Russian disruption adds a fresh element to already sky-high oil prices,” Kern noted.

In other words, oil prices may remain elevated longer than initially expected. For risk assets, including bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, that’s an issue because higher sticky energy prices could lead to sticky inflation, potentially putting pressure on global central banks to raise borrowing costs and drain liquidity.

Traders are already prepping for a potential Fed rate hike in the short term. According to Bloomberg, flows in the options market tied to overnight interest rates indicate traders are wagering on a rate increase within two weeks.

Taken together, these factors suggest bitcoin’s recent resilience may face tests, with the $65,000–$75,000 range vulnerable to a downside break.

At press time, bitcoin traded near $68,500, down nearly 2% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinDesk data. WTI oil, which slipped nearly 10% to $83.95 per barrel on Monday, has since bounced back to $93.50. Brent crude is once again trading above the $100 mark.

US lawmakers have introduced a second bill this week aimed at curbing prediction market insider trading by government officials, amid growing concerns over such activity on major platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket.

In an announcement on Thursday, US lawmakers Todd Young, Elissa Slotkin, John Curtis and Adam Schiff unveiled the bipartisan Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026.

“No one should be profiting off the information and knowledge gained as a public servant, period,” Slotkin said, adding: “This bill is an important first step in placing common sense rules around prediction markets, and it has real teeth to ensure those who break these rules face real consequences.”

The bill underscores growing unease that prediction markets could become a new frontier for insider trading, as bets tied to real-world events blur the line between wagering and financial activity. 

Bill aims to stop insider profiteering

The latest bill, which has been introduced in the second session of the 119th Congress, aims to prohibit government executives from using “insider information to bet on a prediction market contract.”

If enacted, the Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026 would cover the president, vice president and politicians across Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate. 

It would also cover political appointees and “employees of an Executive agency or independent regulatory agency.”

The bill defines insider information as anything that a “reasonable investor would consider important in making a decision related to a prediction market contract and is not publicly available.”

It also outlines reporting requirements under which a government official must report any contract wagers over $250 within 30 days to the supervising ethics office. The individual must include “the number of contracts purchased, price of contract, date and time of transaction, name of contract, position taken on contract, name of trading platform used, profit or loss made on transaction.”

The penalties will see individuals charged the greater of $500 or double the amount of profit made from the prediction market contract.

Related: SEC is no longer a ‘cop on the beat‘ on crypto, says US lawmaker

The bills come amid an increasing number of state and federal lawmakers taking aim at prediction markets.