Oil tops $100 as the Hormuz blockade chokes 20% of global supply, forcing a rare Jones Act waiver and stoking inflation that threatens Fed cuts and crypto risk appetite.

Oil markets remain in a state of acute stress on Wednesday, with Brent crude trading above $104 per barrel and West Texas Intermediate crossing $97, as the geopolitical fallout from the U.S.-Israel war on Iran continues to reverberate through global energy supply chains. The moves represent a price surge of more than 70% since early January, when Brent was hovering around $60 a barrel — and come as the Trump administration reached for one of its most unconventional policy levers yet: a waiver of the century-old Jones Act.

The White House confirmed Wednesday that it had temporarily authorised foreign-flagged vessels to transport energy commodities — including crude oil, refined oil, natural gas, natural gas liquids, fertilizers, and other derivatives — between U.S. ports for a period of 60 days. The Jones Act, formally the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, ordinarily mandates that goods shipped between American ports be carried exclusively on U.S.-built, U.S.-flagged, and U.S.-crewed vessels. Waivers have historically been reserved for acute national emergencies such as hurricanes or severe supply crises.

The root cause is the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which approximately 21 million barrels of oil per day — roughly 20% of global supply — normally flow. Since U.S. and Israeli forces struck Iran on February 28, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and triggering a sweeping Iranian retaliation, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has mined the strait, attacked commercial vessels, and vowed to maintain the blockade. The IEA has characterised the disruption as the largest to global oil supply in modern history.

The consequences for physical markets have been severe. Middle Eastern Gulf oil exports have dropped by over 60% in under a week, with producers including the UAE forced to cut output as onshore storage fills and export routes remain blocked. War-risk insurance premiums have surged to levels that make commercial transit economically prohibitive for most vessels, while over 50 million barrels of Gulf crude is now stranded in floating storage. The IEA’s emergency release of 400 million barrels from member-state strategic reserves has done little to reassure markets.

Reuters reported that Brent futures settled up $3.21, or 3.2%, to $103.42 on Monday — before extending gains further through Tuesday and into Wednesday’s session. Analysts at Energy Intelligence have warned of no near-term ceiling if the blockade persists.

The Jones Act waiver is the administration’s domestic response to soaring pump prices, which have risen roughly 60 cents per gallon to $3.60 since the war began. By allowing cheaper foreign tankers to ferry Gulf Coast oil to refineries on the U.S. East Coast and West Coast — routes where the Jones Act constraint is most acute — Washington hopes to ease regional supply bottlenecks. However, the measure’s macroeconomic impact is widely expected to be modest. Bloomberg cited a JP Morgan estimate suggesting the waiver could save East Coast motorists roughly 10 cents per gallon, while OilPrice.com analysts noted it is unlikely to offset the broader global shock driven by the Hormuz blockade itself.

For crypto and financial markets, the oil surge carries compounding implications. Higher energy prices feed directly into the U.S. Producer Price Index — which already printed at double its expected rate on Wednesday — further entrenching the inflation stickiness that is keeping Federal Reserve rate cuts off the table and suppressing risk appetite across asset classes.

Crypto exchange Kraken, which announced four months ago that it planned to go public, has put its plan on hold, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

The company is still considering an initial public offering, but probably not until market conditions improve, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter is private.

A Kraken spokesperson said, “As we announced in November, we filed confidentially with the SEC, and that is all we can really share.”

The downturn in crypto markets since October, when bitcoin BTC$74,191.24 touched a record high, has made companies more cautious about going public or raising fresh capital as declining asset prices and weaker trading volumes weigh on valuations and investor sentiment.

Payward, Kraken’s parent, said it confidentially filed a draft S-1 registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in connection with a proposed initial public offering of common stock on Nov. 19.

That was the day after Kraken said it was valued at $20 billion when it raised $800 million in new funding, including a $200 million investment from Citadel Securities, to support its push to bring traditional financial markets onto blockchain infrastructure.

Last year, a more favorable environment at the SEC helped several major companies, including Circle Internet (CRCL), CoinDesk parent Bullish (BLSH), and Gemini Space Station (GEMI), successfully list their stock. PitchBook data shows that at least 11 crypto IPOs raised a combined $14.6 billion in 2025, a sharp increase from just $310 million in 2024.

In 2026, crypto IPOs are shaping up to be a pivotal test for the sector, with more infrastructure companies planning to go public. So far, however, crypto custodian BitGo is the only digital asset company to have listed, and has seen its stock price slump 44%, partly as a result of a messy market.

Unlike Kraken, Securitize, a tokenization firm that works closely with asset management giant BlackRock (BLK), said it still plans to go public. The firm plans to IPO as soon as it receives the SEC’s green light, likely in the second quarter.

“We already raised $225 million through a PIPE as part of our SPAC merger when market conditions were better and interest in tokenization continues to be strong in spite of market conditions,” Securitize founder and CEO Carlos Domingo told CoinDesk.

If 2025 was defined by listings linked to digital asset treasuries (DATs), 2026 is emerging as a year centered on financial infrastructure, according to White & Case partner Laura Katherine Mann.

In an interview with CoinDesk, she said the next wave of IPO candidates is likely to highlight compliance maturity, recurring revenue and operational resilience, qualities that align more closely with traditional public-market expectations.

Read more: Crypto custody firm Copper in early talks for IPO as crypto ‘plumbing’ becomes new Wall Street favorite

S&P Dow Jones Indices announced Wednesday that it is bringing the S&P 500 to the blockchain via the Hyperliquid platform, making it easier for investors to trade the most widely tracked equity index 24 hours a day.

The company said it licensed its flagship stock index to Trade[XYZ], which is launching the first officially approved S&P 500 perpetual contract on the Hyperliquid blockchain.

In simple terms, this means eligible non-U.S. investors can trade the S&P 500 onchain, around the clock, without using traditional stock exchanges.

Perpetual futures contracts, or “perps,” are derivative instruments without expiration dates that allow investors to place bets on an asset’s price without owning it, using funding rates, typically every few hours, to keep prices aligned with spot markets. Their infinite duration (perpetual futures contracts never expire, unlike traditional contracts), high-leverage options, and round-the-clock access have made them extremely popular in the crypto space and have generated billions in daily trading volume across exchanges.

For the S&P 500, it is the first time it has been turned into a perpetual product with official backing from S&P. It also uses the firm’s real-time index data, bringing a more traditional finance standard into crypto trading. This guarantees the accuracy of index trading while the traditional market remains closed.

S&P says the goal is to expand where and how its indexes can be used. “This collaboration expands access” to its benchmarks in digital markets, said S&P’s Chief Product Officer Cameron Drinkwater.

24//7 trading

The move opens the door for non-U.S. investors to get leveraged exposure to the S&P 500 through a blockchain-based platform.

For example, if big macro news hits on the weekend, when the market is closed, traders traditionally need to speculate on how the S&P 500 will move on Monday, when the market opens. However, with these new perpetual contracts, traders can place bets immediately and with accuracy as soon as news breaks. Recently, crypto traders were able to trade oil futures on decentralized exchange Hyperliquid on a weekend, when the first missile hit Iran, while traditional oil markets remained closed.

Trade[XYZ] runs on Hyperliquid, a decentralized network built for fast trading. The platform says its markets are always open, unlike stock exchanges that close after hours and on weekends. XYZ markets have exceeded $100 billion since October, with an annualized run rate of more than $600 billion.

The news seems to have helped HYPE, the native token of the Hyperliquid platform. The token is up 2.2% over the past 24 hours, 14.2% over the past 7 days, and 35.5% over the past month. Hyperliquid has recently become a crypto trader’s favorite platform for trading markets outside traditional finance.

Recently, Maelstrom CIO and BitMEX Co-Founder Arthur Hayes said traders are increasingly using Hyperliquid to access markets unavailable on traditional platforms, noting that the HYPE token could reach $150, citing the platform’s strong revenue, real trading activity, and disciplined token supply.

Trade[XYZ] said the S&P 500 is just the starting point as it looks to bring more traditional assets onchain. “The S&P 500 is a natural starting point. It represents the most widely tracked equity index on earth and has been the defining benchmark for global equities for decades,” said Collins Belton, chief operating officer and general counsel of Trade[XYZ]’s parent company.

The announcement builds on S&P DJI’s prior decentralized finance initiatives, including its recent launch of the S&P Digital Markets 50 index, the company said.

Read more: 2026 Marks the Inflection Point for 24/7 Capital Markets

The Ethereum Foundation has deposited another 3,400 ETH — worth roughly $7.5 million at today’s prices, near $2,220 — into DeFi lending protocol Morpho, with 1,000 ETH allocated specifically to Morpho Vaults V2, according to a X post from the EF today, March 18.

The move follows an initial deployment in October 2025, when the EF put 2,400 ETH (~$5.3 million) and approximately $6 million in stablecoins into the protocol — bringing the Foundation’s total Morpho commitment to just under $19 million to date.

According to the post, the DeFi deployments are a direct expression of the EF’s refreshed treasury policy, first unveiled in June 2025, which codified a new “Defipunk” framework to guide on-chain capital allocation.

As The Defiant reported at the time, the policy signaled that DeFi was no longer a sideshow for the Foundation — it was putting its ETH where its mouth is, prioritizing permissionless, immutable, audited protocols aligned with cypherpunk values over passive ETH sales to cover operations.

The EF also elaborated on why it chose to deploy in Morpho, and in particular praised Morpho Vaults V2, which launched in September. The Foundation cited the product’s GPL-2.0 open-source license — a deliberate choice, it noted, that makes the codebase permanently able to be audited and forked.

Crucially, Vaults V2’s core contracts are immutable: no admin keys, no upgrade mechanisms, no emergency switches. “The true cypherpunk infrastructure doesn’t ask you to trust its builders, and it removes the need entirely,” the Foundation wrote in its X announcement.

According to DefiLlama, Morpho is currently the second-largest DeFi lending protocol behind Aave, with a total total value locked (TVL) of over $6.9 billion. The protocol has attracted significant institutional interest in recent months, including a deal for Apollo Global Management — which manages nearly $940 billion in assets — to acquire up to 9% of Morpho’s 1 billion total token supply over four years.

The EF framed the Morpho allocation as a question of ecosystem direction:

“What kind of DeFi ecosystem is Ethereum aiming to support, and how should it weigh short-term performance against long-term resilience and openness? Choices like licensing and architecture may seem small, but they shape which of these paths remain viable over time.”

The treasury move comes amid a busy stretch for the Foundation. Just last week, the EF published its 38-page EF Mandate, which sparked debate in the community over whether the Foundation risks taking a backseat at a critical moment for institutional adoption.

In February the EF also pledged to deepen its support for privacy-first, permissionless DeFi, forming a dedicated internal unit to support builders adhering to those principles. The Morpho deposit suggests the commitment is more than rhetorical.

This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.

SBI Holdings’ digital asset arm, SBI VC Trade, said it will launch a USDC lending service in Japan on Thursday, allowing retail users to lend stablecoins to the platform under fixed-term agreements in exchange for returns.

On Wednesday, the company said users will be able to lend Circle’s USDC (USDC) stablecoin to the platform and receive interest payments, with a maximum application of 5,000 USDC per offering. The product is structured as a loan to SBI VC Trade rather than a deposit, meaning users take direct counterparty risk. SBI said it may also re-lend the borrowed USDC as part of its operations.

The launch marks a further step in Japan’s stablecoin rollout, bringing a consumer-accessible USDC yield product to market through a licensed domestic platform.

SBI said the product is intended as an alternative to traditional US dollar deposits in Japan, though, unlike bank deposits, segregation protections do not cover user assets and may not be fully recoverable in the event of insolvency. Users are also unable to withdraw or transfer funds during the fixed lending term, limiting their ability to respond to market conditions.

SBI expands stablecoin footprint

The launch follows an initial announcement in November, when SBI VC Trade said it planned to launch a USDC lending product and was exploring exchange-traded fund (ETF) products, according to Reuters. 

The development comes as SBI has been expanding its stablecoin strategy. SBI VC Trade began a full-scale USDC launch in Japan on March 26, 2025, after receiving regulatory approval earlier that month. Circle said the approval made USDC the first approved global dollar stablecoin for use in Japan.

Related: SBI Holdings targets majority stake in Singapore crypto exchange Coinhako

On Aug. 22, SBI announced the establishment of a joint venture with Circle, aiming to promote the use of USDC in Japan and create new use cases for the stablecoin in digital finance. 

On Dec. 16, the company partnered with Startale to develop a regulated yen-denominated stablecoin aimed at tokenized assets and global settlement, with a planned launch in the second quarter of 2026.