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Supported by the uncertainty of the reopening prospects of the Strait of Hormuz and the ongoing tensions in the Middle East, both WTI and Brent crude oil prices continued to rise in the U.S. trading session. Iran reiterated several conditions before agreeing to fully reopen the strait. According to Al Jazeera, the conditions proposed by the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, Zolghadr, include: ending the U.S. maritime blockade and the withdrawal of the U.S. Navy and Air Force from around Iran.Tehran also demanded compensation for damages caused by recent conflicts, the lifting of sanctions, and the unconditional unfreezing of Iranian assets. These demands currently reduce the likelihood of a swift return to normal shipping and help maintain the risk premium in WTI prices. Meanwhile, negotiations with Oman to establish a secure shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz seem to be making progress.However, due to the failure to reach an agreement on full reopening, investors remain cautious about the risks of long-term disruptions to oil supply. Regional tensions are not limited to the Strait of Hormuz. The Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen claimed responsibility for a drone attack on Saudi Aramco's refinery in Saudi Arabia. The latest attacks on major energy infrastructure have heightened market concerns about the security of regional oil supplies.

According to the Financial Times in the UK, scammers are exploiting the new EU MiCA regulations to target users who are forced to withdraw assets from unlicensed crypto platforms after the licensing deadline. The fraudsters impersonate regulatory agencies and crypto exchanges to lure users into transferring funds to fake accounts.

Fluidstack, a cloud computing startup focused on AI computing power leasing Neocloud, announced that it completed an $830 million Series A funding round in January, with a valuation of $7.5 billion. The round was led by the Situational Awareness fund of former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, with participation from multiple investors.According to reports, Fluidstack builds infrastructure for AI laboratories, aiming to become the company that can deploy hundreds of gigawatts of computing power the fastest in the world.

According to SolanaFloor monitoring, a scam gang is impersonating Jupiter, airdropping fake CJUP tokens to wallets, and enticing users to connect to a scam website to steal assets.

The decentralized oracle service provider RedStone has officially launched the settlement layer product RedStone Settle for decentralized finance, aimed at addressing the structural barriers faced when tokenized real-world assets (RWA) are used as collateral in lending protocols.The core mechanism of this product is on-chain auctions: when a lending protocol triggers a liquidation event, liquidity providers can immediately step in to purchase the relevant positions, providing instant liquidity to the protocol while assuming the risk of delayed redemption of the underlying assets. This move aims to bridge the mismatch between the nearly instant liquidation required by DeFi platforms (such as Aave) and the typical redemption periods of 60 to 180 days for RWAs (including tokenized funds and bonds).RedStone stated that this solution is expected to activate the currently idle tokenized RWAs in DeFi, which exceed $30 billion, and enable users to borrow more efficiently using interest-bearing positions. According to data from RWA.xyz, excluding stablecoins, the current market size of tokenized RWAs has surpassed $30 billion, primarily dominated by exposure to U.S. Treasury bonds and private credit products.

According to news from the UK, shipping in the Strait of Hormuz was once again brought to a standstill on the evening of the 18th.Previously, radio communications warned that the Iranian armed forces had resumed "strict management and control" over the strait. Multiple vessels in the relevant waters heard the warnings, which have been confirmed.On the same day, the UK maritime safety company, Pioneer Technologies, released a report detailing that three vessels were attacked in the waters near the Strait of Hormuz, involving one oil tanker, one cruise ship, and one container ship. Two of the vessels were explicitly warned and fired upon by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard, while another container ship was hit by an unidentified projectile 25 nautical miles northeast of Oman, causing damage to some containers.

The blockchain gaming infrastructure Lattice announced that it will gradually shut down its operations after five years, with its Layer 2 network Redstone ceasing operations on May 16, 2026, at 07:59.Lattice reminds users to withdraw their funds before this deadline, especially assets in contracts such as the Uniswap pool. After the shutdown, only L1 withdrawal contracts will be deployed for external account balance withdrawals, and the funds in the contracts will be irretrievable.It is reported that Lattice was founded in 2021 and developed tools such as the MUD framework, Redstone chain, Quarry, and Dozer, but failed to achieve a sustainable business model. The team will use the remaining funds for the final project DUST autonomous world, but the scale has not reached a level to support the business, and they do not believe that VC financing is the right path.

According to informed sources, the AI cloud platform FluidStack plans to raise about $1 billion at a valuation of $18 billion, with Leopold Aschenbrenner's institution Situational Awareness in talks to participate and co-lead the investment. This round of financing is expected to be used to accelerate FluidStack's expansion in the fields of AI computing and cloud infrastructure.It is reported that FluidStack has previously signed cooperation agreements with several Bitcoin mining companies, including TeraWulf, Cipher Mining, and Hut 8.

A resident of Nanaimo, Canada, fell victim to a scam after receiving a text message promoting remote stock trading jobs and depositing about CAD 5,000 (approximately USD 3,600) through a cryptocurrency ATM at the end of last year. Earlier this year, the victim saw a message online disguised as an RCMP announcement encouraging fraud victims to report their cases.After submitting a form, a person claiming to be a lawyer called, stating that they had found two cryptocurrency accounts related to the victim and could help recover about USD 60,000 in so-called profits. Gary O'Brien, a media relations officer with the Nanaimo RCMP, stated that the RCMP does not contact individuals regarding discovered cryptocurrency accounts, does not collaborate with private companies to recover lost funds, and does not request any form of payment to investigate fraud.Andy Zhou, co-founder and CEO of blockchain security company BlockSec, stated that such tactics are known as "false recovery service scams" and have systematic characteristics. Scammers often possess victim information collected from the original scam, and organized fraud rings circulate lists of previously remitted victims, making these individuals targets for secondary scams.The effectiveness of impersonating law enforcement brands lies in exploiting the psychological mechanism of "authority bias." Canadian police have been conducting cryptocurrency investigation training since 2022.

According to Cointelegraph, the oracle service provider RedStone has deployed a price oracle on the Stellar network, following a $10 million oracle vulnerability attack incident.As the Stellar network expands its decentralized financial infrastructure and explores the fields of lending and tokenized assets, RedStone's price oracle will provide critical price data support for the network. This deployment aims to enhance the security and functionality of the Stellar ecosystem while providing developers with a reliable source of price information.

According to CCTV news reports, real-time data from the international tanker traffic monitoring system shows that the sailing speed of tankers in the waters around the Strait of Hormuz has generally dropped to zero, indicating that shipping in the region has come to a standstill.At the same time, several European governments have issued emergency directives to their flagged tankers en route, prohibiting passage through the Strait of Hormuz to avoid safety risks arising from the current escalation of the situation.

According to GoPlus monitoring, the account abstraction solution Holdstation suffered a supply chain attack, where the attacker stole developer session tokens, bypassed two-factor authentication, and injected malicious code into application updates, resulting in the theft of user funds.The attack resulted in a loss of 462,000 USDT, with the attacker's address being 0xcbfA60B39cfAeaE475f649fB6705bD477219bF8d. The Holdstation team has suspended services, committed to 100% compensation for affected users, and is working with security teams to investigate the incident, while also posting messages on-chain, hoping to encourage the attacker to return the funds through a bug bounty program.

Account abstraction wallet Holdstation has confirmed that a security incident occurred recently with its product. The extent and impact are still being assessed, and the team is actively investigating.The official team will notify affected users as soon as possible and asks everyone to remain calm and patiently await the latest updates and remedial steps. Meanwhile, Holdstation advises users to transfer their assets to a secure wallet to protect their funds.

According to Jinshi, Federal Reserve Governor Waller stated that the resolution of cryptocurrency regulatory issues seems to be stalled in Congress.

According to BlockSec monitoring, the account abstraction wallet Holdstation was hacked, with multi-chain assets stolen amounting to $100,000. The hacker has transferred the stolen funds to the Bitcoin network.The Holdstation team has released an on-chain message and is attempting to negotiate with the attacker.

According to market news, the oracle service provider RedStone has acquired the digital asset data platform Security Token Market (STM.co) and its flagship conference TokenizeThis, to accelerate the adoption of tokenization of real-world assets and expand its influence in the U.S. and institutional markets.Founded in 2018, STM operates the world's largest tokenized RWA database, tracking over 800 on-chain equities, real estate, debt instruments, and funds, with a total market capitalization exceeding $60 billion. Its annual conference TokenizeThis brings together banks, asset management institutions, regulators, issuers, and blockchain leaders to discuss asset tokenization in traditional finance and decentralized finance.

Regarding the contradictory outlook on Bitcoin from Tom Lee and his Fundstrat analysts (Tom Lee is bullish, while Fundstrat is bearish), Fundstrat client Cassian posted that the interpretation of this debate is unfair and misleading. Tom Lee retweeted and replied, "Well said."Cassian stated: This interpretation is taken out of context; the actual situation involves collaboration among different teams, over different time periods, and with different responsibilities.Cassian mentioned that the three core figures at Fundstrat have clearly defined roles: Tom Lee is responsible for the macro and liquidity framework and is the most vocal, maintaining a long-term bullish view on crypto assets; Sean Farrell, as the head of digital asset strategy, is responsible for specific crypto portfolios and position adjustments. Assuming BTC pulls back to $60,000-$65,000, he would convert about 50% of the portfolio to cash/stablecoins, which is a risk management action rather than a long-term bearish stance; Mark Newton approaches from a technical perspective, believing that the October pullback disrupted the original upward trend. He expects a rebound first, followed by a period of consolidation, and after structural repair, there is still room for growth by the end of the year. The three have a high degree of consensus on macro risk: the overall environment will be very unstable in the first half of 2026, with differences in that Sean focuses on short-term defense, Mark looks at technical structure repair, and Tom maintains a structural bullish view from a longer-term and liquidity perspective.Cassian stated that he personally holds a large amount of BitMine stock and would not sell even if the price pulls back by 70%, because the risk of "missing out on a big rise" is greater than the reward of "trying to catch the bottom." He emphasized that understanding who is speaking, what their responsibilities are, and the time horizon is crucial. Once these pieces are put together, the claim that "Fundstrat is contradictory" falls apart.