The United States Central Command ordered a blockade of all maritime traffic entering or exiting Iranian ports on April 13. The interdiction zone covers the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea east of the Strait of Hormuz. Peace talks in Islamabad had failed to produce a formal agreement before the order took effect.

The directive stops vessels paying tolls to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy. Transit to non-Iranian ports through the Strait remains permitted under the order. The IRGC Navy threatened a kinetic response against foreign military vessels operating in the zone.

Shipping through the Strait came to a complete standstill after the announcement. Lloyd's List Intelligence data shows vessels reversing course immediately. Brent crude oil surpassed $104 per barrel on the news.

The Strait of Hormuz handles roughly 20 percent of global oil trade. China relies on it to import between 1.5 and 1.6 million barrels per day. A prolonged closure could trigger an economic contraction across Asian markets.

Energy prices above $100 per barrel push inflation readings higher and restrict Federal Reserve policy options. That limits the fiat liquidity available for risk assets including Bitcoin. Until commercial shipping resumes, monetary easing remains unlikely.

Bitcoin Absorbed a Sharp Drop Then Recovered

Bitcoin reached $71,500 on April 12 before the blockade order. The price fell to $70,554 as the news reached order books on April 13. The asset stabilized near $70,900 that morning, holding the $70,000 psychological threshold.

Derivative markets absorbed the damage. Exchanges liquidated $1.7 billion in open interest within 24 hours. Long positions accounted for $1.62 billion of that total, with 404,000 individual accounts cleared by margin engines.

The largest single liquidation was a $12.74 million BTC-USDT swap on OKX. These forced closures wiped traders who had bet on a diplomatic agreement. Institutional bid support kept the $70,000 level intact throughout.

By April 14, Bitcoin surged to four-week highs above $74,000. CoinDesk The recovery followed ongoing US-Iran peace negotiations, with VP JD Vance indicating a potential grand deal was in motion. FXStreet Short liquidations drove over $500 million in additional forced closures on the recovery day.

Bhutan Has Sold 70 Percent of Its Bitcoin

The Kingdom of Bhutan transferred 319.7 Bitcoin worth $22.68 million from its national reserves. The government routed 250 Bitcoin to addresses linked to Galaxy Digital and OKX for market liquidation. An additional 69.7 Bitcoin moved to an unmarked address.

Bhutan's total reserve has fallen from 13,000 Bitcoin to 3,954 Bitcoin. Druk Holding and Investments exported $215.7 million worth of Bitcoin in 2026 alone. The country recorded no mining inflows above $100,000 in the past twelve months.

Bhutan built its original position through hydroelectric-powered mining during the previous cycle. Post-halving economics have made small-scale sovereign mining less viable. The country now faces the same competitive disadvantage as any miner unable to scale operations.

Strategy Now Holds 780,897 Bitcoin

Strategy acquired 13,927 Bitcoin on April 13, bringing its total to 780,897 BTC. The net asset value of that position approaches $54.6 billion. These coins are held as treasury assets and are removed from active secondary market supply.

Executive Chairman Michael Saylor disclosed that the model requires a 2.05 percent annualized return on Bitcoin to cover all dividend and interest obligations. This covers $1.12 billion in annual carrying costs. Saylor states the threshold provides 48.7 years of dividend coverage.

The firm issues Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Preferred Stock under the ticker STRC, yielding 11.5 percent annually with monthly cash dividends. This structure continuously converts fixed-income investor capital into Bitcoin treasury exposure. The low breakeven rate reduces the probability of a forced liquidation under most macro scenarios.

South Korea Proposes Circuit Breakers After a $43 Billion Error

The Bank of Korea proposed mandatory circuit breakers for domestic digital asset exchanges in its 2025 Payment and Settlement Report. The mechanism would suspend trading during volatility events, mirroring equity market controls. The proposal follows a February incident at Bithumb.

A Bithumb employee distributed 620,000 phantom Bitcoin to retail accounts after inputting a promotional fiat payment in the wrong unit. Those assets carried a value of 60 trillion Korean won, or approximately $43 billion. Users sold the phantom assets before the error was discovered, causing a 15 percent drop in the BTC/KRW pair.

Bithumb operated an asynchronous ledger that reconciled with the blockchain only every 24 hours. The central bank now demands real-time reconciliation and dual-verification controls. The episode exposed a gap between internal exchange accounting and actual on-chain state.

StarkWare Cuts Staff as Starknet Revenue Collapses

StarkWare restructured its operations and reduced staff on April 13. CEO Eli Ben-Sasson said the firm is abandoning broad infrastructure expansion to return to a startup model. Monthly fee revenue on Starknet fell from $6 million to $48,000, a 99 percent decline from its peak.

The Starknet Layer-2 network retains over $200 million in Total Value Locked. StarkWare is forming a separate Applications unit focused on proprietary consumer products. The restructuring forces developers building on the network to adapt their roadmaps accordingly.

Two Security Failures Hit Crypto Infrastructure

A threat actor breached the Hyperbridge cross-chain protocol on Polkadot and minted one billion synthetic DOT tokens. The attacker secured $237,000 before validators quarantined the breach. Cross-chain protocols remain a recurring attack surface due to multi-system trust dependencies.

A separate fraudulent Ledger Live application passed App Store reviews and stole 5.9 Bitcoin from a user who entered their 24-word recovery phrase. Digital marketplace review processes do not reliably screen for crypto-specific social engineering. Users should download wallet software only from official hardware manufacturer websites directly.