FT: Gulf oil producers have lost about $151 billion in energy revenue, with the Hormuz Strait nearly closed

On March 13, crypto proprietary trading firm Velotrade—founded by former derivatives traders from JPMorgan, Dresdner Kleinwort, and Bank of America—announced the launch of its crypto prop trading platform. Traders on the platform can operate accounts ranging from $5,000 to $200,000 without using their own capital and receive a share of profits. Velotrade noted its team previously ran a fintech trade finance platform that has paid out $25 billion in total to clients since 2016. The new platform will exclusively support crypto asset trading, utilizing AI hedging tools and institutional liquidity bridging. It will sync real-market position replication with traders’ profits to build a business model tied to traders’ earnings, and offers up to 6x leverage for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).

March 13: US Q4 GDP growth revised sharply to 0.7% (from initial 1.4%), missing 1.5% market expectations — signaling a clear slowdown in economic momentum. Post-data, markets still expect the Federal Reserve’s first rate cut to come before September, but uncertainty lingers amid sticky inflation and Middle East-driven oil price gains. US January PCE: 0.3% month-over-month (2.8% year-over-year); core PCE (ex food/energy): 0.4% m/m (3.1% y/y) — a two-year high, with two straight months of 0.4% m/m increases, indicating persistent inflation stickiness.

March 13th: NASDAQ-listed UTime (WTO) announced it has signed a non-binding letter of intent (LOI) to acquire 100% equity in cryptocurrency data platform Feixiaohao (Non Small). The acquisition is valued at up to $80 million, with the transaction comprising $64 million in common stock or convertible preferred stock and $16 million in cash. Upon completion, UTime intends to leverage Non Small’s Web3 data platform—which serves millions of cryptocurrency users—to enter the blockchain data infrastructure space. The company also plans to explore integrating digital asset data services with its mobile and smart hardware products.

March 13: Traders are betting the Fed will cut interest rates before September, per market sources.

On March 13, the U.S. January core PCE price index (year-over-year) rose to 3.1%—its highest reading since March 2024—matching market expectations. (RapiData APP)

March 13: EmberCN data shows a whale/institution withdrew 283 BTC ($20.52M) from Binance 2 hours ago. Over the past 10 days, this entity has amassed 2,003.2 BTC ($140M) via Binance, with an average entry price of $69,923 per BTC.