Gulf Stock Markets Slightly Down as US-Iran Conflict Enters Third Week

On March 15, OKX founder and CEO Star addressed the "hacker attack incident by the Wuhan Anjun Technology team exploiting plugin vulnerabilities." He clarified two key points: 1. The incident does **not** stem from a security vulnerability in the OKX Web3 Wallet. Instead, hackers compromised users’ devices via trojan horse software, tampered with webpage JS code to implant malicious hooks, or monitored keyboard inputs to steal locally stored encryption files and passwords. 2. The OKX Web3 Wallet is a **fully self-hosted wallet**—private keys and passwords only reside on the user’s own device, and OKX has no access to or control over user assets. If a user’s device is already compromised, no wallet (including MetaMask) can guarantee security; this is analogous to a thief being able to operate your computer and view all your keyboard inputs. Users are advised to: avoid installing software/plugins from unknown sources, regularly check devices for security risks, and safeguard the

March 15 — South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb has received a pre-notice from the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) that it faces a 6-month partial business suspension for violating anti-money laundering (AML) obligations under the Specific Financial Information Act, along with a CEO accountability warning. South Korean financial authorities will convene an AML sanctions review committee on March 16 to finalize the penalty. The expected penalty would exceed the prior enforcement against Upbit operator Dunamu, which was fined 35.2 billion South Korean won and ordered a 3-month partial suspension for similar violations. Due to Bithumb’s larger scale of non-compliance, the industry widely predicts its fine will set a historic high. Bithumb noted it is currently in the pre-notification phase and will fully detail its improvement efforts through subsequent formal procedures.

The Federal Reserve will announce its interest rate decision next Thursday, March 15, at 2:00 ET. Per CME’s FedWatch Tool: - March meeting: 1.9% probability of a 25-basis-point rate cut; 98.1% probability of no policy change. - By April: 0.1% chance of a cumulative 50-basis-point cut; 5.8% chance of a cumulative 25-basis-point cut; 94.1% chance of no change.

As of March 15, LookOnChain monitoring shows ShapeShift founder Erik Voorhees has spent 17.75 million USDT over the past five days to purchase 8,576 ETH at an average price of $2,069. One year ago, he sold 12,886 ETH at an average of $3,324, netting approximately $42.83 million. He currently holds 26.77 million USDT and may continue to increase his ETH holdings.

March 15: Polymarket odds indicate the following probabilities for Bitcoin this year: - 40% chance it hits $100k - 76% chance it reaches $80k - 53% chance it climbs to $90k - 61% chance it falls to $50k (Note: Uses casual, American English-friendly shorthand like "$100k" instead of "$100,000" for brevity, which is common in financial/ crypto updates; date omits "th" for natural flow in quick updates.)

March 15 — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on March 13 issued a request for bids for crude oil allocations from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The first batch of 86 million barrels is expected to hit the market by the end of next weekend. Under the terms, participating companies must return the borrowed crude to the DOE plus an additional amount as a premium. The document notes this measure will both replenish the SPR and stabilize the market. The U.S. government also announced plans to replenish approximately 200 million barrels of the SPR over the next year to uphold U.S. energy security. Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) shows the SPR held 415.4 million barrels as of March 6. (Associated Press Finance)