U.S. February PPI Rose 3.4% YoY, Reaching a New High Since February Last Year

**Crude Prices Surge Post-Iran Targets; Analyst Flags Structural Oil Dislocation** U.S. and Brent crude jumped Wednesday after Iran designated three Gulf oil facilities as legitimate targets, per Bitget market data. Brent crude rose over 5% intraday to $105.7 a barrel, while WTI was last at $98.7 a barrel—up 3.06% in the past 24 hours. Earlier, Garrett Jin (associated with the “BTC OG Insider Whale” group) shared key oil market takes: - On March 15, he noted oil prices had surged 45% and recommended going long on crude while cutting stock exposure. - In a March 18 post, he argued widely watched prices are misleading: Brent at $106 and WTI at $95 create the illusion of controlled prices, but this only applies to the Atlantic Basin. Real pressure lies in Dubai and Oman, where actual trading prices approach $155. Flows from the Hormuz region are heading to Asia (not the West), and the dislocation is structural—not temporary.

March 18: Eric Trump, son of former U.S. President Donald Trump, announced on X that American Bitcoin Corp (ABTC) — the Trump family’s mining company — has surpassed Galaxy Digital in Bitcoin holdings, becoming the world’s 16th-largest publicly traded Bitcoin company. Prior to the news, ABTC added 399 Bitcoins to its stash, bringing its total holdings to 6,899.

On March 18, OnchainLens data reveals a whale—after a year of inactivity—deposited 5.01 million USDC onto the HyperLiquid platform and opened a 2x-leveraged short position on CL (WTI Crude Oil Futures Contract).

On March 18, Decrypt reported that Canada’s financial intelligence agency—the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC)—launched coordinated enforcement action against 23 Money Services Businesses (MSBs) offering cryptocurrency-related services, revoking their registrations in one fell swoop to further strengthen the country’s anti-money laundering (AML) rules. The registrations were revoked over compliance violations including failure to respond to information requests promptly, non-compliance with registration requirements, and failure to update relevant records in a timely manner.

**Binance’s CZ: Crypto Entrepreneurs Returning to U.S., Policy More Positive Than Expected** On March 18, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) told the DC Blockchain Summit that crypto entrepreneurs who previously operated offshore are now returning to the U.S.—citing the country’s strong innovation ecosystem, venture capital, Silicon Valley talent, Wall Street financial infrastructure, and funding advantages. He noted U.S. crypto policy is currently far more positive than he anticipated: “I didn’t expect the U.S. to become so crypto-friendly in 2-3 years.” Stressing the U.S. is rooted in free-market capitalism, CZ added competition is the best consumer protection (a view shared by some influential U.S. figures). From a trading platform operator’s perspective, he pointed out U.S. crypto exchanges charge excessively high fees, leaving American consumers with worse prices than international markets. This explains why the U.S. lacks the main crypto liquidity pool—unlike traditiona

March 18th — CoinShares announced a strategic partnership with Kiln to launch the first on-chain asset management strategy leveraging its Railnet protocol. Blending yields from DeFi protocols and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), the strategy will cover six distinct revenue streams: DeFi lending protocols, institutional collateralized loans, tokenized bond funds, bond ETF yields, and a market-neutral basis trading strategy.