U.S. Senator: If Powell Is Fired by Trump, It Will Trigger a Market Collapse

April 22 – A shipping chief at a commodities trading firm warned that Iran’s actions in the Strait of Hormuz have set a dangerous precedent for the free flow of global trade. Since the Middle East war broke out in late February, Iran has been trying to impose a transit fee on vessels passing through the strait, triggering strong protests from international shipping regulators. “A dangerous precedent is being set here—one that infringes on vessels’ right to innocent passage,” said Larry Johnson, Global Head of Freight at Mercuria Energy Trading. “If key shipping lanes or waterways start charging tolls, or are disrupted/threatened in a way that normalizes such fees, what’s next? The Black Sea, Danish straits, Strait of Malacca—who can say for sure? The free flow of global trade is no longer guaranteed.” (FX Street)

April 22: USDT’s circulating supply has topped $187 billion, marking a new all-time high, per Artemis data. Additionally, DeFiLlama figures show the stablecoin’s current market share stands at 58.82%.

April 22 — Per data from HyperInsight Monitoring (Telegram: @HyperInsight), the short-term price of HYPE briefly hit $41 earlier today. A whale wallet (address: 0x4a8807a2dc7321cdaa8ee579a50e67a7ede01472) had its short position liquidated after its stop-loss triggered at a liquidation price of $41.01, resulting in an approximate $44,000 loss. The short was opened this morning at an average entry price of $39.6, with an initial position size of $1.32 million.

April 22nd — A weekend hack targeting small crypto projects that siphoned nearly $300 million, plus a subsequent massive run on a $10 billion decentralized lending platform (linked to the KelpDAO and Aave incidents), may dim Wall Street’s interest in blockchain technology, per a JPMorgan report cited by Bloomberg. JPMorgan Digital Asset Research analyst Andrew Moss noted that over the past year, banks, asset managers and payment firms have built blockchain tools akin to the tech system North Korean hackers exploited in the attack. While the report says such incidents are unlikely to directly hit traditional financial markets, it warns traditional financial institutions could pause related efforts and reassess risks before moving forward with further blockchain initiatives.

April 22 — Per LookOnChain monitoring, an address has opened a $2.34 million short position in CHIP over the past 3 hours. The same address also holds a $9.94 million short position in 1,400 xyz:SP500 tokens simultaneously.

April 22 – PeckShield monitoring has detected that MacSync Stealer (v1.1.2), a highly destructive malware, is currently active. The malware targets macOS users and steals sensitive data including encrypted wallets, browser credentials, the system keychain, and infrastructure keys (SSH, AWS, K8s). It uses a forged AppleScript system dialog for phishing, displaying a fake “unsupported” error message after exfiltrating data. PeckShield has already shared this Indicator of Compromise (IOC) with its customers promptly. PeckShield urges users to **avoid running unverified macOS scripts** and remain highly vigilant for unexpected system password prompts. If an attack is suspected, take immediate remedial steps: change all infrastructure credentials (SSH, AWS, K8s), invalidate exposed keychains, and migrate encrypted assets to a secure wallet without delay.