Five Iran-Linked Oil Tankers Change Course to Avoid U.S. Navy on Route to Malaysia

April 18 – Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated the Strait of Hormuz transit is rooted in the April 8 ceasefire agreement. No new deal has been struck between Iran and the U.S. on the strait issue, and the “media war” led by the opposing side should be ignored. A senior Iranian official noted the precondition for keeping the Strait of Hormuz open is all parties adhering to the ceasefire terms. Significant differences persist between Iran and the U.S. – including on the nuclear issue – that demand serious negotiations.

On April 18, a senior Iranian official said a preliminary agreement could be reached in the coming days, with a possible ceasefire extension. Such a deal would create room for talks on lifting sanctions and securing compensation for war damages. Iran is ready to assure the international community its nuclear program is peaceful if its demands are met. (Source: Jinse)

**Iran’s FM Spokesperson: US Naval Blockade Violates Ceasefire; Iran Will Respond** (Local time April 17) — Bagheri, spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said the U.S. naval blockade of Iran violates the ceasefire agreement, and Iran will take necessary measures in response. Bagheri also stressed Iran is the “guardian” of the Strait of Hormuz. When necessary, it will take uncompromising action to effectively safeguard its people’s interests and rights. (Source: Jinse)

April 18 — Per Reuters, roughly 20 minutes before Iran’s foreign minister announced the Strait of Hormuz’s reopening on local time Friday, investors placed $760 million in short bets on oil prices. This marked another large wager on the world’s most actively traded commodity just ahead of a major announcement amid the Middle East conflict. LSEG data shows that between 20:24 and 20:25 Beijing time Friday, investors sold 7,990 Brent crude futures contracts. Valued at the prevailing price then, those trades totaled ~$760 million. By 20:45 Beijing time, Iran’s foreign minister posted the strait was fully open to all commercial vessels for the ceasefire’s remainder — triggering a temporary intraday oil price drop of up to 11% within minutes. Over the past few months, several well-timed large trades have sparked concerns among U.S. lawmakers and legal experts: war and diplomacy decisions may be giving some traders an edge in the highly volatile, opaque derivatives market. Earlier re

April 18th — X Product Lead Nikita Bier announced that the platform’s newly launched Cashtags feature has driven roughly $1 billion in global transaction volume since its rollout (per pilot data estimates). The tool lets users view stock and crypto asset data directly on their timelines and quickly navigate to an asset’s dedicated page via a “$” tag. Cashtags is seen as a key step toward deeply integrating social content with financial information. Currently available to iPhone users in the U.S. and Canada, the feature covers both cryptocurrency and stock assets. Bier emphasized that X does not execute trades directly or act as a broker—instead, it focuses on building a financial data gateway and traffic distribution system. This move aligns with Elon Musk’s push to turn X into a “super app.” The company previously planned to launch X Money, a digital wallet for peer-to-peer payments and fund transfers. Whether X will support crypto asset trading in the future remains to be se

April 18 — World announced a major upgrade to its World ID protocol, covering 18 million Orb-verified users worldwide and expanding to more than 160 countries. The update is hailed as the most significant version iteration to date, with key practical use cases including: - A partnership with Tinder to roll out a “real-person verification badge” for users, boosting authenticity in dating interactions - A collaboration with Zoom to launch anti-deepfake verification, ensuring call participants are actual humans - The unveiling of Concert Kit, a ticketing tool that verifies event ticket holders’ identities and fights scalping Additionally, World released a standalone World ID app (beta) as a cross-platform identity authentication tool, and open-sourced its SDK to let third-party apps build their own authentication systems. On the technical front, the upgrade adds multi-key management, key rotation, account recovery, and session management mechanisms. It also introduces the “Hu