James Altucher:

Iran Demanding Huge Bitcoin Payments to Pass Through Strait of Hormuz

Yesterday evening, President Donald Trump said the U.S. had agreed to a two-week ceasefire with Iran that included the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, a key chokepoint for the global oil and gas industry.

But while his defense secretary Pete Hegseth vowed that “commerce will flow,” Iran will still be levying a substantial toll for any oil tankers passing through, something that remains unchanged following Trump’s announcement.

The shakedown will involve the use of digital currencies, an extremely popular choice for governments circumventing international sanctions. A spokesperson for Iran’s Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Products Exporters’ Union said the tariff will amount to $1 per barrel of oil.

On Wednesday morning, Trump told ABC News that the United States may try to get a cut of the tolls Iran is charging.

“We’re thinking of doing it as a joint venture,” he said. “It’s a way of securing it – also securing it from lots of other people.”

In other words, within just 24 hours, the president went from threatening to wipe out a “whole civilization” to suggesting striking a deal with Iran.

Such a “joint venture” isn’t part of Iran’s ten-point peace plan that the U.S. agreed to this week, leaving far more questions than answers.

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Greg Guenthner:

Oil Falls, Bitcoin Jumps to $72K, but Is This BTC Price Breakout for Real?

Bitcoin (BTC) surged to $72,700 during Tuesday’s New York trading session as oil fell below $100 per barrel after President Donald Trump confirmed a two-week ceasefire with Iran.

Data from TradingView showed BTC price rose as much as 7.4% to $72,760 from a low of $67,274 on Tuesday, recouping all the losses made over the last 20 days. The last time BTC/USD traded above $72,000 was on March 18.

“Geopolitics moves crypto faster than any [technical analysis]. One post from Trump and billions flow back into markets,” analyst Mr Brondor said in response to Bitcoin’s reaction following the news.

The move in Bitcoin was accompanied by $431 million in short liquidations over the last 24 hours, with BTC short liquidations accounting for $214.8 million. This brought the total liquidations across the crypto market over the last 24 hours to $610 million.

Oil, which had spiked to between $110 and $118 per barrel amid the conflict, fell as much as 16% to $92 from an intraday high of $110. WTI crude dropped to $90 before recovering to $95 at the time of writing.

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Ray Blanco:

Finally, Artemis Delivers Some Exceptional, High-Quality Photos of the Moon

NASA’s Artemis II mission, carrying four astronauts on an out-of-this-world journey, flew around the Moon on Monday.

The crew members took turns describing the stunning landscape below and captured images of Earth rising behind the Moon, in communications with Mission Control in Houston. What they did not send back in real time, due to a lack of communications bandwidth, was some high-resolution imagery.

That changed on Monday night, when Orion established an optical link with ground stations on Earth to send high-resolution images back to the planet. NASA has been uploading them to Johnson Space Center’s Flickr page.

During their flyby, the astronauts were able to take advantage of both a rising and setting Earth, as well as a solar eclipse. The moment of totality was brilliant. Inside the Integrity spacecraft, the four astronauts had to wear shades for the initial phase of the eclipse.

Click the link below to see the stunning new images from Artemis II.

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