Houthis enter the Iran war — ballistic missile barrage at Israel intercepted
Iran strikes US troops at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia — 12 wounded
Iran blocks Chinese ships at Hormuz — selective tollbooth system breaks down
Bitcoin drops to $66K on $300M long liquidations at quarterly options expiry
Anthropic reportedly testing next-generation "Mythos" model
Bitcoin & Crypto
BTC dropped to ~$66,000 on $300M in long liquidations around quarterly options expiry. Down 48% from the late-2025 peak of $126K. (CoinDesk)
SEC and CFTC jointly classified 16 major crypto assets as commodities — BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, DOGE, ADA, AVAX, LINK, DOT, and others. Staking, mining, and airdrops moved outside securities law. (SEC.gov)
$125M in institutional BTC commitments in March. Public companies now hold 1.7M+ BTC, approximately 8% of total supply. (Grayscale Research)
Trump's earlier 5-day Iran strike pause triggered a $280M short squeeze, moving BTC from $68K to $71K in 4 hours. BTC continues to show tight correlation with equity markets rather than gold. (MEXC Blog)
Geopolitics & Oil
Houthis officially entered the Iran war (March 28). Ballistic missile barrage at southern Israel — Beersheba targeted, intercepted by air defenses. First Houthi attack since the October 2025 ceasefire. (CNN, Times of Israel)
Iran struck US troops at Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia. 10-12 wounded, 2 seriously. USAF refueling aircraft damaged. Total US war casualties since Feb 28: 13 KIA, 300+ wounded. (Washington Post, PBS)
Iran blocked Chinese ships at Hormuz. Two Chinese-flagged vessels and one Marshall Islands ship turned away near Larak Island. China had previously been granted passage under Iran's selective toll system. Strait transit now approximately 6 ships per day, down from 130 pre-war. (FDD, Newsweek)
Israel struck Iranian nuclear sites for the first time — Yazd yellowcake facility, Arak heavy water reactor, Ardakan. No radiation leaks reported. (Al Jazeera)
Iran demands Vance as sole US negotiator, rejecting envoys Witkoff and Kushner. Trump says talks are going "very well." Iran denies talks are occurring. (Daily Beast)
Brent crude holding above $106, WTI near $99. Brent-WTI spread at approximately $13, the widest in over 13 years. Energy strike pause holds until April 6, 8 PM ET. Conventional and Israeli strikes continue at high tempo.
US 15-point peace proposal delivered via Pakistan — demands include dismantling 3 nuclear sites, ending enrichment, suspending missiles, abandoning proxies, reopening Hormuz. Iran rejected it and issued 5 counter-conditions including war reparations and sovereignty guarantees.
AI
Anthropic: "Claude Mythos" under trial with early access customers. Described internally as a "step change" in capabilities. Existence disclosed after data leak. (Fortune)
Anthropic won preliminary injunction against Trump administration Pentagon blacklist on First Amendment grounds. Federal court ruled the government cannot arbitrarily exclude AI companies from defense contracts without due process. (CNBC)
OpenAI shut down Sora (March 24) to reallocate compute toward world simulation and robotics. GPT-5.4 launched with 1M token context window. (TechCrunch)
Google DeepMind partnered with Agile Robots (20,000+ deployed units) to integrate Gemini foundation models for industrial automation. (TechCrunch)
44% of enterprise finance teams plan agentic AI deployment in 2026 — a 600% year-over-year increase. Primary focus areas: fraud detection, credit underwriting, operational risk.
Europe
Spain flash CPI printed 3.3% for March (vs 2.3% prior) — driven by energy price pass-through from the Iran oil shock. Core CPI held at 2.7%. Germany CPI due March 30.
ECB projecting 2.6% headline inflation for 2026, growth forecast cut to 0.8% by OECD. Oil and gas prices expected to peak at $90/bbl and EUR 50/MWh in Q2 due to Hormuz disruptions. (ECB, Euronews)
Swap markets now pricing 75% probability of an April ECB rate hike. This would be the first hike after seven consecutive cuts since June 2024. Four of seven major banks (JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Barclays, ABN AMRO) now forecast an April hike.
G7 foreign ministers split on Iran at emergency meeting. European allies pushing de-escalation, US maintaining military options. (Profile News)
Global Macro & Markets
S&P 500 fell 1.57% to 6,376. Nasdaq dropped 2.15% to 20,948. Tech hit hardest — Nvidia -2.2%, Microsoft -2.5%, Meta -4%. Year-to-date the S&P is down 5.8%. (24/7 Wall St.)
Fed holding at 3.50-3.75%, projecting one rate cut in 2026. PCE inflation forecast raised to 2.7% year-end. (Chase)
Supreme Court invalidated IEEPA tariffs. Trump pivoted to Section 301 investigations against 15+ countries. 10% global tariff under Section 122 continues through mid-June. Estimated average US household tax increase of $1,500 for 2026. (CNBC)
China set 2026 GDP growth target at 4.5-5%, down from prior ~5.5%. Record fiscal spending on "AI Plus" initiative targeting 10 trillion yuan by 2030. (NPR)
DHS shutdown at Day 42 — longest partial government shutdown in US history. House rejected Senate partial funding bill, passed its own 8-week CR (213-203). Senate left for recess until April 13. No visible resolution path before mid-April.
Notable
"No Kings" protests (March 28) — estimated 9M+ participants expected across 3,000+ events in all 50 states. Flagship Minneapolis event features Bruce Springsteen. Described as the largest coordinated US political protest ever planned. (Time)
IOC bars trans women from women's events starting 2028 LA Olympics.