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Monday ended with explosions. By Tuesday, markets woke up in a different world — one where hopes for imminent peace, which had lifted Asian stocks and currencies just a day earlier, were shattered by the harsh reality of military force. The United States carried out strikes on targets in southern Iran. Although details remain scarce and official statements cautious, that alone was enough for the markets. The dollar resumed its climb. Oil surged alongside it. Asian currencies, which had celebrated gains on Monday morning, came under pressure by Tuesday. The geopolitical pendulum swung back — and this time, those who had rushed to believe in peace were the ones falling.

Reports of new U.S. strikes on Iranian facilities emerged on Monday. The targets were located in the south of the country — a region strategically important both for Iran’s military infrastructure and for control over the Persian Gulf coastline. Details of the operation remain classified, but the mere resumption of military action after several days of intense negotiations suggests either that diplomacy has hit a dead end or that talks are being used as cover for continued military pressure.

Iranian officials reacted immediately. Their warning was blunt and unequivocal: any attacks on the country’s military facilities would trigger retaliation. This was not rhetoric — it was a promise of escalation. Markets interpreted it exactly that way: as a signal that the conflict is far from over and that the risks of a new spiral of violence are growing by the hour.

The contrast with the mood over the weekend could not be sharper. As recently as Saturday and Sunday, Trump had spoken about a memorandum that was “mostly agreed upon,” about reopening shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz,...

The global bond selloff, which two weeks ago looked like a chaotic stampede for the exits, has eased somewhat in recent days. But that does not mean the fire has been extinguished. Rather, the flames have spread elsewhere, and now the fiercest blaze is raging in a market that for decades was considered a bastion of stability. Japanese government bonds are facing a moment of truth. Yields on ten-year bonds have surged to levels unseen since September 1996 — an era when Bill Clinton was president of the United States and the word “smartphone” did not yet exist. Thirty-year bond yields have reached an all-time record high. And this is happening not just anywhere, but in Japan — a country that spent decades battling deflation and whose bonds seemed like a permanent refuge of calm. Now that refuge is beginning to crack.

In recent years, Japan’s debt market has lived in a reality unlike that of other developed nations. While the Federal Reserve, the ECB, and the Bank of England fought inflation by raising interest rates, the Bank of Japan stubbornly maintained an ultra-loose monetary policy. This gave rise to the so-called “reflation trade” — investors betting that Japan would finally escape its deflationary spiral, inflation would begin to rise, and the central bank would eventually be forced to normalize policy. It was a profitable trade: Japanese bonds fell in price, yields crept higher, and traders made money.

But now, as Thomas Mathews of Capital Economics warns, that trade is nearing a critical point. “Most of the recent rise in yields has been benign,” he wrote in a recent note. In other words, the market had gradually priced in normalization, and that was considered a healthy process. But now,...

Monday morning on India’s currency market began with the very thing everyone — from oil importers to owners of street stalls selling imported goods — had been desperately waiting for. The rupee, which only on Friday had been staring into the abyss near the 97-per-dollar mark, suddenly reversed course and began to climb. The USD/INR pair fell by half a percent to 95.70 — a move that may seem modest after weeks of relentless decline, yet one whose psychological significance can be compared to the first breath of air for a drowning man. And the reason for this reversal was neither market forces nor global macroeconomic shifts. The reason was a man. One man who uttered a few sentences in an interview with the newspaper Mint.

Sanjay Malhotra, governor of the Reserve Bank of India, is not known for making blunt public statements. Central bankers usually speak in shades, hints, and carefully crafted phrases whose interpretation has become a profession of its own. But this time, Malhotra seemed to cast diplomacy aside. His statement rang out like a gong: the rupee is undervalued. The RBI will do whatever is necessary to prevent further weakening of the currency.

“Whatever is necessary” is not a phrase central bankers throw around lightly. It is a signal that traders call a verbal intervention. And when it comes from the man controlling the foreign exchange reserves of the world’s seventh-largest economy, the market has no choice but to listen. Because words may be followed by action. And judging by recent developments, they already have been — last week the RBI actively intervened, steering USD/INR away from record highs. Malhotra made it clear these interventions were not a one-off operation,...

Las Vegas, May 2026. At first glance, the Bitcoin 2026 conference looks little different from any other tech expo: the same brightly lit booths, the same panel discussions, the same constant hum of networking in the hallways. But it only takes a closer look at how the speakers move around to realize that something unusual is happening here. Top executives are surrounded by men with military posture, dressed in tailored suits and wearing discreet earpieces. These are not assistants. They are professional bodyguards — former special forces operatives hired to protect against a threat that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years ago.

The crypto industry, born from idealistic dreams of freedom from intermediaries, has found itself cornered by brutal physical reality. And that reality is armed with a crowbar.

In the professional jargon of security specialists, it’s called a “wrench attack.” The scheme is brutally simple: criminals identify the owner of a large crypto wallet, break into their home, beat them or threaten their family until they transfer the funds. No sophisticated code. No exploits. No phishing. Just brute force and human fear. And statistics show the method works with alarming efficiency.

The database maintained by Casa, a company specializing in custody solutions, records a threefold increase in such attacks since 2023. CertiK, one of the leading blockchain security auditing firms, reports even more disturbing numbers: in 2025, confirmed physical incidents rose by seventy-five percent. Seventy-two documented cases. Forty-one million dollars in direct losses. And those are only the incidents that made it into official reports. Many victims stay silent, fearing repeat attacks or unwilling to reveal the scale of their losses.

The wording used by CertiK sounds almost like a verdict: “2025 became the turning point. Physical violence is now the...

The White House once again reminded the world on Wednesday that under Donald Trump, foreign policy is, above all, theater. When the president says, “we are liberating Cuba,” the world pauses, trying to understand whether this is the prelude to a military operation, a diplomatic bluff, or another act of political drama aimed at a domestic audience. The statement came only hours after the U.S. Department of Justice announced charges against Raúl Castro — the man who stood at the helm of Cuban power for nearly half a century and who has long symbolized, for successive American administrations, the indestructible enemy just off America’s shores. Yet between the grand rhetoric of liberation and the reality of the Cuban issue lies a vast gap filled with decades of failed attempts, economic embargoes, and geopolitical calculations.

The charges brought against Raúl Castro are difficult both to overstate in importance and to interpret unambiguously. For the American justice system, this is an unprecedented step. Never before has a former Cuban leader of such stature become the subject of a criminal case in the United States. The mere fact that the Department of Justice decided to take this step suggests a tectonic shift in Washington’s approach to the Cuban question. For decades, U.S. policy toward Cuba oscillated between isolation and cautious rapprochement, between embargoes and secret diplomacy. The current administration, however, appears determined to abandon all shades of gray.

Trump called the indictment “a very important moment.” For him, it undoubtedly is. The timing is perfect. Raúl Castro has long stepped away from formal power, handing the reins to a new generation, yet his name still carries enormous symbolic weight. For the Cuban diaspora in Miami — whose votes...

Fifteen billion dollars. A sum large enough to build several skyscrapers in New York, finance the space program of a small nation, or reshape the transportation system of an entire metropolis. But Google has chosen to spend that money differently. On Wednesday, the company announced it would invest the funds into land, concrete, steel frameworks, and miles of fiber-optic infrastructure in the state of Missouri.

At first glance, the news about a new data center in the small town of New Florence, tucked away among the fields of Montgomery County, looks like just another line in a corporate press release. In reality, however, the project fundamentally changes how we think about the direction of the digital economy — and who its next beneficiaries will be.

Missouri is not the first place that comes to mind when people hear the phrase “technology hub.” Known for its ranches, beer breweries, and the blues clubs of St. Louis, the state has never seriously competed with California or Texas. Yet this is precisely where Google has chosen to place one of its largest infrastructure projects — and the decision is far from accidental.

A modern data center is not simply an office building filled with servers. It is an industrial facility comparable in scale to a steel plant, except instead of consuming coking coal, it consumes electricity. Gigawatts of electricity.

The fact that Google has already contracted more than one gigawatt of new power generation capacity in Missouri speaks volumes about the scale of its appetite. One gigawatt is roughly equivalent to the output of a large nuclear power plant or two million solar panels. And this is only the beginning. The company’s partnership with local utility provider Ameren includes the development of an additional 500 megawatts of...

Thursday’s Asian trading session brought a cautious but steady revival to oil markets. July WTI crude futures rose to $99.19 per barrel, gaining a modest 0.19%. In ordinary times, such a move would barely make headlines. But now, when every cent of price movement translates into billions of dollars in budget fluctuations for entire nations, even this small green candle on the chart tells a much larger story. It is the story of oil trying to find a bottom after the collapse triggered by hopes for peace — and of that bottom potentially settling far higher than consumers from Tokyo to London would like.

The technical picture painted by WTI quotes resembles a boxing match in which both opponents are exhausted, yet neither is willing to give ground. The support level at $96.97 marks the line below which the market refuses to let sellers pass. Every time prices approach this level, buyers step in, as though an invisible hand is catching the market before it falls further. Resistance at $105.21 serves the opposite role — a ceiling that has crushed every rally attempt over recent weeks.

This range between $97 and $105 is no accident. It contains all the conflicting information the market is digesting right now. On one hand, hopes for peace with Iran — repeatedly promoted throughout the week by Donald Trump — are pushing prices lower. If the conflict truly is in its “final stage,” as the U.S. president claims, then sooner or later the Strait of Hormuz will reopen, supplies will normalize, and oil prices will return to pre-crisis levels. On the other hand, reality stubbornly resists optimism. The strait remains largely blocked, tankers are forced to seek alternative routes or wait for passage, insurance premiums for shipping...

Gold is climbing again. During Thursday’s Asian trading session, prices turned green, extending a rally that seemed to begin against all logic. Spot gold rose to $4,560 per ounce, while futures reached $4,562. A gain of four-tenths of a percent for the session marked a confident recovery after recent losses. But the real mystery behind this move lies not in the numbers — it’s in what caused it. Gold, which for weeks had been suffocating under the pressure of rising rates and a strong dollar, suddenly found support where few expected it: in hopes for peace with Iran. And that paradox reflects the complex, multilayered logic of a market that no longer reacts to headlines in a straightforward way.

At first glance, everything should have played out differently. Gold is the classic safe-haven asset. It rises when the world descends into chaos — when guns fire and diplomats throw up their hands. A war with Iran, a blocked Strait of Hormuz, oil prices soaring into the stratosphere — all of that should have sent gold flying higher. Instead, the yellow metal hovered near recent lows, unable to break resistance. And now, just as Trump speaks of the conflict entering its “final stage” and negotiations progressing successfully, gold suddenly comes alive. How can that be explained?

The answer lies in the transmission mechanism — the invisible conduit linking geopolitics to monetary policy. The conflict with Iran created an inflationary shock. Disruptions to oil supplies drove energy prices sharply higher, which in turn fueled inflation worldwide. Central banks, especially the Federal Reserve, responded with more hawkish rhetoric and threats of higher rates. High interest rates are gold’s deadliest enemy because they increase the opportunity cost of holding a non-yielding asset. That mechanism has been choking...

Thursday’s Asian trading session unfolded under the shadow of what the Federal Reserve released the previous evening. The minutes from April’s Fed meeting — anticipated with a level of tension rivaling that of Big Tech earnings reports — did not disappoint those betting on a hawkish turn. The document confirmed what markets had been whispering about for weeks: the hawks inside the Fed are spreading their wings, and the idea of further rate hikes is no longer fringe speculation. The dollar, sensing renewed strength, stabilized near six-week highs, while Asian currencies — with the exception of the yen — retreated into defensive mode. The Australian dollar, meanwhile, suffered a particularly sharp blow from an unexpected source: its own labor market.

Reading Fed minutes is always an exercise in decoding. Dry language conceals dramatic clashes of opinion, cautious hints, and diplomatically softened disagreements. But the April document was surprisingly candid. More and more officials on the Federal Open Market Committee now acknowledge the possibility of raising interest rates. This is not merely a shift in tone — it is a tectonic change in the monetary landscape, one that would have seemed unthinkable just a few months ago.

The reason behind this shift is simple and ominous: inflation. The very inflation the Fed vowed to keep near two percent refuses to cool. On the contrary, it has accelerated sharply over the past two months. The chief culprit is oil. Supply disruptions caused by the war against Iran have driven energy prices to levels that ripple through the cost of everything — from gasoline and airfare to grocery baskets. This is supply-side inflation, the most troublesome kind for central banks because it cannot be fought effectively through traditional demand cooling. Yet judging by the...

Las Vegas, Bitcoin 2026 conference. On the surface, everything looks familiar: booths packed with mining hardware, Bitcoin-logo T-shirts, endless networking parties. But it only takes a closer look at how top crypto executives move through the venue to realize something has changed. They are surrounded by people in tailored suits wearing the unmistakable transparent coiled earpieces. These are not assistants or colleagues. They are professional bodyguards — former military personnel and private security contractors.

Step into one of the overcrowded seminars, and you may hear a topic that would have sounded exotic just a few years ago: how to protect your assets during a physical home invasion. The crypto industry, built on ideals of anonymity and decentralization, has run into the most primitive and terrifying threat imaginable — physical violence.

The threat known in security circles as a “wrench attack” — when a victim is beaten until they surrender a password — is no longer a dark joke shared among cybersecurity professionals. It has become the industry’s reality.

A database maintained by custody solutions provider Casa shows that such attacks have tripled since 2023. CertiK’s statistics are even more alarming: in 2025, the number of confirmed physical incidents rose by seventy-five percent. Seventy-two documented cases. Forty-one million dollars in losses. And those are only the incidents that became public. CertiK analysts are blunt in their assessment: 2025 marked a turning point, when physical violence became a primary threat vector for crypto holders.

The criminals’ logic is simple and ruthless. Cryptocurrency was designed to eliminate intermediaries. There is no bank that can freeze a transfer, no regulator that can lock an account. The private key is the only thing separating an owner from their fortune. And that also makes it the perfect target.

Steal the...