TOP-OF-STACK SUMMARY
The US military struck Iran overnight after Iranian forces hit three commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Oil surged more than 5% with WTI poking back above its 100-week average, the dollar bid to a week-high, and Washington revoked Iran’s oil-sale license — the strait snapped shut on the drone campaign we warned it could cheaply.
Spot bitcoin ETFs drew a second straight inflow day led by IBIT that broke an eight-day redemption streak, as bitcoin ran to a two-week high near $64,500 then slid.
US equities fell on a Samsung- and DeepSeek-driven chip selloff that took the Nasdaq down 1.16% and knocked the Dow off Monday's record, Bloomberg called the end of gold's three-year bull run, and the SEC slated a "Reg Crypto" rule for July.
#1 — The US military launched strikes on Iran after Iranian forces hit three commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz
US Central Command said it launched a series of strikes against Iran early Wednesday to impose “heavy costs” after three merchant ships were struck in and around the Strait of Hormuz Monday night and Tuesday. A US official said the strikes targeted air-defense and coastal-surveillance systems, ground-to-air missiles, launch sites for anti-ship cruise missiles and drones, and Iranian port facilities, and would likely last hours.
Al Jazeera reported strikes on Sirik, Qeshm, and Bandar Abbas in southern Iran. Qatar blamed Iran for an attack on its LNG tanker Al-Rekayyat off Oman, and Iran condemned the accusation. Hours before the strikes, the US revoked the general license that had authorized Iranian oil sales through August 21, calling Iran’s actions in the strait “wholly unacceptable.” Iran said there would be no more peace talks unless Trump halted his threats, as millions marched at funeral processions for Khamenei in Qom.
WTI settled up 2.8% at $70.44 and jumped to about $72.25 after hours on the license revocation, Brent settled up 3% at $74.16 and popped to $76.04, and the dollar bid to its highest level of the week in Asian trading. The UN’s International Maritime Organization said the day’s attacks were the most in the strait since late April, and a US-led naval coalition raised the threat level for crossing ships to “severe.” The strikes happened while Trump was in Turkey for the NATO summit.
#2 — A weak yen is driving Japanese corporate demand for bitcoin and XRP, SBI VC Trade said
SBI VC Trade said corporate demand for bitcoin and XRP is rising as a weak yen pushes Japanese firms to diversify reserves, per CoinDesk.
The yen traded near 161.5 to 162 per dollar on Tuesday, close to the 1986 low of 162.83 it touched last week, with Tokyo still holding off on intervention and hedge funds their most bearish on the currency since 2007.
Against that backdrop the ETF bid returned: US spot bitcoin ETFs drew about $265.70 million in net inflows on July 6, led by BlackRock’s IBIT at $209.04 million and reversing an eight-day redemption streak. Fidelity’s FBTC added $9.7 million, Ark’s ARKB $33 million, and the newly launched Morgan Stanley MSBT $11 million, while Grayscale’s GBTC shed $44.5 million. It was a two-day inflow streak following June’s record $4.51 billion of outflows, and ether ETFs added about $29 million.
#3 — China’s DeepSeek is building its own AI inference chip to cut its reliance on Nvidia and Huawei
Reuters reported that China’s DeepSeek, the startup whose R1 model triggered a US tech-stock rout in January 2025, is developing its own AI chip to reduce its reliance on Nvidia and Huawei, citing three people familiar with the matter.
DeepSeek trained R1 on Nvidia’s since-banned H800 and later adapted its V4 model to Huawei’s Ascend chips.
Nvidia fell about 1.6% in premarket trading on the report, which lands alongside OpenAI’s Broadcom-built “Jalapeno” inference chip last month and in-house silicon efforts at Alibaba, Baidu, Amazon, and Google. Analyst Richard Windsor said the chip may not threaten Nvidia and that its early impact may stay inside China’s roughly $50 billion domestic chip market. The report fed a broader semiconductor selloff Tuesday.
#4 — The SEC put crypto market-structure rulemaking on its near-term agenda for as soon as this month
The SEC’s updated 2026 regulatory agenda placed a crypto rule, a so-called “Reg Crypto” safe harbor to ease startups and fundraising, high on its near-term list, with a blueprint for exchanges and broker-dealers slated for public comment as soon as July, per CoinDesk and The Block. Separately, Coinbase secured a UK investment-services license to add derivatives and equities trading alongside crypto, Vanguard opened a search for a digital-assets leader to oversee tokenization and stablecoins, and Kraken moved to secure a bank license in Lithuania. Ondo said its tokenized stocks can now be used as collateral for perpetual-futures trading. This is structural plumbing getting built out under digital assets, justifying the long thesis this week’s ETF-inflows stand for.
#5 — Bloomberg called an end to gold’s three-year bull market
Bloomberg reported that a wave of profit-taking has ended gold’s three-year bull run, with little evidence yet that investors are building large short positions in anticipation of further declines. Gold traded near $4,110 on the firmer dollar, up more than 22% over the past year. The gold-to-oil ratio narrowed, but remains unhealthy.
#6 — NATO unveiled about $12 billion in defense-industry deals at the Ankara summit
NATO allies unveiled about $12 billion in defense-industry deals for next-generation drones, surveillance planes, and military aircraft at the Ankara summit to show Trump they are meeting his spending demands, per Bloomberg. Trump criticized allies over their lack of support during the Iran conflict, said Greenland should be controlled by the US rather than Denmark, and said he was ready to lift sanctions on Turkey and consider selling it F-35 jets. Five NATO members are projected to spend over 3.5% of GDP on core defense this year, and Canada said nine countries have committed to back a new global defense bank.
OPERATIONAL/STRUCTURAL FLOOR
FOMC June minutes due Wednesday 07-08. The minutes of the Fed’s June meeting land today, with markets pricing roughly a 50% chance of a September hike (down from about two-thirds before the June payrolls miss) and the year-end hike still alive. NY Fed’s Williams said Tuesday he expects falling energy prices to drive inflation down over coming months, a call the strikes’ oil surge now cuts against.
European fuel-supply tightness. European diesel prices soared as Ukraine kept striking Russian refineries, Germany’s stockpiling agency said it is refilling strategic diesel reserves, and New Zealand activated its strategic diesel reserve amid supply risks. A fuel-supply leg distinct from the Hormuz crude story.
Ukraine oil-logistics strikes. Ukraine said it hit eight Russian “shadow fleet” tankers delivering fuel to occupied Crimea overnight, and Russia struck Kyiv with missiles for a third time in a week.
PBoC yuan-hub measures. The PBoC unveiled measures expanding the Hong Kong–mainland investment channel and promoting overseas use of the yuan, a yuan-internationalization step separate from China’s injection and gold-purchase engine.
Central-bank plumbing. The Fed proposed changes to bank anti-money-laundering rules and the Bank of England proposed easing some capital rules.
NOISE EXCLUDED TODAY
World Cup 2026 in volume (Spain ending Ronaldo’s career, the USA out to Belgium in the most-watched US soccer telecast ever, Argentina’s late comeback over Egypt and Messi’s eighth goal, Switzerland past Colombia, Mbappé’s racism condemnation); the Marine Le Pen appeal saga (conviction upheld, ban shortened, ankle tag ordered, she says she’ll run in 2027) and Farage’s resignation-and-by-election gambit (European politics, no market read); single-company and equity-microstructure items (Samsung and Micron carried only as chip-selloff color, SpaceX’s Nasdaq-100 debut and post-IPO research, Georg Fischer’s foundry sale, Zurich/Beazley, Amazon’s $25B bond sale, Rivian’s offering, Crinetics/Vertex); US legal and political items without a market read (the Charlie Kirk hearing, Platner’s Maine Senate allegation, Manhattan high-rise evacuations, the McConnell hospital questions, Warren’s Ex-Im letter); crypto-industry color below threshold (TeraWulf’s $19B Anthropic AI-data-center lease and Galaxy/CoreWeave’s 133 MW, the BONK governance-attack treasury drain, ZEC’s Zcash-upgrade pop, Binance’s BTC-yield product, Gemini’s 0% stock trading, EDX’s $76M raise, Tether’s stake-sale and Mercado Bitcoin investment, a Polymarket resolution suit over the Strategy sale, the quantum-threat explainer, Kraken’s Mazars arbitration win, a CFTC $14M fraud charge); the Damascus blasts during Macron’s visit, the Sudan/RSF El-Obeid siege, the Balochistan police attack, and China’s Typhoon-Maysak flooding were reviewed as geopolitical and humanitarian context.