Gone Too Far

The oil shock continues to reverberate around the world and economic considerations could represent the best hope for an end to the war. Today’s forward guidance looks at how strikes on oil and gas infrastructure in the Gulf could be the factor that brings the US and Iran to the negotiating table.

Meanwhile in crypto, the casualties of the bear market are starting to appear as companies lay off staff, cancel token launches and ICOs, or go out of business altogether. We look at who’s been feeling the pinch and what merits companies are going to need to ride out the crypto winter.

🏅 The Return of Digital Gold? 🏅

As the war in the Middle East has ticked upwards in intensity over the last week, the outlook for global markets has only become bleaker. But, to the surprise of many, Bitcoin actually held up remarkably well, and even pushed past $75,000 (albeit briefly). Meanwhile gold - the safe haven that’s been the flavour of the last few months - sold off almost 5%. What gives?

In today’s video, we break down the backdrop to all of this crazy price action and assess BTC’s case for safe haven status in these increasingly uncertain times. We also look to the future, and in particular what options are open to the Federal Reserve as it attempts to pick a path through the chaos. With the FOMC recently voting overwhelmingly to hold rates steady, we may soon be entering a macro environment that will stretch all markets to their limits.

You can watch that video here.

📈 Crypto Market Forecast 📈

It’s possible that the war in Iran has hit a local top of sorts. This is because we are beginning to see strikes on critical energy infrastructure, such as Qatar’s Ras Laffan industrial city. If you haven’t already heard, Ras Laffan is the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in the world. It’s believed Iran’s recent strikes on the facility could disrupt global LNG supply for years.

In other words, it looks like Iran is winning the economic war it’s waging. This is evidenced by the fact that the US has removed some sanctions on Iranian oil. Put differently, the US has removed restrictions on a country it is literally at war with. This is unprecedented, and it underscores the fact that the global economy is the weakest combatant in this war.

The thing is that not all economies are created equal. As the world’s largest oil producer and one of the world’s largest exporters, the US is uniquely positioned to protect itself. This would involve reducing or eliminating oil exports to ensure there’s enough oil at home. This would likewise be unprecedented, and it would be a last resort that the Trump admin wants to avoid.

Given all of the above, there are only two possibilities. The first is that the US starts putting boots on the ground, specifically on Kharg Island and the surrounding shoreline. This would theoretically ensure that ships can pass safely through the Strait of Hormuz, but it would be extremely politically unpopular, and could be the final nail in the coffin for the Republicans’ chances in the midterms.

The second possibility is that the US finds some way to de-escalate. The easiest way would be to stop hitting Iran’s energy infrastructure, since Iran’s strikes on Ras Laffan and similar facilities are supposedly being done in retaliation for strikes against Iran’s own facilities. Iran has warned that it will escalate its attacks on facilities in the Gulf if its facilities continue to be targeted.

This is where things get interesting, because 90% of Iran’s oil is exported via Kharg Island. It’s safe to assume that US boots on the ground in Kharg Island would be interpreted as an attack on Iranian energy facilities. In turn, this would result in Iran striking even more energy facilities in the Gulf. As such, boots on the ground would only make things worse at home and overseas.

Given these facts, there is only one logical outcome, and that’s some kind of de-escalation, which would be bullish for the markets. If you read last week’s newsletter, you’ll know that some kind of stimulus could have also been bullish for the markets. However, the unexpected rise in the PPI just before the Fed’s meeting means any kind of central bank stimulus is off the table.

Thankfully, some kind of de-escalation should be sufficient to cause a rally in the markets, especially in crypto, where everyone has become obsessed with the fractal of 2022. To bring you up to speed, fractals involve taking past price action, and then superimposing that price action on current price action to get a sense of where prices will go next - a clever methodology.

The problem with this methodology though is that the market never deals the same hand twice, as some traders like to say. In this case, the fractal of 2022 suggests that crypto prices should go down only in the next couple of weeks. The practical effect of this expectation is that investors are panic selling, and traders are going short, creating the conditions for an upside surprise.

The resulting short squeeze and FOMO buying could take crypto prices higher than investors expect, reviving supercycle narratives such as the ISM thesis. But as all traders know, this time is never different. Crypto’s four-year cycle is still intact until proven otherwise. This year is likely to be a bear market year. Any rallies in the coming weeks will therefore be bear market rallies.

In sum then, the next week or two are likely to be bullish, simply because there’s likely to be a de-escalation with Iran. That’s just because it’s the only logical course of action right now given the circumstances. To be clear, this probably won’t be a ceasefire or a peace deal, but it will be enough to calm the markets, and should trigger a big crypto rally. Let’s hope logic prevails…

📉 The Great Crypto Slowdown 📉

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for the crypto industry.

We saw five major crypto companies cut staff, three delay or cancel their token/IPO plans and one file for bankruptcy over the past ten days. It’s clear that the industry is entering a slowdown and consolidation phase.

While it’s easy to dismiss this as typical bear market behaviour, it’s important to understand the ‘why, what and who’ behind this consolidation. To put it simply, this understanding will help us forecast which companies may be on the chopping block and who the survivors might be. After all, nobody wants to be riding a dying horse. You want to be able to dismount (exit) before the collapse.

That said, let’s look at the layoffs first. The five companies that cut staff this week were Crypto.com (crypto exchange); the Algorand Foundation (entity behind the layer-1 network Algorand); OP Labs (team behind Optimism’s Superchain); Messari (crypto research and analytics firm) and PIP Labs (developer behind Story Protocol).

All of them let go of at least 10% of their total workforce, with OP Labs and Algorand being the most significant layoffs, with 19% and 25% cuts respectively. While Algorand explicitly attributed macro and market constraints as the drivers behind its decision, OP Labs claimed the cut was driven by a need to sharpen focus and not due to financial constraints. For context, this follows Base’s recent departure from Optimism’s Superchain ecosystem – a development that some believe puts pressure on its long-term viability.

The three others cited AI as the dominant driver of their decisions. Specifically, Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek framed the move as part of an "enterprise-wide AI integration" that had made workflows more efficient, which essentially means fewer people are needed to do the work. This comes just a month after the company spent $70 million to buy ai.com, which signaled its move into artificial intelligence.

On that note, the AI pivot is a recurring theme. Both PIP Labs and Messari also cited a new focus on AI services as part of their decisions. For instance, PIP Labs has reportedly begun leaning into IP infrastructure for AI, with a focus on AI trading data and AI agents. And Messari, one of crypto's most respected data and research platforms, has stated that the company would become "AI-first." The most notable signal of its new focus is longtime CTO Diran Li succeeding Eric Turner as CEO.

We’ve also been seeing a number of teams either pause or cancel their token or IPO plans. On the token side, OpenSea announced its decision to further delay the launch of $SEA, which was originally slated for the end of this month. OpenSea co-founder Devin Finzer attributed difficult crypto market conditions as the primary driver of the decision. Understandably, this decision frustrated a lot of the community, many of whom have been looking forward to a potential OpenSea token for months, if not years.

That said, OpenSea’s token delay lands lighter when compared to Tally’s decision to cancel its ICO. This wasn’t because the token plan was cancelled however, but rather due to the company shutting entirely. If this is the first you’re hearing about Tally, it was a major player in the decentralised governance space, with its platform being used by over 500 DAOs, including Uniswap, Arbitrum, and ENS.

That said, Tally CEO Dennison Bertram’s explanation for the shutdown illuminated an underlying change in the industry. He claimed that the regulatory environment that once sustained demand for governance tooling has now evaporated. You see, under the Biden-era SEC, decentralisation was a legal strategy. Many projects had adopted DAO structures to avoid being classified as securities.

In comparison, the Trump administration’s SEC has taken a far more permissive approach. This has resulted in most projects placing less emphasis on decentralised governance. Not to mention, with a more friendly regulatory environment, token holders are now starting to demand a share of protocol revenue.

In fact, we’ve been seeing hints of this governance theatre breakdown over the past few months. For instance, the Aave DAO controversy has been a prime example of the growing misalignment between the development team and DAO members. Other examples include Across Protocol’s recent proposal to dissolve its DAO entirely and convert into a US C-corporation, and Yuga Labs’ proposal to scrap the ApeCoin DAO altogether, with CEO Greg Solano calling it “sluggish, noisy and often unserious governance theatre.”

Meanwhile, on the equities side, we saw crypto exchange Kraken, which confidentially filed for an IPO with the SEC in November, quietly put those plans on hold. One has to imagine this has something to do with the bear market and broader lack of appetite for crypto. Notably, the only crypto company to actually go public in 2026 so far has been BitGo, which saw a lackluster debut with a gain of less than 3% on day one. A look at its stock price now shows a drop of 44% since listing.

When you compare this to Circle’s launch last year, which saw its shares surge 167% on day one alone – it’s clear the appetite for crypto stocks isn’t the same anymore. Maybe it’s a good decision for Kraken to pause its IPO after all.

Meanwhile, the financial casualties are also stacking up. BlockFills, a Chicago-based institutional trading and lending firm, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this week after suffering approximately $75 million in losses. The firm had suspended customer withdrawals in February, and its filing revealed assets of $50–$100 million against liabilities of $100–$500 million. This is a gap that restructuring alone will struggle to bridge. It's the first major crypto bankruptcy of 2026, and while it hasn't triggered the kind of contagion we saw in 2022, it's a reminder that leverage and mismanaged risk haven't left the building.

So, what's the play here?

To recap, the reality is that we’re seeing a squeeze from multiple directions. The crypto bear market has been confirmed. Trading volumes have declined and revenue at many mid-tier crypto companies has slowed. At the same time, the AI narrative has become so dominant that it's actively pulling talent, capital, and strategic attention away from crypto-native theses. Also, as Tally’s CEO pointed out, the governance use case of tokens is becoming a less compelling argument – contributing to even less conviction in the long-term value of crypto tokens.

In this environment, it’s become clear that the ones who survive will likely be the ones with real revenue, real infrastructure, and a reason to exist beyond token speculation. Think exchanges with diversified income streams, stablecoin issuers with regulatory moats, and infrastructure providers embedded deeply enough in the financial system that they're hard to rip out. In other words, projects need to have a real crypto-native use-case, or be integrated with the existing financial ecosystem to have the highest odds of survival. An example of the latter has been BVNK’s acquisition by Mastercard. What emerges from this phase will be a leaner, more institutionally-oriented industry. For now though, we're in the messy middle. The layoffs will continue. The AI pivots will multiply. And somewhere in the wreckage, a few teams are quietly building things that will matter in the next cycle. The trick, as always, is figuring out which ones.

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🔮 Video Pipeline 🔮

* Secret Banking Law Designed To Kill Stablecoins: What are they planning?
* Ark Invest Quantum Report: How threatening is it to the future of BTC?
* Mastercard’s Secret Plan: Mindowing crypto integration!

🏆 What's New at CoinBureau.com This Week? 🏆

* Make Money with Bitcoin In 2026: Best Methods for Passive & Active Income
* Inside The SimpleSwap Crypto Exchange Platform: Reviewing Fees, Safety, Pros & Cons In 2026
* Top Solana DApps to Use in 2026: DeFi, NFTs, Perps, Payments
* The Best NFT Marketplaces For 2026: Where To Buy, Sell And Trade NFTs
* Reviewing Pendle Finance: A Complete Analysis Of The Pendle Yield Trading Platform In 2026

📖 Quote of the Week 📖

“Character is the ability to carry out a good resolution long after the excitement of the moment has passed.” - Caveat Robert

Team Coin Bureau

Disclosure: Authors may own cryptoassets named in this newsletter. These are unqualified opinions, and a Coin Bureau newsletter, is meant for informational purposes only. It is not meant to serve as investment advice. Please consult with your investment, tax, or legal advisor.