[News Brief] Jul 14, morning | Trump Proposes Resuming Blockade of Iran-Bound Shipping and 20% Levy on Cargo Passing Through the Strait of Hormuz

President Trump proposed resuming a blockade on ships entering and leaving Iranian ports and imposing a 20% levy on cargo passing through the Strait of Hormuz. As Middle East tensions escalated, Brent crude rose about 10% to around $83.63 per barrel.

According to UBlockchain, citing Bloomberg, U.S. Central Command said enforcement of the measures would begin at 4:00 p.m. New York time on July 14.

The announcement came as the United States carried out airstrikes against Iran for a third consecutive day. The Strait of Hormuz is a critical oil transit route, and concerns over logistical disruptions added upward pressure on oil prices.

Fears of a U.S.-Iran clash intensified selling pressure across risk assets, and Bitcoin at one point neared the $62,000 level.

According to Odaily, BTC/USD remained in a weak trend. JDK Analysis said Bitcoin’s current price action looks highly fragile, with large short positions betting on further downside, making the $60,000 range a key area to watch again.

However, if fresh spot buying emerges and key support levels hold, short positions could instead come under pressure. Trader Roman said some technical indicators, including RSI and volume, suggest bearish momentum may be weakening, leaving room for Bitcoin to rebound toward the $70,000-$75,000 range.

According to SoSoValue data, major cryptocurrency market sectors declined broadly. The DeFi sector fell 3.28%, while Hyperliquid (HYPE) dropped 5.59% and DeXe (DEXE) slid 10.93%.

Bitcoin (BTC) fell 1.71% to below $63,000, while Ethereum (ETH) dropped 1.48% to below $1,800.

By sector, Layer 2 fell 0.12%, CeFi 1.21%, meme coins 1.76%, Layer 1 2.20%, and PayFi 2.37%. Meanwhile, a few tokens including Beldex (BDX), Velvet (VELVET), and eCash (XEC) posted gains.

According to CoinGecko data, Upbit’s 24-hour trading volume surged 1,016.4% to more than $4.142 billion amid a sharp drop in the South Korean stock market.

As volatility increased in domestic equities, trading demand on major KRW-market crypto exchanges rose sharply.

According to Odaily, monitoring by Hyperliquid News showed that more than $3.33 billion worth of positions were liquidated on TradeXYZ.

Large-scale liquidations typically occur during the unwinding of leveraged positions and tend to expand when market volatility rises.

According to Odaily, Onchain Lens said a Circle address minted an additional roughly 750 million USDC on the Solana network.

As a result, the cumulative amount of USDC minted by Circle on Solana in 2026 reached about 68.26 billion tokens.

Growth in USDC issuance is used as an indicator of trading activity and liquidity flows on Solana.

The Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association expressed support for the CLARITY Act while calling for stronger accountability provisions related to DeFi.

According to Odaily, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association sent a letter to the U.S. Senate Banking Committee on the 10th expressing support for the CLARITY Act. The association asked lawmakers to revise the bill to clarify accountability in decentralized finance and ensure that existing investigative powers remain intact.

The National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives had previously also voiced support for the bill. This marks the second public endorsement of the CLARITY Act from a major U.S. law enforcement group.

Odaily, citing Lookonchain monitoring, reported that two whale wallets bought a total of 20,082 ETH over the past 12 hours.

One newly created wallet withdrew 8,239 ETH from multiple exchanges, worth about $14.5 million.

Another whale bought an additional 11,843 ETH over the past three hours, worth about $20.8 million.

Odaily also reported, citing on-chain analyst Ai Yi, that a new address withdrew 37,000 ETH from Gemini 10 hours ago.

The holdings, worth about $65.66 million, were then staked in multiple batches on the Ethereum Beacon Chain.

According to Whale Alert, 2,509 BTC (about $156.84 million) was transferred from an anonymous wallet to Binance on the 13th.

Large BTC transfers to exchanges are typically viewed as potential sell-side inflows and are often cited as a factor behind short-term market volatility.