Bitcoin and technology stocks extended their declines as higher Treasury yields, rising oil prices and a stronger dollar increased pressure on risk assets. Silver also fell below $59 an ounce.
Brent crude is trading at an unusually large premium to WTI, with Brent near $105 per barrel and WTI around $92.50. The resulting spread is approximately $12.50 per barrel.
Such a wide differential has historically emerged during periods of major market disruption.
Between 2011 and 2013, rapidly growing North American oil output exceeded available pipeline capacity, weighing on WTI prices. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the combination of collapsing demand and constrained storage pushed the expiring WTI futures contract below zero.
The Brent-WTI gap also widened sharply in March following the outbreak of the Iran war in February. Disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and higher freight costs lifted Brent more than WTI, while stronger U.S. inventories helped cushion the domestic benchmark.
The expanding premium now reflects mounting supply and shipping pressures in the international oil market.
Coinbase Cryptography Chief Pushes Back on Drake
Yehuda Lindell, Coinbase’s head of cryptography, has rejected Ethereum researcher Justin Drake’s warning that artificial intelligence could threaten the cryptographic systems protecting bitcoin, ether and other digital assets.
“There is no evidence whatsoever pointing to a break of decades old hardness assumptions like elliptic curve cryptography,” Lindell wrote.
His response followed Drake’s viral warning that AI could potentially break the cryptography underlying crypto security long before quantum computers become capable of doing so.
Drake urged the blockchain industry to enter “bunker mode” and recommended that crypto holders gradually move their assets to new addresses that have never signed a transaction.
Lindell said he had initially planned not to respond but felt compelled to after the post gained significant attention. He described Drake’s argument as “a really bad take IMO.”
He said there is no logical basis for concluding that advances in AI mathematics automatically threaten the difficulty assumptions behind elliptic-curve cryptography.
Lindell further argued that successfully breaking ECC would have consequences throughout the digital economy, not just cryptocurrency. Such a capability could allow attackers to create fraudulent PKI certificates, impersonate banking websites, distribute malicious banking applications and even sign compromised operating systems before pushing them to users’ devices.
He called the warning fearmongering, saying there is “zero evidence” that the necessary capability currently exists.
Lindell said unsupported claims of an imminent breakthrough are irresponsible and amount to FUD because there is neither evidence proving the scenario nor enough information to definitively disprove it.
Jobless Claims Remain Low
Initial U.S. jobless claims declined to 197,000 last week from 199,000 previously, beating economists’ expectations for an increase to 200,000.
Claims have remained at historically low levels for months. That could indicate continued strength in the labor market, although it has also raised questions about whether the measure remains a reliable indicator of broader economic conditions.
Bitcoin Drops Below $83,000
Bitcoin fell below $83,000 as yields, oil and the U.S. dollar all moved higher.
The 10-year Treasury yield climbed to 5.352%, while the 30-year yield continued setting fresh highs above 5.73%.
WTI crude jumped more than 4% over 24 hours to approximately $92.40 per barrel. Brent gained around 4% to $105, while New York Harbor ultra-low sulfur diesel futures rose another 4% to $4.80 per gallon.
The U.S. Dollar Index, or DXY, strengthened to 102.4, adding to the headwinds facing risk assets as renewed inflation concerns accompanied the rise in yields and energy prices.
Bitcoin declined to $82,965, leaving it almost 1% lower over the previous 24 hours.
Gold held above $4,100 an ounce, while silver dropped to a fresh low below $59. Nasdaq 100 futures also fell nearly 1%, highlighting broader weakness across risk-sensitive markets.
