Oil futures rose on Hyperliquid after President Donald Trump ordered a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a major global supply chokepoint. The move came after Iran refused to give up its nuclear ambitions during peace talks in Islamabad earlier in the day.
Perpetual futures linked to WTI crude oil rose to $96.40, up 7% on the day, extending early gains. Brent futures rose 6% to $96.
Notably, WTI futures recorded $1.53 billion in trading volume, making it the third most traded instrument on the platform behind BTC and ETH. The data highlights investors’ growing preference for price discovery on decentralized blockchain platforms, especially when traditional markets are closed.
This news of the blockade could not have come at a worse time, as mid-April marks a critical period for the oil market, when the large-scale drawdown of strategic oil reserves coordinated by the International Energy Agency begins to approach its limit.
Those emergency releases, initiated after war broke out on February 28, have been making up for a supply shortfall of about 4.5 to 5 million barrels per day caused by the disruption to flows through the Strait of Hormuz, but as these reserves are depleted in the coming weeks, that gap risks widening dramatically to about 10 to 11 million barrels per day if normal supply is not restored.
If this scenario materializes, it would amount to “an unprecedented supply shock in the modern oil market,” the House of Saud recently said. IEA chief Fatih Birol warned last week that the oil supply shock could be worse in April than in March.
The impact on markets would likely be immediate: Oil benchmarks rose on Monday amid tighter supply expectations, stocks faced renewed risk-off pressure amid concerns about inflation, and volatility increased in traditional and crypto markets as traders reassessed global growth assumptions.
Bitcoin, which some traders consider a leading indicator of risk assets, is already under pressure. At the time of writing, about $71,000 changed hands, down nearly 3% on the day, according to data from CoinDesk.
