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Amid persistent disruptions to global trade in the Strait of Hormuz, Togo is putting forward an ambitious plan to position the Port of Lome as a more secure and dependable logistics center for the international maritime industry.
Togo aims to position the Port of Lome as a secure and reliable logistics center amid disruptions in global trade routes, especially the Strait of Hormuz.
Geopolitical tensions in the Strait of Hormuz have increased shipping costs and risks, impacting global supply chains dependent on oil.
Togo's Minister of Maritime Economy highlighted the modernization of the Port of Lome, making it capable of handling large-scale international shipping traffic.
The Port of Lome is presented as a strategic alternative for goods bound for Asia and Africa, potentially bypassing risky areas like the Strait of Hormuz and the Suez Canal.These disruptions have impacted global supply systems, particularly in places that rely significantly on imported petroleum and supplies.
The Strait of Hormuz remains one of the world's most important maritime corridors, carrying around 20% of global oil shipments.
Ongoing geopolitical tensions between Iran and the United States have prompted concerns about the safety of vessels traveling the route, resulting in greater shipping costs, delays, and increased insurance premiums.
These disruptions have impacted global supply systems, particularly in places that rely significantly on imported petroleum and supplies.
Against this backdrop, Togo's Minister Delegate for Maritime Economy, Edem Kokou Tengue, during an interview with Sputnik, underscored how the Port of Lomé could serve as a strategic alternative for global trade lines.
“So, Euroassian shipping lines can now rely on the Port of Lome as a transport hub, thus avoiding the dangers that exist on the other side of the planet
Tengue emphasized that the West African port has undergone significant modernization, positioning it to handle large-scale international shipping traffic.
This is essentially the message we conveyed at this forum, demonstrating how the Port of Lome is a modern port, with modern infrastructure, capable of accommodating the latest generations of ships.”
The minister further highlighted that Togo’s proposition goes beyond the Strait, as even disruption in other maritime channels like the Red Sea could be mitigated using the Port of Lome.
Whether Asian routes carry goods destined for Asia, or even the rest of the African continent, I’m referring specifically to Southern and Eastern Africa, the Port of Lome now offers an alternative to the dangers posed by the route through the Strait of Hormuz, or the route through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea,” he stated.
Lomé's strategic offer is consistent with Togo's overall goals to become a logistics powerhouse in West Africa.
Tengue emphasized that altering trade patterns could lead to new collaborations and routes, particularly among Eurasian economies looking to avoid risky regions.
We now have a credible alternative to the traditional trade routes that countries in this part of the world, particularly Russia and others, used for their international trade."
I believe that Russia, like other countries, has much to offer, especially for those of us who want to promote our country as a logistics hub," he added.
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The kingdom's holdings have dropped from 13,000 BTC to 3,954 since October 2024, with $215.7 million moved out this year alone. Its last mining inflow over $100,000 was recorded more than a year ago.
The transaction is part of a series of ongoing sales that have been going on for a while.
Bhutan held approximately 13,000 BTC in October 2024, accumulated through a hydropower-backed mining operation run by Druk Holding and Investments, the kingdom's sovereign wealth fund.
That was the proof-of-concept for sovereign bitcoin mining. A tiny, landlocked country with cheap renewable energy, no legacy financial infrastructure to protect, and a sovereign wealth fund willing to experiment.
Since then, it has sold steadily. Holdings now stand at 3,954 BTC worth roughly $280.6 million, a 70% reduction in 18 months. Arkham data shows $215.7 million in bitcoin has moved out of Bhutan's holding addresses this year alone, with $162.6 million of that going to unlabeled wallets.
The selling has accelerated into a market where virtually every other major holder is doing the opposite.
Strategy bought 4,871 BTC for $330 million last weekend, bringing its total to 766,970. U.S. spot ETFs absorbed approximately 50,000 BTC in March. The Ethereum Foundation staked $93 million of ether in a single day rather than sell. Even gold-backed sovereign funds have been adding to positions during the Iran conflict.
Bhutan is the only sovereign-level holder visibly liquidating. But there is also a question about whether the mining operation itself is still running.
Arkham data shows Bhutan's last bitcoin inflow exceeding $100,000 was recorded over a year ago. A government that once generated bitcoin from power harnessed from its own rivers may now simply be spending down what it accumulated, with no new supply coming in to replace what it sells.
Druk Holdings has not responded to several emails and calls from CoinDesk over the past week, the latest of which was sent in the Asian morning hours on Friday. It has not publicly commented on the transfers or the status of its mining operation.
The economics may explain the shift, however.
Bhutan's mining operation was viable when difficulty was lower, and bitcoin traded above $90,000. At current levels near $71,000, with network difficulty at all-time highs and the post-halving block reward reduced to 3.125 BTC, the margins on small-scale sovereign mining have compressed significantly.
The same hydropower that made Bhutan's operation novel may now generate more revenue from electricity sold to neighboring India than from bitcoin mining, as mining hardware depreciates with every difficulty adjustment.
Choosing to sell rather than hold or mine is a data point about the gap between bitcoin's narrative appeal to nation-states and the operational reality of maintaining a position through a prolonged drawdown.
Bhutan's remaining 3,954 BTC is now smaller than what Strategy purchases in a typical week. The kingdom that once held 13,000 bitcoin mined from its own mountains is watching a single company in Virginia accumulate more in five days than Bhutan has left.
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Senators Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) introduced the Mined in America Act on March 30, creating a federal certification program for domestic Bitcoin mining operations and codifying President Trump’s Strategic Bitcoin Reserve executive order into law.
The bill targets a structural vulnerability that the industry can no longer ignore: the U.S. controls 38% of global Bitcoin hash rate but sources 97% of its mining hardware from China.
That asymmetry is the entire legislative thesis. Hash rate geography and hardware dependency are two different things – and right now, they’re pointed in opposite directions.
The bill’s core mechanism is a voluntary certification program administered by the Commerce Department. Mining entities that opt in commit to a phased elimination of hardware manufactured by companies tied to foreign adversaries – China and Russia named explicitly – with full phase-out required by the end of the decade.
That distinction matters operationally. Voluntary means no penalty for non-participants, but the incentive architecture is designed to make certification economically attractive. Certified facilities gain access to existing Department of Energy and USDA rural financing programs – covering grid-stabilizing load, excess renewable absorption, and methane capture from landfills and oil fields.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership would be directed to support U.S. firms developing domestic ASIC miners, with domestic assembly mandates attached.
NIST’s role here is notable – it signals the bill frames hardware security as a standards problem, not just a trade policy problem.
The Strategic Bitcoin Reserve codification adds a direct supply-chain-to-reserve pipeline. Certified miners can sell newly mined BTC to the reserve in exchange for capital gains tax exemptions – a budget-neutral expansion mechanism that doesn’t require Treasury to go to market.
Dennis Porter, CEO and co-founder of the Satoshi Action Fund, which co-crafted the legislation, put it plainly: “America controls 38 percent of the world’s Bitcoin hash rate, but 97 percent of the hardware powering it comes from China. That is not leadership, that is a liability.”
The bill’s immediate gating variable is committee referral – Senate leadership will assign it to either the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee or the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, likely within weeks.
The Commerce referral is the faster path; Energy and Natural Resources has a heavier docket and more competing priorities in Q2 2026.
Watch for a companion House bill within 60 days – Lummis has coordinated House counterparts on prior crypto legislation and the political incentive to move in parallel is strong ahead of midterm positioning.
NIST’s initial ASIC development guidelines are also a near-term signal – if those drop within 90 days of potential passage, it indicates the executive branch is moving implementation infrastructure ahead of floor votes, which is typically a signal of White House prioritization.
For mining stocks, the first-mover indicator is DOE program eligibility guidance – if Commerce and DOE issue joint certification criteria quickly, expect MARA, RIOT, and CLSK to move on the news before any operational benefit materializes.
The bill is on the calendar. Whether the incentive structure survives committee markup intact – particularly the capital gains exemption for reserve sales – is the variable traders need to track.
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Iran and the United States have both claimed victory in their conflict as they both accepted a two-week ceasefire just before US President Donald Trump’s apocalyptic deadline to obliterate Iranian “civilisation” if Tehran did not agree to a deal.
At least 2,076 people have died in US-Israel strikes on Iran that began on February 28, and thousands of others have been killed across the region. The war has also disrupted global energy supplies, stranding oil tankers and causing prices to shoot up in what’s being called the biggest shock to the industry in history.
Trump, in a Tuesday post on Truth Social, said the US would suspend bombing Iran after receiving a 10-point ceasefire proposal that he said was “workable”. The US president added that “almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to”.
also said it will allow ships to begin to move through the Strait of Hormuz, even as some in the country have angrily denounced their government’s bowing to pressure.
Both sides are expected to continue Pakistan-mediated talks in Islamabad from Friday.
But despite the formal bluster, both the US and Iran appear to have shifted from some of their earlier stated red lines to agree to Tuesday’s deal. Those sticking points could reemerge to complicate the upcoming talks, analysts say.
Here’s what we know about what they both wanted and what concessions have been made so far:
The reason for doing so is that we have already met and exceeded all Military objectives, and are very far along with a definitive Agreement concerning Longterm PEACE with Iran, and PEACE in the Middle East…a two week period will allow the Agreement to be finalized and consummated,” Trump posted.
The US president did not immediately confirm if US negotiators would be in Islamabad.
For Trump, the big achievement is to have Iran agree to negotiate after his escalating threats,” Chris Featherstone, a political scientist at the University of York, told Al Jazeera.
“He is presenting this as a success, but he will need to achieve some form of concession from Iran to be able to present this as a success in the longer term,” he said
Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that Iran would also cease “defensive operations” if attacks on the country are halted, and that Iran’s armed forces would allow safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
Many in Iran, however, have expressed anger and fault Tehran for responding to a ceasefire deal, as distrust for the US has soared in the country, say analysts.
The pessimism in Iran is probably more than in any other place because we’ve been attacked two times in the middle of negotiations,” Foad Izadi, a professor at the University of Tehran, told Al Jazeera.
He was referring to the US’s bombing of Iran during last June’s 12-day war alongside Israel, and the US-Israeli strikes on February 28th. Both escalations came as negotiations were ongoing
As both sides are expected to begin what will likely be tough negotiations on Friday, analysts are speculating over what final concessions either side might be prepared to make and what issues will be non-starters.
At least one of Iran’s demands has been flagged as a no-go area for Washington: ending the US military presence in the Middle East.
The US has maintained a military presence in the region for more than 65 years. As many as 50,000 US troops are stationed across 19 sites in several countries, not including the thousands more troops called up amid the Iran war.
Iran has argued that those bases proved to be a liability for Gulf countries during the war, some analysts say, as they became targets of Tehran’s ire, as it lashed out in heavy retaliatory strikes.
Still, “these countries are all sovereign countries, they make their own decisions”, Izadi of the University of Tehran said.
“The experience our southern neighbours had with US bases was not good,” he noted. “But that particular concept [of the US leaving] is something that the independent governments in the Persian Gulf have to make for their own selves
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Ticket sales for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics have opened globally after what organisers said was a record-setting first week of ⁠local presales, underscoring strong early demand for a Games that must rely heavily on private revenue.
LA28 said it sold more tickets in the first week than any previous Olympic Games had in their opening week, with every ticket in ⁠that initial phase going to residents of the Los Angeles and Oklahoma City areas despite some complaints about high prices, fees and availability.
Organisers said hundreds of thousands of $28 tickets – billed as the lowest-priced Olympic tickets in modern history – were snapped up by local buyers, although some buyers have complained about high costs and fees, and a lack of ticket availability.
The success of the ‌locals presale speaks for itself,” LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover said in a statement. “We’re thrilled by the level of interest and enthusiasm in tickets to the Games
The global sales launch, known as “Drop 1,” runs through April 19 for fans who were selected through a draw and assigned time slots. Tickets are available across Olympic events, including the opening and closing ceremonies
Organisers acknowledged that some fans experienced sticker shock after a marketing push around the $28 entry-level tickets, only to find many of the cheapest seats had already gone quickly or that some events were priced much ⁠higher
Allison Katz-Mayfield, LA28’s senior vice president for games delivery revenue, told the Reuters news agency that outcome was not ⁠unexpected because the least expensive tickets were always likely to move fastest
“We really wanted to make sure that the locals had access to the most affordable tickets, and we saw that come to life through this presale,” she said, adding that more low-cost inventory would be released in ⁠future sales phases
LA28 said more than 1 million tickets priced at $28 will ultimately be made available to the public. Nearly half of all Olympic tickets are priced under $200, while more ⁠than three-quarters, including finals, are less than $400. Only about 5 percent of tickets cost ⁠more than $1,000, organisers said
Katz-Mayfield said demand had exceeded expectations from the registration phase through the first sales window. She added that LA28 still had roughly a third of tickets currently on sale priced below $200 as the global launch began
The organising committee is under pressure to show it can deliver ‌a fiscally responsible Games without burdening taxpayers, who could be on the hook for cost overruns. LA28 has said its more than $7bn operation will be funded principally through ticket sales, sponsorship and hospitality
Katz-Mayfield said strong ticket sales, along with ‌sponsorship ‌and hospitality revenue, were positive signs for the financial health of the Games
LA28 also warned fans against buying from unofficial resale platforms before its verified resale programme launches in 2027, saying tickets sold elsewhere could be speculative or invalid
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Total stablecoin supply reached a record $315 billion in Q1 2026, rising roughly $8 billion quarter-over-quarter even as the broader crypto market contracted.
The headline figure masks a sharper story underneath: USDC is taking ground from USDT, and the gap is closing faster than most market participants expected.
The headline figure masks a sharper story underneath: USDC is taking ground from USDT, and the gap is closing faster than most market participants expecte.
USDC supply surged 220% since late 2023 to approximately $78 billion, driven by institutional B2B settlement, payroll infrastructure, and programmatic payment rails built by Visa and Stripe.
USDT, still the dominant issuer by raw supply, saw its share slip – a divergence CEX.IO flagged as one of the quarter’s defining market dynamics.
Stablecoins also captured 75% of total crypto trading volume in Q1 – the highest share on record – while total transaction volume topped $28 trillion, a figure that now regularly exceeds those of major payment networks like Visa and Mastercard combined. Growth rate slowing is real; demand evaporating is not.
The USDC surge is not organic retail adoption. CEX.IO’s data points to institutional programmatic money – B2B corridors, payroll settlement, treasury management, as the primary driver.
USDC’s transaction velocity hit 90x with an average transfer size of $557, a profile consistent with frequent, smaller institutional transactions rather than whale moves.
Circle’s positioning ahead of potential U.S. stablecoin legislation has been deliberate. With the Clarity for Payment Stablecoins Act still under debate and regulatory frameworks for digital assets evolving in Washington, regulated issuers like Circle have a structural advantage in onboarding compliance-sensitive institutional capital. That distinction matters – it’s not market share gained on yield or liquidity depth alone.
Analysts reviewing the quarter described the shift bluntly: “This isn’t retail adoption; it’s institutional programmatic money.” The number that confirms it is USDC’s average transfer size of $557 – dwarfed in absolute terms by USDT’s larger individual trades, but indicative of high-frequency, automated institutional flows that mirror broader tokenization and institutional adoption trends reshaping digital asset infrastructure.
If U.S. stablecoin legislation passes with provisions favoring regulated, audited issuers, USDC’s gain becomes structural. If it stalls, the competitive edge narrows and USDT’s entrenched liquidity depth reasserts dominance.
USDT remains the largest stablecoin by supply and the dominant liquidity instrument across emerging market corridors and Tron-based DeFi.
Its concentration on Tron, where low fees drive retail and cross-border transfer volume, gives it a user base that USDC’s Ethereum-centric institutional footprint doesn’t directly compete with. Yet.
The Q1 slip in USDT’s market share comes alongside the steepest recorded drop in retail-sized transfers – down 16% – which cuts at one of USDT’s core use cases.
Simultaneously, bots now account for approximately 76% of all stablecoin transaction volume, meaning the organic retail demand that historically anchored USDT’s dominance in high-frequency small-value transfers is contracting.
CEX.IO flagged this as evidence of “a more sophisticated, but potentially less organic, market structure.”
Tether’s response has been limited to quarterly reserve attestations and geographic expansion rather than product-level innovation. That’s a defensible posture while it holds network effects.
It becomes a liability if institutional capital flows continue rotating into regulated instruments and USDC’s programmatic integrations deepen across Western payment infrastructure.
Watch Circle’s May attestation and Tether’s Q2 report for whether the supply divergence widens. If USDC crosses $90 billion while USDT stagnates, this quarter’s share shift stops looking like a blip and starts looking like a trend.
The $315 billion total supply figure tells you stablecoins are the market’s load-bearing layer. The USDC/USDT split tells you who’s building on top of it.
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The finance ministers of the G7 will discuss the possibility of releasing oil from storage in response to the price rally resulting from the war in the Middle East, media, including the Financial Times and the Australian Financial Review, have reported, citing unnamed sources.
The emergency meeting of the officials, also involving the head of the International Energy Agency, will take place later today, with plans under consideration including the amount of 300 to 400 million barrels.
The volumes mentioned in the reports prompted a selloff in oil, with Brent crude and WTI shedding some of their latest gains. The two are still trading above $100 a barrel, however. The volumes to be discussed are significantly higher than the amount that the IEA released back in 2022 after the price spike following Russia’s incursion into Ukraine. At the time, the IEA coordinated a release of 240 million barrels, with half of that coming from the United States, InvestingLive noted in a report.
The Financial Times, meanwhile, said in its report that three IEA members, including the United States, had expressed interest in the joint release, which follows a statement by the IEA’s Fatih Birol from last Friday, saying that there was “plenty of oil” on the market and there were no plans for emergency releases of oil from joint stocks.
There is plenty of oil, we have no oil shortage,” Birol said after a meeting with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Commission members. “There is a huge surplus in the market.”
Apparently, the surplus has vanished, with the U.S. lifting some sanctions on Russian crude that will now go to India, but will be nowhere near enough to do much about the global supply squeeze, hence the stockpile release discussion. Even if the G7 and IEA agree to release 400 million barrels of oil, chances are this will not have too marked an effect on prices in the absence of signs that supply will normalize.
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United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that could slap long-threatened tariffs of up to 100 percent on some patented drugs if pharmaceutical companies don’t reach deals with his administration in the coming months.
Under Thursday’s executive order, companies that have signed a “most favoured nation” pricing deal and are actively building facilities in the US will have a zero-percent tariff.
For those that don’t have a pricing deal but are building such projects in the US, a 20 percent tariff will apply, but it will increase to 100 percent in four years.
senior administration official told reporters on a press call that companies still have months to negotiate before the 100 percent tariffs kick in. Bigger companies will have 120 days, and 180 days are offered for everyone else.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity to preview the executive order before it was issued, did not identify any companies or drugs that were in jeopardy of getting hit with the increased tariffs
But the source noted the administration had already reached 17 pricing deals with major drugmakers, 13 of which have signed
In Thursday’s executive order, Trump wrote that he deemed the tariffs necessary “to address the threatened impairment of the national security posed by imports of pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical ingredients”.
The order arrived on the first anniversary of Trump’s so-called Liberation Day, when the president unveiled sweeping new import taxes on nearly every country in the world, sending the stock market reeling. Those “Liberation Day” tariffs were among the duties the Supreme Court overturned in February
Critics, pharmaceutical leaders and medical groups warned of the consequences the new tariffs could bring
Stephen J Ubl, the CEO of the pharmaceutical company trade group PhRMA, said taxes “on cutting-edge medicines will increase costs and could jeopardize billions in US investments”
He pointed to America’s already large footprint in biopharmaceutical manufacturing and noted medicines sourced from other countries “overwhelmingly come from reliable US allies
Trump has launched a barrage of new import taxes on US trading partners since the start of his second term and repeatedly pledged sky-high levies on foreign-made drugs
But the administration has also used the threat of new levies to strike deals with major companies — like Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Bristol Myers Squibb — over the last year, with promises of lower prices for new drugs
Beyond company-specific rates, a handful of countries have reached trade frameworks with the US to further cap tariffs on drugs sent to the US
The European Union, Japan, Korea and Switzerland will see a 15 percent US tariff on patented pharmaceuticals, matching previously agreed rates for most goods
Meanwhile, the United Kingdom will get 10 percent, which Thursday’s order noted would “then reduce to zero” under future trade agreements
The UK previously said it secured a zero-percent tariff rate for all British medicines exported to the US for at least three years
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