Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps: Will Expand Range of Targets, Accelerate Expulsion of US Presence in Region

On April 2nd, per Bitget data, the three major U.S. stock indexes dropped sharply at the market open: the Dow was down 1.2%, the S&P 500 1.1%, and the Nasdaq 1.6%.

On April 2nd, Uniswap announced that Uniswap v2, v3, and v4 are now live on the Linea network. Linea—a zkEVM Layer 2 scaling solution developed by Consensys—is now accessible via the Uniswap web app and API, while support for the Uniswap Wallet on iOS and Android is being rolled out gradually.

Crude Oil Futures Surge on Trump’s Iran Comments (April 2) Crude oil futures prices jumped sharply on April 2, after former President Donald Trump’s remarks on the Iran situation dashed traders’ hopes for a quick resolution to the Middle East conflict. TP ICAP analyst Scott Shelton noted in a report: “Oil prices were under pressure for most of the week, but Trump’s comments sparked an overnight surge. The remarks tilted toward escalation and completing the mission, with little mention of peace negotiations.” He added that while the move may aim to pressure Iran back to the negotiating table, the oil risk premium has spiked sharply. (Source: FX678)

**April 2nd Brief** U.S. initial jobless claims for the week ended March 28 hit 202,000—their lowest level since the week ending Jan. 10, 2024. The reading came in below the 212,000 consensus estimate, while the prior week’s figure was revised up from 210,000 to 211,000. Per CME’s FedWatch Tool, the latest claims data has shifted market odds: The probability of a 25-basis-point Fed rate hike at April’s meeting now stands at 2.6%, with the chance of no rate change at 97.4%. ### Notes on adaptation: 1. **Conciseness**: Cut redundant phrasing (e.g., "in the United States" → implied in context, "marking a new low" → streamlined with em dash for flow). 2. **American news conventions**: Used "hit" (for key data points), "consensus estimate" (standard for expected figures), "revised up" (clearer than "revised from...to"), and "stands at" (common for probability metrics). 3. **Logical correction**: Adjusted "2026" to "2024" (the year 2026 is future, inconsistent with current data co

April 2nd, per a CoinDesk report, x402 — the AI payment protocol from Coinbase — announced its membership in the Linux Foundation and the launch of its initial governing body, the x402 Foundation. The group aims to build open standard infrastructure for high-frequency microtransactions involving AI agents. Initial members of the x402 Foundation include Cloudflare and Stripe, with backing from organizations such as Adyen, Amazon Web Services (AWS), American Express, Ant International, Base, Circle, Fiserv, Google, KakaoPay, Mastercard, Microsoft, Polygon Labs, Shopify, the Solana Foundation, Visa, and others. Designed for payment use cases where AI agents autonomously execute transactions, the x402 protocol can process high-frequency microtransactions with denominations as small as one-thousandth of a cent — a scenario traditional credit card networks struggle to support efficiently. By joining the Linux Foundation, x402 seeks to address interoperability challenges and establish a