S&P 500 Index Surges Above 7,000 During Intraday Trading, Nearing All-Time High

April 16 (Xinhua) — Iran’s Tasnim News Agency reported Tuesday (April 15) that, citing informed sources, Tehran will conduct a required assessment after meeting with a delegation led by Pakistani Army Chief of Staff Munir to decide whether to move forward with the next round of talks with the United States. The source noted a ceasefire in Lebanon would serve as a positive signal for Iran’s participation in the upcoming talks. Additionally, the U.S. must adhere to a reasonable negotiation framework, refrain from excessive demands and not breach previous ceasefire commitments, the source added. (Xinhua)

April 16 Per Al Jazeera reporting, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff (COAS) traveled to Iran this week amid a “major breakthrough” in Iran nuclear talks, a source said. Pakistan views the development as promising and expects tangible results. Over the past 24 hours, all parties have made significant progress, with a quadrilateral meeting in Islamabad bringing together Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Pakistan’s COAS will head to Qatar within the next 24 hours, followed by a trip to Turkey to meet with the Turkish president. Overall, Pakistan remains optimistic about sustaining open communication channels. Senior Pakistani military officials have also been in contact with the U.S. government, particularly Vice President Kamala Harris.

On April 16th, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) launched an investigation into suspicious oil trades that occurred before Donald Trump took office.

Iran has suspended all petrochemical product exports until further notice, a downstream industry development executive with Iran’s petrochemical sector announced April 16, per The Wall Street Journal. Earlier, on April 6, Iranian officials reported that two petrochemical plant facilities in the South Pars region were struck in enemy airstrikes.

April 16 — Bitwise has officially launched its Spot Avalanche ETF (ticker: BAVA) today. The ETF holds AVAX tokens directly and intends to stake the AVAX it holds, sharing approximately 5.4% of average staking rewards while maintaining liquidity. On its first day of trading, the Spot Avalanche ETF recorded $400,000 in volume within the first 90 minutes. Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart noted, “That’s quite impressive.”

April 16th – Bitcoin Core developer Jameson Lopp recently argued that freezing long-dormant bitcoins would be preferable to letting quantum computing attackers potentially steal them in the future. Roughly 5.6 million BTC (about 28% of the total supply) has been inactive for over a decade, likely permanently lost, with a current value of around $420 billion. If these dormant coins were cracked by a quantum computer and entered circulation, it could spark severe price swings, market panic, and erode confidence in the Bitcoin network. Lopp stressed this is not an outcome he wants, but rather a contingency plan to counter a potential existential threat. He’s more focused on rendering these “lost” coins unusable to attackers. The BIP-361 proposal, which Lopp contributed to, aims to phase out the current quantum-vulnerable signature scheme and push users to upgrade their wallets by invalidating transactions from non-upgraded ones. The idea is still in its early stages, and Lopp himsel