IOSG Founding Partner: Project Teams' Median Cost for Listing on Top-Tier Exchanges Around $8 Million

June 19 – The Washington Post reports that vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global energy transit chokepoint, is gradually returning to normal. This shift follows a preliminary agreement between the U.S. and Iran and the lifting of all restrictions on the key maritime passage. Earlier tensions had left some shipping vessels stranded in the Persian Gulf since February. Now that tensions have eased, those vessels are cautiously transiting the Strait of Hormuz again. The resumption of navigation here is widely seen as a significant sign of regional de-escalation.

June 19 (CCTV) – Lebanese officials reported Wednesday that Israeli drones are continuing to bomb southern Lebanon, targeting towns and mountains in the Nabatieh and Jezzine regions. In an interview on the same day, Ibrahim Musawi, a Lebanese parliament member affiliated with the Hezbollah group, noted that after both sides reached a ceasefire agreement, Hezbollah immediately began abiding by the deal while reserving the right to respond if Israel violates the ceasefire. "If Israel respects the ceasefire, we will also honor it," he said. Earlier on June 19, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced that air raid sirens went off in the Zareet area of northern Israel, suggesting a possible drone attack in the region.

June 19: The U.S.-Iran conflict may have de-escalated for now, but the fight over who comes out ahead is just getting started. Both countries are framing the memorandum of understanding signed by their leaders on June 17 as a victory for their own side. Analysts take the view that Iran has gained the upper hand, citing its new sanction waivers and reconstruction funds. By contrast, the U.S. only locked in the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz—a waterway that was already functioning normally before the recent tensions flared up. The U.S. also made concessions on the Iran nuclear issue, though Tehran had already put forward those same concessions earlier. The White House has distributed a talking-point memo to allies, seeking to spin this agreement as a political win. (FxStreet)

June 19: Per LookOnChain’s on-chain monitoring, a large crypto whale is continuing to accumulate Ether (ETH): Two separate ETH withdrawals from Binance were logged over the past two hours: - K3 Capital moved 10,000 ETH off the exchange, valued at roughly $16.92 million. - A wallet connected to F2Pool co-founder Wang Chun also withdrew 7,650 ETH from Binance during this same window, worth approximately $12.93 million.

June 19 – Amazon has pulled the film *Artificial* – which centers on OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s brief 2023 ouster from the company – from its release calendar and is now seeking to sell the project to other movie studios. Directed by Luca Guadagnino, the movie casts Andrew Garfield as Altman and Yura Borisov as OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever. Its plot has been compared to an AI-themed take on *The Social Network*. Early drafts of the screenplay reportedly framed Altman in a negative light, portraying him as power-hungry and manipulative. One scene includes a line from computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton describing Altman as “one of the most manipulative people on Earth.” According to reports, the decision to nix the release came after the film’s final cut leaned darker than initially planned. Mike Hopkins, the top executive overseeing Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, made the call following a test screening. The move arrives just months after Amazon’s $50 billion investment i

June 19, 2026 — following an April 2026 attack on KelpDAO’s rsETH cross-chain bridge, Aave saw roughly $84.5 billion in user funds flow out of its protocol. Even so, Aave’s core functionality remained fully intact, marking one of the largest DeFi stress tests to date that the platform passed successfully. The crisis originated with an attack on KelpDAO’s LayerZero cross-chain bridge, which led to the theft of about $292 million worth of rsETH. This sparked widespread market anxiety over rsETH’s value and solvency as collateral. Since rsETH is used as collateral across multiple DeFi protocols, including Aave, the risk spread rapidly, triggering a massive wave of withdrawal requests. Some Aave markets hit 100% utilization rates, leaving some users temporarily unable to access their funds. To address the emerging liquidity crunch, Aave’s risk management team implemented emergency freezes and adjusted key parameters to contain risk contagion. Aave founder Stani Kulechov called the incide