X-Energy, a small modular reactor company backed by Amazon, surged as much as 36% on its Nasdaq debut on Friday, hitting a high of $31.33 after pricing its shares at $23 — already above the $16 to $19 range it initially marketed to investors. The IPO raised $1 billion, giving the company a fully diluted market capitalisation of around $12 billion.

On Friday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the Office of Foreign Assets Control — the Treasury's sanctions arm, known as OFAC — had sanctioned two cryptocurrency wallet addresses on the Tron blockchain, freezing a combined $344 million in USDT, the dollar-pegged stablecoin issued by Tether. Treasury officials said the wallets were linked to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the militant group Hezbollah.

Brazilian authorities moved to block 27 prediction market platforms on Friday, including Kalshi, Polymarket, PredictIt, and Robinhood's forecasting feature. The shutdown was directed by the Ministry of Finance and enforced by the country's national telecoms regulator, Anatel. Authorities said the platforms operate outside Brazil's existing legal framework and therefore illegally.

Two weeks of ceasefire between the US and Iran ended without a deal on Saturday after peace talks broke down over a central sticking point: the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. The failure immediately raised the prospect of fresh escalation, with Donald Trump announcing plans for a naval blockade of the strait that would prevent Iranian oil from reaching its customers — most critically, China.

Saudi Aramco, the state oil company of the world's largest crude exporter, has raised the premium it charges Asian customers for its main oil grade — Arab Light — to $19.50 above the Oman-Dubai benchmark for May deliveries. In 26 years of recorded data, that premium has never crossed $10. European customers are being asked to pay even more: $24 to $30 above the Brent benchmark, which is itself trading around $108 a barrel.