BlackMask Breaking News

candle stick assholes shorting

Crude oil traders have been reducing their exposure to contracts for the commodity in a sign that sentiment is yet again changing.

Net-long bets on West Texas Intermediate fell for the fourth week in a row, reaching the lowest since last October, Bloomberg reported today, citing data from the ICE stock exchange and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The change was caused both by a decline in net-long position and an expansion in net-short ones, the report noted, as a potential peace deal for Ukraine, a resumption in oil exports from Kurdistan, and tariffs combine to sour optimism. The U.S. and Russia indicated earlier this month they are both willing to negotiate an end to the war, which would entail the lifting of Western sanctions on Russia, as suggested by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Meanwhile, the Iraqi government said on Saturday it had restarted  crude oil exports from the northern region of Kurdistan after more than a year’s suspension amid a dispute with Turkey, which received the Kurdish oil flow to then move it into international markets. The news followed reports that the U.S. had pressured Baghdad to restart the shipments. The ultimatum was simple: restart Kurdish oil exports through the shuttered pipeline—or else suffer the same fate as Iran with regard to U.S. sanctions. There has been some concern that the restart could raise OPEC+ compliance questions, as Iraq is under quota pressure.

However, analysts suggest it may simply shift Kurdish oil from smuggling routes to legal exports rather than adding fresh supply.

Both developments, however, have been bearish for oil prices, as has Trump’s tariff offensive against trading partners. Perhaps the part most directly related to oil was the additional 10% tariff on all Chinese imports that triggered a response by Beijing in the form of a 10% tariff on U.S. crude oil imports into the world’s biggest importer.

The European Union foreign ministers have approved new sanctions on Russia amid the third anniversary of the start of the war in Ukraine, the European Council said in a statement on Monday.

“This new round of sanctions not only targets the Russian shadow fleet but those who support the operation of unsafe oil tankers, videogame controllers used to pilot drones, banks used to circumvent our sanctions, and propaganda outlets used to spout lies,” EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas stated.

The Council revealed that the new sanctions target 48 individuals and 35 entities threatening Ukraine’s territorial integrity and independence. Additionally, the EU sanctioned 13 regional banks and 74 vessels originating from third countries said to be part of Russian President Vladimir “Putin’s shadow fleet circumventing the oil price cap mechanism.” Finally, eight Russian media outlets have been banned from broadcasting in the EU.

NN: The noose tightens around  Russia’s neck

These are significant sanctions.  Further stymieing the  ability of the Russians to bank, get insurance,  move, load, unload and sell the black Mike Market oil that is the life blood of their war effort. these sanctions on Russia’s shadow fleet this the potential of removing significant black black market oil from the market.  Please note conveniently  these turn of events are  being ignored by the oil market.  it’s something I believe they’ll regret because there is no peace in the valley. There is no plan that removes Russian sanctions. There is no peace in the Ukraine. And right now they’re basically carving slicing and dicing Ukraine into tiny little pieces. Russia seizing territorial. The European seizing their agricultural industry. And trump demanding his pound of flesh including a gallon of blood to take their minerals. None of this is conducive for  for a peace deal despite the PR spin

FIRST QANTIUM COMPUTER HACK

Of course they will never admit it.

Cryptocurrency exchange Bybit said on Sunday that transactions on the platform have returned to normal following a massive hacker attack on February 21.

“Following yesterday’s security incident involving unauthorized activities in our ETH cold wallet, Bybit is pleased to announce the full restoration of services and significant progress in our recovery efforts,” Bybit said in a press release, adding that “Deposit and Withdrawal Activity has returned to pre-incident levels.”

Earlier, the crypto exchange disclosed the attack on its Ethereum wallet,

stressing over 400,000 ETH and stETH worth more than $1.5 billion were stolen in the security breach.

Now Bybit said that it managed to retrieve only 15,000 cmETH, valued at approximately $42.76 million, in collaboration with the mETH Protocol.

NN: Its started… Q-day!

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is still not ready to ink the minerals agreement proposed by the United States, Sky News reported on Saturday citing a Ukrainian source.

“The agreement is not yet ready to be signed, there are a number of problematic issues, and in the current form of the draft, the president is not ready to accept it,” the source detailed, adding that the agreement doesn’t reflect a partnership and contains “only unilateral commitments by Ukraine.”

Meanwhile, just a day prior, US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz commented that “in the very short term” Zelensky would sign the deal.

Ukrainian drones hit oil pumping facility in Krasnodar

Today February 22 Russia was hit by two new kamikaze drone strikes on oil refineries as  Ukraine targets Vladimir Putin’s economical centers. Footage showed a massive blaze at Syzran in Samara region with huge flames at the key Rosneft installation. Another Ukrainian drone hit a second oil refinery at Novokuibyshevsk in the same region. This came as Russian border city Belgorod again faced intense shelling from Ukraine. The strikes in Samara region came as Russians prepared for a second day of voting in what is widely seen as a rigged election to ensure the Kremlin dictator, 71, wins a new six-year term with a seeming mandate to carry on a war that has seen some 400,000 of his people killed or maimed. The explosions at the Samara region plants came around 6am, according to reports. The refineries are more than 600 miles from the nearest Ukrainian territory. It means Ukraine has successfully hit seven oil refineries in five days. Drones belonging to Ukraine’s Security Service struck an oil pumping facility in Russia’s Krasnodar region, RBC-Ukraine reported on Saturday citing sources from special services. According to the sources, the Novovelichkovskaya oil pumping station, which is considered one of the main oil transporting facilities in Kuban, was the target of this strike. It was further stated that a fire broke out, leading to a complete power outage and emergency stop of all the operations.

Earlier this week Russia’s largest oil pumping station disabled in drone attack

“On Feb. 17, 2025, the Kropotkinskaya oil pumping station of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium was attacked by UAVs,” the statement said. According to Russian reports, seven drones carried out the strike. Officials stated that no personnel were injured. “At the moment, the Kropotkinskaya oil pumping station is out of service. Oil transportation via the Tengiz–Novorossiysk pipeline system continues at reduced pumping rates, bypassing the station. The Kropotkinskaya station, located in the Kavkazsky district of Kuban, is the largest CPC oil pumping station on Russian territory,” the report added.. According to the Shot Telegram channel, debris from one of the drones fell near the village of Severskaya, close to the oil refinery, igniting a fire. Veniamin Kondratyev, governor of Russia’s Krasnodar Krai, confirmed the drone attack, stating that debris “damaged 12 residential houses.” However, he did not comment on the strike at the Ilsky oil refinery or the reported fire. Earlier, Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council (NRC) reported that a swarm of drones had attacked the Ilsky oil refinery overnight on Feb. 17. The refinery is one of the key facilities of its kind in southern Russia.

• Researchers led by Shi Zhengli at the Wuhan Institute of Virology discovered a new coronavirus, HKU5-CoV-2, that can infect humans like SARS-CoV-2, according to a study published in the journal Cell.
• The new virus, HKU5-CoV-2, uses the ACE2 receptor, similar to SARS-CoV-2, and carries a high risk for animal-to-human transmission.
• Shi Zhengli’s research indicates that HKU5-CoV-2 could have better adaptation to human cells and is more dangerous than its predecessor.
• The findings fuel ongoing debates about the origins of COVID-19, with Shi Zhengli and other scientists claiming the virus emerged naturally, although no evidence for this natural origin has been provided.

The virus, HKU5-CoV-2, does not enter human cells as readily as SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, the scientists reported in the journal Cell. However, they found that the bat virus uses the same cell-surface protein, ACE2, as SARS-CoV-2 to help it enter human cells. In lab experiments, HKU5-CoV-2 infected human cells with high ACE2 levels in test tubes and in models of human intestines and airways. In further experiments, the researchers identified antibodies and antiviral drugs that are able to target the bat virus. Asked about concerns raised by the report of another pandemic resulting from this new virus, Dr Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota, called the reaction to the study “overblown. He said there is a lot of immunity in the population to similar COVID-19 and SARS viruses compared with 2019. The study itself noted that the virus has significantly less binding affinity than SARS-CoV-2.

Oil fell after the breach of a key technical level accelerated losses driven by the possibility of increased flows from Iraq, weakening the prospects of supply constraints that have gripped the market recently. West Texas Intermediate slid more than 2% to trade below $71 a barrel, with the drop deepening after prices dipped below their 100-day moving average of about $71.51. The decline puts oil at risk of its fifth straight weekly loss, which would be the longest streak in more than a year.Crude has been trapped in a roughly $5 range for the past three weeks because of an uncertain outlook for supply, including increasing expectations that OPEC+ will delay a planned production increase and a drone attack that threatened Kazakh pipeline flows. At the same time, US President Donald Trump’s rapid-fire tariff actions and other policy decisions have dimmed the outlook for demand and boosted US consumers’ expectations for long-term inflation.

OPEC+ postponing its 120,000 barrel-a-day output hike — a move delegates are flagging as a possibility — would mark the fourth time the group delayed plans to revive production halted in 2022. At present, the alliance aims to restore a total of 2.2 million barrels a day in monthly increments, starting in April. NN: OPEC will not increase production. I n fact they are considering further production cuts

“Given prices in the mid-$70s, we continue to anticipate that the producer group postpones the beginning of bringing back withheld oil supply to market,” Citigroup Inc. analysts, including Eric Lee, wrote in a note. “The decision to bring back more oil to market might only come if the US exerts more sanctions pressure on Iran amid potential negotiations.” NN: Iran is the wild card. I suspect 3 MBD of Iranian oil will soon be embargoed.

Bybit Hacked For More Than $1.4 Billion in Biggest Crypto Heist of All Time

• Crypto prices dropped on Friday, with Bitcoin falling to nearly $97,000 and Ether dipping below $2,700 due to a security incident at Bybit.
• Bybit confirmed a hacker stole over $1.46 billion worth of cryptocurrency from its ETH cold wallet, marking this incident as the largest cryptocurrency hack ever.
• Bybit stated that all other cold wallets are secure, and its CEO assured that all client assets are backed 1 to 1 despite the loss.
• A suspicious $1.4 billion ETH outflow prompted the security incident investigation by Bybit’s team and external experts.

The crypto market is reeling after Bybit suffered the largest hack in industry history, with over $1.4 billion in Ethereum (ETH) and staked Ethereum (stETH) drained from the exchange.

The attack has triggered a wave of liquidations, particularly in Ethereum futures markets, as panic sets in.

According to CoinGlass, ETH futures traders saw $76 million in liquidations over the past four hours, with $43 million coming from short positions.

In the past 24 hours, 183,176 traders were liquidated, bringing the total liquidation amount to $499.23 million.

Ethereum has dropped 3% in the past hour, now trading at $2,727, while Bitcoin is down 1% to $98,091.

Bybit co-founder and CEO Ben Zhou confirmed the attack in a post on X (formerly Twitter), explaining that a planned transfer was manipulated, allowing hackers to drain the exchange’s ETH cold wallet.

“However, the signing message was to change the smart contract logic of our ETH cold wallet,” Zhou said. “[The] hacker took control of the specific ETH cold wallet we signed and transferred all ETH in the cold wallet to this unidentified address.” Zhou reassured customers that Bybit remains solvent, despite the loss.

Funds are moving — hackers splitting ETH into 39 wallets

Blockchain security researcher ZachXBT was the first to notice the suspicious outflows, stating in his Telegram channel that a source had confirmed to him that Bybit was hacked.

The stolen ETH is being split between 39 different addresses, likely an attempt by the hacker to obscure the funds and avoid detection.

Arkham launches $50,000 bounty

On-chain intelligence firm Arkham announced a new bounty to identify the hacker, offering 50,000 ARKM tokens as a reward for information.

“We’ve created & funded a bounty to help identify the person or organization behind today’s >$1B Bybit hack,” Arkham posted on X. “Submissions to this bounty will be shared with the Bybit team to support their investigation.”

The biggest crypto hacks in history

The cryptocurrency industry has witnessed several major security breaches over the years, with Bybit’s $1.4 billion exploit now ranking as the largest ever.

In March 2022, a critical exploit in Axie Infinity’s Ronin Network led to a $625 million loss in ETH and USDC. Attackers compromised validators, making it one of the largest DeFi hacks in history.

In 2014, Mt. Gox Exchange, once handling 70% of all Bitcoin transactions, Mt. Gox collapsed in 2014 after hackers stole 850,000 BTC — worth $460 million at the time.

In August 2022, hackers stole $611 million in crypto from Poly Network by exploiting a smart contract vulnerability. In a twist, the attacker later returned most of the funds.

 

Russian Security Council Deputy Secretary Grigory Molchanov warned on Friday that NATO poses a growing threat to Russia’s critical port infrastructure, suggesting the alliance may be drafting strategic documents for potential military operations on the country’s seabed. The deputy secretary indicated that NATO is believed to be considering maritime transport, major oil terminals, and rail crossings for fuel delivery as potential targets for future attacks. Molchanov noted that amid Russia’s ongoing special military operation, the country has observed an increase in threat to its military security, particularly due to the Ukrainian armed forces’ larger use of unmanned attack boats in the Black Sea.

Russia launched 160 drones overnight

Ukrainian Air Force announced on Friday in a post on Telegram that the Russian army launched 160 drones and two ballistic missiles overnight. “The air attack was repelled by aviation, anti-aircraft missile troops, electronic warfare units and mobile fire groups,” the Ukrainian military said, detailing that out of the total number, 87 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were shot, while 70 of them failed to reach their targets. The regions affected by the strike were Odessa, Kiev, Poltava and Kharkiv.