West Texas Intermediate futures on the NYMEX fell about 1% to near $76 in Asian trading on Monday, surrendering earlier gains as market attention shifted to signs of progress in U.S.-Iran negotiations held in Switzerland over the weekend. The prospect of a diplomatic breakthrough helped ease some of the geopolitical premium that had supported crude prices in recent sessions.
Iran’s foreign minister said the talks had made substantial progress, with discussions reportedly covering relief for oil and petrochemical exports, the unfreezing of some assets, access for reconstruction funding, and changes related to maritime restrictions. The shift in tone was reinforced by comments from U.S. officials and regional mediators, including Qatar and Pakistan, who said the negotiations had advanced and that a roadmap for a final agreement within 60 days had been outlined.
Developments around the Strait of Hormuz remain a central market concern. Iran had earlier signaled a renewed closure of the vital shipping route amid tensions in the region, but a later statement from its foreign ministry indicated that a transit mechanism had been arranged to secure passage for commercial vessels. Any durable easing in that corridor would likely reduce supply-risk fears that have recently supported oil prices.
From a technical perspective, WTI remains under pressure. Prices are still well below the 20-day exponential moving average near $84, pointing to a short-term bearish bias. The relative strength index, near 33, also suggests that downside momentum remains in place, even after the latest pullback.
If the market fails to hold above the June 18 low of $73, the next area of concern would be the mid-$60s, near $67. On the upside, the $84 region is the first significant resistance, and only a recovery above that level would begin to improve the near-term outlook for crude.A vulnerability in a smart contract on the Secret Network was used to mint unbacked, wrapped versions of Axelar-linked assets, leading to an estimated $4.67 million exploit. The attack took place on June 10 but was not identified until June 17, when a failed cross-chain transaction exposed a depleted account and triggered further investigation by blockchain research firm Common Prefix.
According to the firm, the flaw allowed an attacker to exploit an “infinite mint” condition in the contract. By routing deposits through an attacker-controlled channel, the contract failed to confirm that incoming transfers originated from a legitimate source before issuing tokens. As a result, genuine saTokens were minted without the assets that were supposed to back them.
The compromised assets included saUSDT, saUSDC, saDAI, saWETH, saWBTC, saWBNB and sawstETH. The attacker later redeemed the tokens through legitimate channels, draining the real assets held in escrow. The funds were then moved to Ethereum , converted into Ether, and distributed across roughly 30 wallets before being sent onward to exchanges including KuCoin, ChangeNow and HitBTC.
The incident adds to a growing list of crypto protocol breaches this month, which DeFiLlama says now stands at at least 22. It was among the larger losses, trailing only the Humanity Protocol exploit and the Syscoin Bridge attack, which resulted in losses of about $32 million and $8 million, respectively.
Secret Network said holders of Axelar-bridged saXXX tokens should assume the backing of those assets may have been affected and that funds could be at risk. The network’s native SCRT token was not directly impacted, though it remains far below its former highs and recently traded around $0.058. Axelar’s AXL token was also weak, changing hands near $0.045.
Axelar later said neither its network nor IBC was compromised. The company said the affected smart contract was not developed, deployed or maintained by Axelar, and that its firewalling limited the spread of the impact to other chains.
