Bitcoin held near the $78,000 area as geopolitical tension around the Strait of Hormuz pushed Brent crude above $90, giving traders another macro-risk event to price across energy, inflation, and risk assets.

The move followed a CENTCOM statement on the escalation, while oil markets reacted to the risk of disruption around one of the world’s most important energy chokepoints. Bitcoin’s stability during the move drew attention because traders often watch whether BTC behaves like a risk asset, a liquidity asset, or a geopolitical hedge during stress events.

The answer is not always clean.

Bitcoin can fall with risk assets during panic. It can rise when traders seek alternatives. It can also hold steady while other markets move first. That makes the latest setup useful, but not conclusive.

For more details, visit the official Centcom platform.

TL;DR

• Bitcoin held near $78,000 as geopolitical tension around the Strait of Hormuz lifted oil prices.
• Brent crude moved above $90 as traders priced supply risk.
• The event should be framed as macro-risk context, not proof that Bitcoin is a guaranteed war hedge.

Why Oil Matters For Bitcoin Traders

Oil shocks can ripple through global markets.

If crude prices rise sharply, traders may start thinking about inflation, shipping costs, energy supply, central-bank policy, and consumer pressure. Those expectations can affect Treasury yields, the dollar, equities, and risk appetite.

Bitcoin now trades inside that macro complex.

A sharp oil move does not automatically move BTC, but it can change the broader conditions around it. If higher oil revives inflation fears, rate-cut expectations may shift. If geopolitical stress rises, liquidity preference may increase. If risk appetite weakens, crypto can come under pressure.

That is why Bitcoin traders are watching oil.

The Strait Of Hormuz Is A Serious Market Risk

The Strait of Hormuz matters because a large share of global oil flows through the region.

Any threat to shipping, energy supply, or military stability there can have immediate effects on crude prices. Even the possibility of disruption can cause traders to reprice supply risk.

That puts macro assets on alert.

Oil above $90 can become a psychological and policy marker. It raises questions about inflation persistence, central-bank reaction, and whether risk assets can keep rallying if energy prices remain elevated.

Bitcoin’s ability to hold near $78,000 during that backdrop is notable.

But one session is not enough to define the asset’s role.

Bitcoin’s Hedge Narrative Needs Care

Bitcoin is often described as a hedge against geopolitical instability.

Sometimes that narrative fits. Sometimes it does not.

During acute risk-off events, crypto can sell off because it is liquid, volatile, and widely held by leveraged traders. In other periods, Bitcoin can benefit from distrust in fiat systems, capital controls, or broad concerns about monetary policy.

The latest move sits somewhere between those narratives.

Bitcoin did not collapse as oil reacted. That shows resilience. It does not prove BTC will always protect portfolios during geopolitical stress.

Traders should treat the reaction as data, not doctrine.

Liquidity Still Matters

The bigger driver may still be liquidity.

If geopolitical stress pushes investors toward cash and the dollar, Bitcoin may face pressure. If markets expect central banks or governments to respond with easier conditions, Bitcoin may benefit. If energy prices feed inflation and keep rates higher, BTC may struggle.

That is why the oil move is important.

It can affect the policy path indirectly. Bitcoin traders are not only watching missiles, shipping lanes, or headlines. They are watching how those events filter into inflation expectations and liquidity.

The Market Test

The next test is whether Bitcoin continues holding the $78,000 area if oil remains elevated.

If BTC stays firm while crude holds above $90, traders may argue that demand is absorbing macro stress. If Bitcoin starts to weaken alongside equities, the hedge narrative may fade again.

Either way, the setup matters because it shows crypto markets are being shaped by more than ETF flows and exchange positioning.

Geopolitics is back in the frame, oil is moving, and Bitcoin is being tested as part of the wider macro map.

This article is based on CENTCOM materials, public Bitcoin price data, and oil market pricing.

This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.

This report is based on information released by Centcom. at Centcom

“We’re taking a lot of oil from Venezuela, and we’re getting along great with them. Billions and billions of barrels of oil is coming out of Venezuela, one of the most fertile places for oil in the world. And as you know, it was a forty-eight minute war, lasted forty-eight minutes. And we paid for the war with what we’ve taken out many, many, many times. Where have you heard that before? You haven’t heard that before. It’s the old fashioned way. Right? It’s the old fashioned way. To the victor belong the spoils. Right?”

That was President Trump, speaking impromptu on August 5, during a campaign-style speech on the U.S. economy at the Red Rock Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

I use that quote as a way to get into the serious question of what has happened to the now estimated $13 billion worth of Venezuelan oil that’s been sold since January 9, when President Trump announced his Executive Order (EO), Safeguarding Venezuelan Oil Revenue for the Good of the American and Venezuelan People.

The EO set up so-called "Foreign Government Deposit Funds" meaning funds from the sale of Venezuelan oil or other natural resources from that country held by the U.S. Government in designated U.S. Treasury Department or other accounts in a “custodial and government capacity.”

Every six months, according to Trump’s January 9, EO, “The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, is hereby authorized to submit recurring and final reports to the Congress” about those funds.

Apparently, no such report has so far been sent to Congress, although it would seem at least one should have gone to Capitol Hill last month.

Venezuelan oil money has been generated and serious amounts have been received by the U.S., as Trump himself has claimed many times.

For example, back during his January 9 press conference with oil company leaders at the White House, Trump announced that Venezuela had already given the U.S. 30 million barrels of what had been previously-sanctioned oil that it had on hand.

“That's about $4 billion worth,” Trump announced back in January, adding, “And it's on our way to the United States right now. And we want to thank Venezuela for that. And we're working very well with them, obviously, or they wouldn't have been so generous.”

There has been no accounting that I know of for that first gift of $4 billion worth of Venezuelan oil.

On January 28, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that funds from Venezuelan oil sales in the “short term” would go to a bank account in Qatar, but he added, “Ultimately, it will be [held in] a U.S. Treasury blocked account in the United States.”

Rubio explained to the committee that the U.S. “at the front end [will] say this is what this [oil payment] money can be spent on, these things. We will submit [that list] to them [the Venezuelan government and] they will submit to us a budget request. We want to use this money for these things and part of the proceeds will go to fund an audit process to make sure that that's how the money is being spent.”

Rubio told the committee one payment of $300 million had already been made “to keep [Venezuelan] sanitation workers, police officers, government workers on staff,” and that it was from Venezuelan oil sales totaling $500 million. Of the remaining $200 million, Rubio said, “It's still sitting in the [Qatar] account is my understanding at this time [back on January 28].”

Rubio added that he thought this U.S.-control of Venezuelan oil sales funds might involve “another $2.5 billion-to-$3 billion” of Venezuelan oil income.

But Rubio made clear, “The permanent structure we want to see in the long term. We just want them to have a normal industry where the [oil] companies [U.S. and others] are involved in there. They're [the oil companies] selling it [Venezuelan oil] directly to the [world] market and we're [the U.S. government] out of that game.”

In March, the U.S. Treasury issued licenses to entities to do business with Petróleos de Venezuela S.A, or PDVSA, and handle, transport, refine, and market Venezuelan-origin oil under strict operational limits. One limit: All payments for the Venezuelan oil go to a special U.S.-controlled account and not to sanctioned Venezuelan entities such as PDVSA.

In other words, the U.S. would control the cash flow back to Venezuela for its oil sales.

On April 1, Bloomberg reported the estimated value of U.S.-controlled Venezuelan oil exports had increased from $600 million in January \ -- about 380,000 barrels per day -- to about $3.7 billion in April alone -- about 1.1 million barrels per day.

On April 16, the State Department’s Michael Kozak, a senior official from the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, disclosed “around $3 billion” of Venezuelan oil revenue had moved through the U.S. accounts “paying the salaries of government workers in Venezuela; buying supplies for their oil industry, and so on, other things that benefit the public.”

Kozak also said the U.S. accounting firm, KPMG would be making quarterly audit reports on the Venezuelan oil bank accounts and providing them to the State Department.

One day after Kozak’s appearance, on April 17, four Democratic members of Congress sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) Acting Comptroller General Orice Williams Brown, requesting “an audit of the United States-Venezuela energy deal that was announced by President Trump on January 6.”

They asked that “the review cover both the period of time that the funds were routed to accounts in Qatar, the current arrangement for funds to be routed to U.S. accounts controlled by the Treasury Department, and any other successor mechanism utilized by the Administration to facilitate the sale of Venezuelan oil, custody of these assets, and disbursement of these funds.”

The GAO has since confirmed they have an investigation underway.

On June 3, Roxanna Vigil, a former senior sanctions policy advisor at the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, raised questions about the Venezuelan oil funds in a Council on Foreign Relations article.

Vigil wrote, “In the first four months of the United States exerting control over Venezuela’s oil exports, almost one hundred million barrels of oil worth an estimated $8 billion have flowed through a process marked by no transparency and minimal oversight.”

She added, “While the Trump administration has repeatedly framed this control as benefiting both countries, it has not publicly disclosed how much Venezuelan oil it has sold, how much revenue it has collected, or how it has used those funds since seizing control of the country’s oil exports following the January 3, military intervention that deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.”

On June 24, earthquakes struck Venezuela leaving more than 5,000 dead, 16,700 injured and damage the World Bank estimated would cost some $19.7 billion to reconstruct. The Trump administration coordinated a humanitarian response including more than $386 million for which polls have shown Venezuelans are grateful.

However, those polls have also shown Venezuelans resent the poor handling of the disaster by acting-President Delcy Rodríguez and are troubled by the Trump administration’s open support of her relatively unpopular government.

On July 22, the Financial Times published a story that led by saying, “The Trump administration has collected more than US$13 billion in revenues from Venezuelan oil sales this year, according to FT calculations, but has said almost nothing about what has happened to the money.”

The FT story went on to say, “But six months after the U.S. seized control of the funds, economists say the evidence of a recovery in Venezuela is relatively muted — a potential sign that the U.S. has not sent all the revenues back to Caracas.”

The FT also said, “The Venezuelan government set up a website to track the revenue from U.S.-run oil sales, but it has only one entry — a transfer of US$300 million in March.”

Since the FT story, almost everyone has used the $13 billion figure as the amount of money that has passed through the U.S.-run accounts. However, Trump, himself, when asked about that figure on July 27, during a press interview on Air Force One, replied, “$13 billion, I think even more than that.”

On August 4, during an interview by Fox News, Trump said, “Venezuela’s really a totally different place. Right now we’re taking out hundreds of billions of dollars, they’re taking out hundreds of billions of dollars it’s actually a different place.”

Of course, Trump’s statement is not true, “hundreds of billions” is more than twice Venezuela’s annual gross national product. But there are billions of dollars from Venezuelan oil sales yet to be accounted for and neither the Donald Trump or Delcy Rodriguez governments are trustworthy when that kind of money is involved.

Read more national security insights from experienced experts exclusively in The Cipher Brief.

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High protein, bold chili ginger garlic beans with cumin tofu and spicy onion salad. 30 minutes recipe, serve on toast, fries, baked potatoes, in smashed tacos, wraps or bowl. nut-free and gluten-free, 22 grams protein and 10 grams of fiber)

When weeknight dinners feel a little same-old, these chili ginger garlic beans are about to wake things up. They’re saucy, punchy, and layered with heat, balanced by creamy cumin-lime whipped tofu and a quick spicy onion salad. It’s bold, high-protein, and done in about 30 minutes.

Pile them on toast, tuck it into a baked potato, a dip platter, over roasted veg, in a wrap or go full comfort mode over crispy fries. One recipe, many moods. I prepped these and my garlic vinegar chickpeas and serve them in so many ways – watch on my YouTube channel !

We are reimagining Indian food today with beans majestic, a plant-based spin on chicken majestic. If you want a more traditional vegan version of Indian chicken majestic, check out my tofu majestic recipe. It’s super easy and full of flavor!

When people think of Indian food, they tend to think of Indian curries. But Indian cuisine that goes so far beyond curries and other saucy dishes served with flatbread and rice. There are so many creative ways that you can serve classic Indian dishes!

These saucy, chili garlic curry leaf beans are basically taking the sauce inspired from my tofu majestic, simplifying it, and adding beans to it. And it works so beautifully! It’s saucy, spicy, delicious, and pairs really well with lots of different components.

We make the beans along with a creamy, whipped tofu and pair these with a quick onion ring salad. Then, we’re going to pair these components in lots of different ways: on toast, as a dip, over baked potatoes or crispy potatoes(chili cheese fries style), or as crispy tacos!

Why You’ll Love Chili Garlic Beans

• 1-pan white beans packed with amazing Indian flavors
• creamy, curry-inspired, blender tofu whip takes only minutes to make
• quick pickled onion salad adds tang and crunch
• versatile! 1 dish can be served 4 or more ways
• naturally nut-free with easy gluten-free option

Continue reading: Chili Ginger Garlic Beans (Majestic Beans) with Whipped Cumin Tofu and Onion Salad

The post Chili Ginger Garlic Beans (Majestic Beans) with Whipped Cumin Tofu and Onion Salad appeared first on Vegan Richa.

When you need a quick meal that doesn't compromise on flavor, these shrimp noodles in chilli garlic oil are exactly what you need! Tender shrimp, chewy egg noodles, and a glossy sauce in chilli garlic oil create a bold, spicy noodle bowl that's ready in just 30 minutes.

If bold flavors are your love language, these shrimp noodles in chilli garlic oil deserve a spot on your dinner table.

Slippery noodles coated in aromatic chilli garlic oil, juicy shrimp, and a handful of fresh herbs come together in a dish that's fiery, fragrant, and incredibly satisfying—all in under 30 minutes.

These shrimp noodles in chilli garlic oil are proof that a handful of simple ingredients can create restaurant-quality flavors at home.

The magic lies in the infused chilli garlic oil, where hot oil is poured over readymade chilli garlic crisps to release their smoky heat into the oil.

This intensely flavorful oil coats every strand of noodles, while succulent shrimp add a naturally sweet, juicy bite that perfectly balances the spice.

This easy one-pan recipe is perfect for busy weeknights when you're craving restaurant-style noodles without the wait.

Simple ingredients, quick cooking, and irresistible flavors make this a recipe you'll come back to again and again.

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