Mark

Citrini Research sent an analyst to Oman with $15,000 in cash, recording sunglasses, a smuggled camera, and Cuban cigars for networking. The analyst signed a pledge to Omani authorities not to gather intelligence, then got on a boat and sailed to within 18 miles of the Iranian coast. What he saw contradicts every headline about the Strait of Hormuz being closed. Approximately 50 percent of tanker traffic in the strait is missing from public AIS tracking systems. The vessels are not missing because they sank. They are missing because they turned off their transponders, spoofed their GPS coordinates to broadcast false positions, duplicated the identity codes of decommissioned ships, switched to low-power transmission mode, or swapped identities with nearby vessels. The result is an electronic fog through which physical ships move crude to Asian ports while the tracking systems that Bloomberg terminals rely on show an empty waterway. More than $3 billion in crude has been transported through the strait since the war began, primarily to China, much of it under Iranian terms, paid in yuan or cryptocurrency. The strait is not closed. It is filtered. Iran decides who passes and who does not. Ships that pay the IRGC toll and accept escort through the Larak corridor transit under the electronic fog. Ships that refuse are turned away or attacked. The “closure” that drove Brent to $115 and Aramco’s OSP to a record $19.50 premium is a selective blockade operating behind spoofed transponder data that makes it look total when it is not. Brent dropped from approximately $115 to the $108 range as the report circulated. The market had priced in a complete shutdown. The reality is a controlled chokepoint generating toll revenue while maintaining the appearance of total disruption to maximise the scarcity premium on every barrel that gets through. Iran is running two operations simultaneously: a blockade for the cameras and a toll booth behind the blockade for the revenue. The opacity is the product. The fear is the markup. The techniques are not sophisticated. Going dark requires flipping a switch. GPS spoofing requires a $500 device injecting false coordinates into the transponder’s GPS input. Identity theft requires typing a different MMSI number into the AIS configuration screen. Low-power mode requires switching from 12.5 watts to 1 watt. These are not state-level cyber operations. They are the maritime equivalent of turning off your phone’s location services. The ghost fleet runs on technology any ship’s officer can deploy in minutes. The 50 percent blind spot means every estimate of Hormuz disruption based on public AIS data, every IEA shortfall calculation, every Goldman Sachs supply model, and every insurance premium derived from vessel tracking is working with half the picture. The other half is sailing in the dark, loaded with crude, headed for Chinese refineries, paying the IRGC in the currency of the country that ships sodium perchlorate to fill the missiles that the same IRGC fires at Israeli cities. The strait the world thinks is closed is open for business. The price of admission is invisibility. And the entity collecting the toll in yuan while demanding war compensation in the ten-point response is profiting from the blockade it claims is absolute, selling passage through the chokepoint it says will “never return to its former state,” and funding the war with the revenue from the peace it refuses to sign. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

Yo @benjamincowen @grok says we should do a show together and discuss how we both called the top with completely different methods - then potentially discuss our different view re 2026. Would love to host you on the 100XClub YouTube channel.

Got my channel back just now It’s a victory for me, but it changes nothing I know how it feels to lose everything I worked for years overnight How it feels to lose my community How it feels to lose my business How it feels to be censored and treated unfairly The stress I experienced today definitely shortened my lifespan. I will continue this fight and find a solution for the sake of our industry and creators. Thank you @YouTubeCreators @TeamYouTube @YouTube Please now get in touch and let’s change this for once and for all See my post below

AN OPEN LETTER TO @YouTube AND NEAL MAHON. Dear @YouTube I built a media business that broadcasts on your platform. Our business has exploded and we are growing rapidly. We have over 1,1m subscribers. We employ over 100 people globally and we work tirelessly to deliver on our mission of building the most profitable community in the world. Despite our success, I am constantly anxious. I don’t sleep at night and I am scared to scale my business. Why? It’s not because of any real market or business risk. It’s because I know that at any moment I could get a Youtube strike, or a series of strikes , that may force me to close the entire business overnight and destroy my work and that of my 100 employees. Even though our channel hasn’t been affected , many of our partner channels and fellow creators have suffered this fate. As one of the larger players in the industry, I feel I have a duty and an obligation to take on this fight. 100s of crypto content creators are making the same videos they have made for years, with similar content and style, only now they are getting strikes or being deplatformed. And the worst parts, 1. They have absolutely no idea what they are doing wrong and so they can’t change. All they get is a vague message that the video contravened the community Guidelines, of which there are many. 2. The appeal process is flawed, seems to be an AI and unreliable. Worse yet, is that since Youtube has network effects and a monopoly of sorts there are no real viable alternatives, and so if it happens to you , your business is gone. One of our partners and member of our group of companies , @FefeDemeny has a channel called the 100x club. He comes from a humble background! He is hardworking, ambitious and makes great content. He built a business from his garage, started from zero and was just getting momentum. Recently his channel has been under attack by the Youtube algorithm, he received warnings and strikes and despite all the strikes being removed on appeal - today his channel was removed permanently! The worst part is that he has no idea why. He has become really conservative with his content, he follows all the known guidelines, he follows all the processes and he still received the strikes. Now he cannot make content for a week and his ability to keep funding his business is impaired. He, like many others in this industry, is a business creator with good intentions and great content. We have made millions of hours of content on your platforms. We have brought in Billions of dollars of ad revenue. Despite this our businesses are under threat constantly. He is not the only one. It’s happening daily to creators in our industry and we have no idea why. At this point it is clear that there is an issue with your flagging software. It seems like a setting is too sensitive. And this issue is costing honest people their businesses and their livelihoods. We are not asking for any favorable treatment or for you to change any rules, All we are asking for is clarity. We want to understand why some channels are randomly getting strikes so we can understand and comply. We would also appreciate it if you could review your algorithm as it may be set to sensitive or it may be picking up false positives. As a monopoly of sort you have a duty to ensure that you are fair to all creators, the same creators that build your business. We would appreciate a real response for a real human, someone with real power and some action that can assist us in maintaining our businesses that we have worked so hard to build. I write this on behalf of many creators. I look forward to a response. If you want to help creators, please share this far and wide. You are helping save people’s businesses.

My YouTube Channel, The 100XClub Has Been Permanently Removed By @YouTube My appeal was rejected, and I’ve been told the decision is final. They won’t put the channel back up. For the last months, my channel has been hit with repeated warnings and strikes. Every single one was overturned after human review - because they were false. And yet today, my entire channel is gone. I remember 2 years ago starting to stream from my baby’s room, having 0 views for weeks. No views. No reach. No voice. Going from there to a big team, hundreds of videos and almost 10k views daily was one of the hardest thing I’ve done in my life My mission has always been simple: help people navigate crypto safely. - I've warned about crashes before they happened. - I shared my own decisions so others could think for themselves. - I added disclaimers on every single video. - I took multiple compliance and platform courses (including with Derral Eves). The only intention was always to help people in crypto. - I have never promoted scams. - I have never put my community at danger. - I have never violated this platform intentionally - and when YouTube flagged content, we tried to corrected and change immediately. We spent days trying to figure out what can trigger YouTube, what we should change, and adapted every time we uploaded, trying to fly blind and hoping to be compliant. Dear @YouTube @YouTubeCreators I have done everything I possibly could to comply with your platform We completed many courses, including one with Derral Eves, to make sure we do our best on the platform This is clearly a mistake, I am beyond words, sad, angry, lost. I have been in the space since 2016, worked with incredible people and given everything to my community Please review this once again, put my channel back, and help us understand how we can comply better so this nightmare does not happen to any honest creator again Crypto creators, including myself want clarity. We are willing to adapt. But we are flying blind and being punished for not following a policy we don’t know anything about. Please join my telegram to see what we are doing, please read the hundreds of daily comments on my X page and YouTube videos and make the right decision. And for my community and friends, if I ever helped you with anything, please amplify this. 1) Tag @YouTube @YouTubeCreators in the comments below 2) please repost and tag @YouTube @YouTubeCreators This is last resort. Please help.

My YouTube Channel, The 100XClub Has Been Permanently Removed By @YouTube My appeal was rejected, and I’ve been told the decision is final. They won’t put the channel back up. For the last months, my channel has been hit with repeated warnings and strikes. Every single one was overturned after human review - because they were false. And yet today, my entire channel is gone. I remember 2 years ago starting to stream from my baby’s room, having 0 views for weeks. No views. No reach. No voice. Going from there to a big team, hundreds of videos and almost 10k views daily was one of the hardest thing I’ve done in my life My mission has always been simple: help people navigate crypto safely. - I've warned about crashes before they happened. - I shared my own decisions so others could think for themselves. - I added disclaimers on every single video. - I took multiple compliance and platform courses (including with Derral Eves). The only intention was always to help people in crypto. - I have never promoted scams. - I have never put my community at danger. - I have never violated this platform intentionally - and when YouTube flagged content, we tried to corrected and change immediately. We spent days trying to figure out what can trigger YouTube, what we should change, and adapted every time we uploaded, trying to fly blind and hoping to be compliant. Dear @YouTube @YouTubeCreators I have done everything I possibly could to comply with your platform We completed many courses, including one with Derral Eves, to make sure we do our best on the platform This is clearly a mistake, I am beyond words, sad, angry, lost. I have been in the space since 2016, worked with incredible people and given everything to my community Please review this once again, put my channel back, and help us understand how we can comply better so this nightmare does not happen to any honest creator again Crypto creators, including myself want clarity. We are willing to adapt. But we are flying blind and being punished for not following a policy we don’t know anything about. Please join my telegram to see what we are doing, please read the hundreds of daily comments on my X page and YouTube videos and make the right decision. And for my community and friends, if I ever helped you with anything, please amplify this. 1) Tag @YouTube @YouTubeCreators in the comments below 2) please repost and tag @YouTube @YouTubeCreators This is last resort. Please help.

AN OPEN LETTER TO @YouTube AND NEAL MAHON. Dear @YouTube I built a media business that broadcasts on your platform. Our business has exploded and we are growing rapidly. We have over 1,1m subscribers. We employ over 100 people globally and we work tirelessly to deliver on our mission of building the most profitable community in the world. Despite our success, I am constantly anxious. I don’t sleep at night and I am scared to scale my business. Why? It’s not because of any real market or business risk. It’s because I know that at any moment I could get a Youtube strike, or a series of strikes , that may force me to close the entire business overnight and destroy my work and that of my 100 employees. Even though our channel hasn’t been affected , many of our partner channels and fellow creators have suffered this fate. As one of the larger players in the industry, I feel I have a duty and an obligation to take on this fight. 100s of crypto content creators are making the same videos they have made for years, with similar content and style, only now they are getting strikes or being deplatformed. And the worst parts, 1. They have absolutely no idea what they are doing wrong and so they can’t change. All they get is a vague message that the video contravened the community Guidelines, of which there are many. 2. The appeal process is flawed, seems to be an AI and unreliable. Worse yet, is that since Youtube has network effects and a monopoly of sorts there are no real viable alternatives, and so if it happens to you , your business is gone. One of our partners and member of our group of companies , @FefeDemeny has a channel called the 100x club. He comes from a humble background! He is hardworking, ambitious and makes great content. He built a business from his garage, started from zero and was just getting momentum. Recently his channel has been under attack by the Youtube algorithm, he received warnings and strikes and despite all the strikes being removed on appeal - today his channel was removed permanently! The worst part is that he has no idea why. He has become really conservative with his content, he follows all the known guidelines, he follows all the processes and he still received the strikes. Now he cannot make content for a week and his ability to keep funding his business is impaired. He, like many others in this industry, is a business creator with good intentions and great content. We have made millions of hours of content on your platforms. We have brought in Billions of dollars of ad revenue. Despite this our businesses are under threat constantly. He is not the only one. It’s happening daily to creators in our industry and we have no idea why. At this point it is clear that there is an issue with your flagging software. It seems like a setting is too sensitive. And this issue is costing honest people their businesses and their livelihoods. We are not asking for any favorable treatment or for you to change any rules, All we are asking for is clarity. We want to understand why some channels are randomly getting strikes so we can understand and comply. We would also appreciate it if you could review your algorithm as it may be set to sensitive or it may be picking up false positives. As a monopoly of sort you have a duty to ensure that you are fair to all creators, the same creators that build your business. We would appreciate a real response for a real human, someone with real power and some action that can assist us in maintaining our businesses that we have worked so hard to build. I write this on behalf of many creators. I look forward to a response. If you want to help creators, please share this far and wide. You are helping save people’s businesses.