Circle Foundation has awarded its first U.S. grants to Accion Opportunity Fund and Pacific Community Ventures on Sept. 22, backing AI-enabled lending and data infrastructure for underserved small businesses. Circle announced the grants during the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting in New York, identifying both recipients as Community Development Financial Institutions serving small-business owners who
The world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, says broad AI adoption could represent an underappreciated source of demand for digital assets. In its latest research paper, “The Machine-Native Economy,” BlackRock said the rise of AI and machine-to-machine payments could increase demand for blockchains and other programmable payment infrastructure, including stablecoins and other on-chain assets. It also
Investor Ownership Retreats From Its 2025 Peak U.S. investors pulled back from cryptocurrency after ownership reached a record level in 2025. Gallup, the Washington-based research and analytics company, released its latest survey on Sept. 21, placing crypto ownership at 11% among investors with at least $10,000 in investable assets, six percentage points below last year’s
$XRP registered an intraday high of $1.60 on Sept. 22, with roughly $7.4 billion in reported volume. The move was strong, but the latest public data on regulated futures showed different positioning shifts across venues. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Sept. 15 snapshot showed leveraged funds cutting their net short in CME futures by the
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency advanced three stablecoin-focused firms toward federal trust-bank status on Sept. 18, using a recognizable regulatory perimeter across the decisions for Agora, Catena and Bastion. The decisions strengthen the case that the OCC is building a repeatable pathway for narrow, uninsured trust banks. That pathway still carries execution
Strategy has spent recent weeks rebuying 5,553 of the $BTC it sold over the summer. After selling low in the summer and re-buying high this autumn, the opportunity cost of its roundtrip trade exceeds $100 million. Despite years of promises that he’d never sell, Michael Saylor’s company sold 6,948 $BTC between May and August for
Grayscale changed MNRS into GCPU and renamed the fund the Grayscale AI Compute ETF on September 22. The ETF now tracks the Indxx High Performance Computing Index and charges a 0.59% expense ratio. Despite the new mandate, major holdings such as IREN, Hut 8 and Applied Digital keep the portfolio closely connected to companies that
Six of Canada’s largest banks are exploring a Canadian-dollar tokenized deposit system designed to move money faster between financial institutions and eventually connect with other digital asset initiatives, TD Bank announced Tuesday. Bank of Montreal, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, National Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of Canada, Scotiabank and TD Bank Group form the