Databricks announced a new funding round Thursday valuing the company at $188 billion, led by Coatue. The valuation jump caps an aggressive 18-month run: $10B raised at a $62B valuation in Dec 2024, $1B at $100B in Sep 2025, $5B at $134B in Feb 2026, and now this latest round at $188B.

Founded in 2013 as a big-data analytics platform, Databricks has repositioned as core AI infrastructure, rolling out products like Lakebase, Unity, and Omnigent on top of its existing enterprise data holdings.

The new capital will fuel Databricks' AI strategy, with the company doubling down on three core products: Unity AI Gateway, its multi-AI governance tool for managing enterprise AI costs; Genie, an AI coworker that turns business data into trusted answers and actions; and Lakebase, a serverless Postgres database built for AI agents.

Databricks says its platform is now used by more than 20,000 organizations, including adidas, AT&T, Bayer, Block, Mastercard, Rivian, and Unilever, along with 70% of the Fortune 500.

U.S. prosecutors have charged a Florida man with distributing malware-laden video games on Steam as part of a scheme that allegedly infected thousands of victims and drained their crypto wallets.

According to a criminal complaint, the FBI arrested 21-year-old Zyaire Wilkins on Tuesday, accusing him and several unnamed co-conspirators of publishing malicious games, including BlockBlasters, Dashverse, Lampy, Lunara, and PirateFi, on Steam over the past two years.

The games were designed to look and function like legitimate titles, but once installed, the embedded malware harvested passwords and personal data and targeted victims' crypto wallets.

Prosecutors allege the scheme infected roughly 8,000 victims and compromised around 80 crypto wallets, resulting in at least $220,000 in stolen crypto.

The games were reportedly marketed through Discord, LinkedIn, and Telegram. The FBI first flagged the investigation publicly in March, calling on victims who had downloaded the affected games to come forward with evidence.

Tether's USDT is now on a two-year countdown to meet GENIUS Act requirements or risk losing eligibility for listing on U.S. centralized exchanges.

The foreign stablecoin issuers like Tether may have until July 2028 to comply with the law, which could require OCC registration, adherence to U.S. freeze-and-seizure orders, and changes to USDT's reserve composition.

The GENIUS Act, signed into law a year ago, mandates that stablecoin issuers be fully backed by highly liquid assets — essentially cash and U.S. Treasuries. Tether's latest disclosures show roughly a quarter of USDT's reserves are still tied up in assets that wouldn't meet that standard, including precious metals, lending positions, and bitcoin holdings.

CEO Paolo Ardoino pledged compliance when the law was signed, and Tether has since launched USAT, a U.S.-focused stablecoin issued through Anchorage Digital, though adoption remains limited so far.

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky confirmed that his X account was compromised after an attacker published a thread promoting tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), which many users criticized as being heavily AI-generated.

The posts discussed the benefits of tokenization for assets such as real estate, bonds, and funds, referencing Robinhood's recent push into tokenized assets. While the thread contained no token sale, wallet address, or investment link, it was later deleted after Chesky regained access to the account.

Following the incident, Chesky joked after regaining access that the attacker had helped him gain new crypto followers. Airbnb reported the breach to X, which has since secured the account. The method of the compromise remains unknown.

Limitless, the largest prediction market on Base, has gone live with a referral program: invite friends and earn up to 40% of the trading fees they generate.

Users grab a personal link at limitless.​exchange/referrals and start earning a share of their referrals’ fees — a growth push for the hourly prediction-market app and its LMTS token economy.

Limitless runs short-term markets across crypto, sports and world events on Base, with instant settlement and no liquidation risk; its LMTS token has been live since late 2025.

Apple has surpassed Nvidia to become the world's most valuable publicly traded company, reaching a market capitalization of approximately $4.88 trillion, while Nvidia fell to around $4.86 trillion following a decline in its share price.

Apple was last valued at about $4.88 trillion, while Nvidia stood near $4.86 trillion after a 3.5% drop. The move marks Apple’s return to the top spot for the first time since April last year, while Nvidia had held the crown since June 2025.

The rotation highlights growing confidence in Apple’s earnings durability and AI monetization potential through services, ecosystem lock-in, and hardware upgrades.

While Apple has reclaimed the top spot for the first time since 2025, Nvidia remains one of the biggest beneficiaries of AI demand, and analysts note the leadership could shift again as market sentiment evolves.

BlackRock has become the first asset manager to surpass $15.3 trillion in AUM, marking the strongest first half in the firm's history.

The company reported $192B in Q2 net inflows and a record $321B in H1 2026, driven by strong demand for ETFs, private markets, and active strategies.

BlackRock's assets under management reached a record $15.3 trillion, up 22% year-over-year, following $192 billion in Q2 net inflows and a record $321 billion in the first half of 2026. The firm's iShares ETF platform attracted $177.9 billion in H1 inflows, pushing total ETF assets above $6.2 trillion.

The company also reported 31% year-over-year revenue growth to $7.08 billion, while adjusted EPS came in at $13.91, beating analyst expectations. BlackRock's digital asset products now manage $48.8 billion, although crypto investment products recorded $3.1 billion in net outflows during the second quarter.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink called it the strongest start to a year in the firm's history, citing continued momentum across ETFs, technology, and private markets. Meanwhile, the company also increased its quarterly share buyback program to $550M.

Blockchain security firm Blockaid detected a suspected $18M exploit involving Ostium Vault on Arbitrum.

According to the report, the attacker allegedly abused a registered PriceUpKeep forwarder and future-dated authorized oracle reports to generate artificial trading profits, triggering an ~$18M USDC payout from the vault.

The stolen funds are reportedly being swapped from USDC into ETH via Kyber Network.

Ostium is an RWA perpetual trading protocol focused on equities, commodities, and forex. The project has raised ~$27.8M from investors including General Catalyst, Jump Crypto, Coinbase Ventures, Wintermute, and GSR.

More details are expected as the investigation continues.

The European Central Bank has picked 36 payment providers from 50+ applicants for a 12-month digital euro pilot starting H2 2027. Selected names include Deutsche Bank, UniCredit, BPCE, Revolut Bank UAB, Stripe, and Adyen.

Providers will either distribute beta digital euro accounts to Eurosystem staff or help merchants accept beta payments. The pilot covers P2P and P2B transactions, both online and offline, across the ECB and 19 national central banks.

Board member Piero Cipollone said the strong response shows the private sector is ready to move fast on the project. A first issuance is targeted for 2029, pending 2026 regulatory approval.

The news follows Isabel Schnabel's remarks that CBDCs are key to protecting central bank money as stablecoins grow, a view that clashes with the US, where Treasury Secretary Bessent has rejected a US CBDC in favor of the Clarity Act.

BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, HSBC and UBS are joining the U.K. government’s tokenization taskforce.

Backed by the City of London Corporation, the initiative will spend the next year testing live tokenization use cases in UK financial markets, starting with tokenized repo. The goal is clear: bring tokenization deeper into traditional finance and keep London competitive as the race for RWA infrastructure accelerates.

According to a BCG estimate, the tokenized real-world assets market could reach $88 trillion by 2035, while the U.K. says the shift could add billions in annual economic output and tax revenue.

The message coming out of London is clear: tokenization is no longer being treated as a side experiment or a niche innovation. It is steadily moving into the center of financial infrastructure, where the next generation of markets will be built.