T. Rowe Price, which manages nearly $2 trillion, has launched an actively managed crypto ETF holding nine digital assets, led by Bitcoin at almost 41%.

According to a July 16 press release from T. Rowe Price, the Active Crypto ETF began trading on NYSE Arca under the ticker TKNZ. The asset manager described the product as the market’s first actively managed multi-token spot exchange-traded product.

Unlike funds built around a single coin or a fixed index, TKNZ gives its managers room to adjust the portfolio as market conditions change. T. Rowe Price said its team will use research, valuation data, momentum signals, and risk controls when choosing allocations.

Bitcoin holds the largest position at nearly 41% of the portfolio, according to the firm’s published holdings. Ethereum accounts for about 18%, while BNB represents approximately 11%.

T. Rowe Price’s holdings data also shows exposure to Solana, XRP, Hyperliquid, Dogecoin, Stellar’s XLM, and the USDC stablecoin. The allocations place established crypto assets alongside newer tokens and a dollar-pegged asset within one actively managed product.

Active management separates TKNZ from passive crypto funds

T. Rowe Price said TKNZ is designed to capture market trends, momentum-led rallies, and rotations between crypto assets. Rather than maintaining fixed weights, the management team can change its positions when its models identify different opportunities or risks.

Blue Macellari, who has led T. Rowe Price’s digital asset work since 2022, serves as the fund’s portfolio manager, according to the company’s release. Four co-portfolio managers, notably Stefan Hubrich, David Kroger, Sean McWilliams, and Dante Pearson, support the strategy.

The fund’s structure also lets the team select assets from a larger approved pool. An updated filing listed 17 eligible tokens, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP, Cardano, Avalanche, Litecoin, Polkadot, Dogecoin, Hedera, Bitcoin Cash, Chainlink, Stellar, Shiba Inu, Sui, Hyperliquid, and BNB.

TKNZ carries a management fee of 0.75%, according to T. Rowe Price. The firm has introduced a net fee waiver that will remain in place until May 31, 2027, although the management fee will continue to apply during that period.

The fund also uses Anchorage Digital Bank as its crypto custodian, according to TKNZ market information published by The Block. T. Rowe Price Sponsor LLC serves as the sponsor, while T. Rowe Price Associates acts as administrator.

Balchunas sees calculated timing after the selloff

Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas linked the launch schedule to the market correction that followed T. Rowe Price’s original filing in October 2025. The Securities and Exchange Commission later approved NYSE Arca’s proposal to list the fund in June 2026.

Commenting on the timing in an X post, Balchunas wrote:

“I think they were smart with the timing—waiting till the Oct selloff dust settled a bit.”

Balchunas had previously called the filing notable because T. Rowe Price was “by far the biggest active manager” to bring its portfolio-management experience into crypto. The firm managed roughly $1.9 trillion when the product secured regulatory clearance, according to reports covering the approval.

TKNZ enters a U.S. market that already includes several single-asset crypto ETFs, while new products tied to Ethereum, Solana, and Hyperliquid have continued to reach regulators. T. Rowe Price’s release positions active allocation, rather than exposure to one token, as the fund’s central difference.

US President Donald Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator is in talks with federal regulators to settle allegations that he used nonpublic information to profit from bets on Kalshi markets tied to the president’s speeches, ABC News reported Thursday, citing sources familiar with the matter.

According to the report, Gabriel Perez, a technical assistant who has operated Trump’s teleprompter since 2016, allegedly placed bets on more than a dozen markets tied to Trump’s speeches, generating more than $100,000 in profits.

Kalshi detected the activity through its surveillance systems and referred the trades to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the outlet said. The contracts were part of the platform’s “Mentions” markets, which allow users to bet on whether particular words, phrases or topics will appear in public speeches.

According to ABC’s sources, Perez sometimes exited positions mid-speech when Trump skipped prepared passages containing words he had wagered would be mentioned. Regulators reportedly uncovered bets tied to more than a dozen speeches over roughly three months, including the State of the Union and remarks at the World Economic Forum.

The White House placed Perez on unpaid administrative leave after the report, according to press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who said Trump called the alleged conduct a “disgrace.”

Related: Prediction markets defy crypto downturn with record Q2 volume: CoinGecko

Prediction markets confront insider trading scrutiny

Prediction markets have faced increasing scrutiny over potential insider trading as trading volumes have surged in recent months.

In March, six Polymarket traders earned roughly $1 million after correctly betting the United States would strike Iran before the end of February, prompting questions about possible access to nonpublic information. Bloomberg, citing analytics firm Bubblemaps, reported several wallets placed bets only hours before explosions were first reported in Tehran.

In a seperate incident, wallets earned more than $1.2 million betting on an onchain investigation into DeFi platform Axiom shortly before blockchain investigator ZachXBT published allegations of insider trading involving an employee.

Another trader also made about $400,000 by correctly wagering on the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro shortly before the news became public.

The incidents have prompted greater attention from lawmakers and regulators. Last month, Republican Representative Bryan Steil, who chairs the House subcommittee on digital assets, introduced legislation that would prohibit members of Congress and their immediate families from trading prediction market contracts tied to public policy and political outcomes. 

Magazine: Gambling on random Pokémon cards: Onchain gagcha hits record high as crypto sinks

Injective says it has filed for transfer agent registration with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), aiming to bring a core securities-market record-keeping function onto blockchain infrastructure.

Transfer agents are responsible for maintaining shareholder records and tracking changes in securities ownership in the United States. Injective, a layer-1 blockchain focused on decentralized finance and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), argues that moving this ownership-management workflow onchain could provide a more regulated way to issue and administer tokenized assets—if the SEC approves the filing.

Key takeaways

• Injective filed with the SEC to register as a transfer agent, targeting blockchain-based shareholder record management.
• Transfer agents sit at the center of legal securities ownership tracking in the US market structure.
• Injective says an onchain approach could reduce delays and reconciliation burdens between intermediaries.
• The company did not specify the legal entity behind the application, and Cointelegraph reported it could not independently verify the submission at publication time.

Why transfer agents matter for tokenized securities

In traditional capital markets, transfer agents help ensure that the right parties are recorded as legal owners of securities and that ownership changes are reflected accurately over time. For tokenized securities, the same problem persists—only the “who owns what” question becomes more complex when issuance, settlement, and record updates are expected to occur digitally.

Injective’s pitch is that blockchain infrastructure can support compliant ownership records, while leveraging faster settlement characteristics associated with its network. In a post on X, Injective said tokenized securities and RWAs require “compliant ownership records on infrastructure that settles in less than a second,” and that it intends to provide the capability at scale within the United States.

If the SEC registration is approved, Injective would move from building blockchain infrastructure for tokenized assets toward operating within the regulated systems that determine legal securities ownership.

What Injective has (and hasn’t) disclosed

Injective’s announcement did not include details that investors typically look for when assessing regulatory filings. The company did not identify the specific legal entity behind the application, and it did not provide a public SEC filing for readers to review directly.

Cointelegraph also noted it was unable to independently verify the submission at the time of publication. That uncertainty matters: regulatory outcomes, the scope of approval, and operational requirements often depend on how filings are structured and which entity is responsible for the regulated activity.

For market participants watching this space, the next signal will likely be whether the SEC confirms receipt and provides additional context, and whether Injective clarifies its role, responsibilities, and the exact mechanics of how ownership records would be maintained onchain.

Capital markets’ broader push toward onchain infrastructure

Injective’s move reflects a wider trend: major financial players are experimenting with blockchain not only for tokenized assets, but also for the “pipes” that connect issuance, trading, and post-trade processes.

Nasdaq, for instance, has pursued onchain distribution of market data. Last month, it partnered with onchain financial data network Pyth to distribute its TotalView market data to blockchain applications. Earlier in the year, Nasdaq also partnered with Kraken and tokenization firm Backed to develop infrastructure intended to link traditional equities to blockchain networks.

Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, has similarly expanded its tokenization efforts through a partnership with Securitize. That work is aimed at supporting onchain stocks and exchange-traded funds with goals that include 24/7 trading and instant settlement.

Meanwhile, DTCC—described as a primary post-trade infrastructure provider for US securities markets—is preparing a tokenized platform called the Collateral AppChain. Cointelegraph reported that the initiative is designed to automate collateral management and settlement across financial markets, using blockchain-focused infrastructure to streamline parts of the post-trade lifecycle.

What changes if transfer-agent functions become blockchain-native

If Injective’s registration advances, it could add another building block for tokenized securities: a regulated record-keeping layer that helps tie token ownership representations to legal ownership tracking. Injective claims this could reduce delays and reconciliation between intermediaries—an issue that often shows up when multiple parties, systems, and time windows are involved in updating ownership records.

Even so, the path to real-world impact depends on execution details that were not provided in the announcement: what data is recorded, how changes are validated, and how the onchain record relates to established legal and operational requirements. Readers should therefore watch for follow-up disclosures, regulatory feedback from the SEC, and evidence of how the system would integrate with existing custody and settlement workflows.

For now, Injective’s SEC transfer-agent filing signals that tokenized securities infrastructure is moving beyond experimentation into regulated operational questions—leaving the biggest unknowns centered on how the SEC frames approval and how Injective plans to operationalize compliant ownership records at scale.

Bitcoin (BTC) spent the week split across two scenarios. One highlighted improving onchain buying pressure and ETF inflows, while the other remained synced to sentiment gauges and news events that projected fear.

The spot and futures cumulative volume delta, a running tally of buy and sell orders, confirmed a $925 million net buying day for Bitcoin on July 15. This orderbook activity absorbed the entire post-CPI pullback in open interest and price rather than collapsing into it. Meanwhile, the spot Bitcoin ETFs added $107.7 million in net inflows on July 15, marking the second consecutive positive day following $181 million on July 14.

Bitcoin price, funding, open interest. Source: Hyblock 

Funding rates spent most of the past week between 0.10% and 0.22%, then cooled sharply to 0.048%. Paired with open interest down 3.4% from Tuesday’s peak, this suggests leverage unwinding without a corresponding price decline, as Bitcoin was down only about 1.5% over the same stretch. This suggests that the longs deleveraging are simply stepping back from the post-CPI trade to adjust for Bitcoin hitting its local range highs near $65,000 to $66,000. 

Despite the traction in spot, futures, and ETF markets, market sentiment has yet to catch up. The Fear & Greed Index sits near 26, still in “Fear” territory, despite Bitcoin’s roughly 4.4% bounce off its recent $62,100 low. For traders that use the metric in a contrarian sense, positive flows holding up while sentiment stays depressed has historically been a more durable setup than a rally where sentiment has already priced in.

An alternate interpretation is that real risk-off events remain present on the horizon. This week the US war in Iran resumed, oil prices shot above $85 and projections for a Fed rate hike by September 2026 remain above 44%. 

The positive data for the week do not confirm a change in trend. Yes, two days of confirmed buying are notable, but they are not decisive.

Currently, funding is cooling toward neutral, spot ETF flows remain negative for the year, and a cluster of long liquidations sits roughly 1.5% below the current price ($63,200). 

Injective said Thursday it has filed a transfer agent registration with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, seeking to bring one of the core record-keeping functions of securities markets onto blockchain infrastructure.

Transfer agents are a core part of US market infrastructure, maintaining shareholder records and tracking changes in securities ownership. Injective, a layer-1 blockchain focused on decentralized finance and tokenized real-world assets, said bringing that function onchain would create a regulated pathway for issuing and managing tokenized assets.

Source: Injective

If approved, the registration would move Injective beyond blockchain infrastructure for tokenized assets and into the regulated systems that determine who legally owns a security. Injective said the approach could reduce delays and reconciliation between intermediaries.

“Tokenized securities and RWAs need compliant ownership records on infrastructure that settles in less than a second,” Injective wrote in an X post, adding that it aims to offer the capability at scale in the United States.

Injective did not identify the legal entity behind the application or provide a public SEC filing, and Cointelegraph could not independently verify the submission at the time of publication.

Related: Hackers tried to backdoor Injective NPM package to steal wallet keys

Capital markets infrastructure moves onchain

Traditional financial institutions have increasingly turned to blockchain to modernize the infrastructure underpinning capital markets. Beyond tokenizing assets, exchanges and market operators are applying the technology to market data distribution, securities issuance, settlement and other post-trade functions.

Nasdaq has been among the most active. Last month, the exchange partnered with onchain financial data network Pyth to distribute its proprietary TotalView market data to blockchain applications. Earlier this year, Nasdaq also partnered with Kraken and tokenization firm Backed to develop infrastructure linking traditional equities to blockchain networks.

Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, has also expanded its tokenization strategy through a partnership with Securitize to develop infrastructure for onchain stocks and exchange-traded funds designed to support 24/7 trading and instant settlement.

Meanwhile, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, the primary post-trade infrastructure provider for US securities markets, is preparing to launch its tokenized Collateral AppChain platform to automate collateral management and settlement across financial markets.

Magazine: Is Robinhood Chain’s success bullish or bearish for ETH the asset?

Ault Capital has developed a Cosmos-based Layer-1 network for tokenized assets and digital settlement after banking disruptions affected businesses under its leadership.

According to Ault Blockchain, the project seeks to reduce the role of traditional financial institutions in settlement while supporting decentralized trading and other onchain financial applications. The company has positioned the network as infrastructure for compliant businesses that may lose access to banking services despite operating within regulatory limits.

Built by Ault Capital Group, a subsidiary of Hyperscale Data, the blockchain will support tokenized real-world assets and institutional settlement. Its design combines the Cosmos Layer-1 architecture with Ethereum Virtual Machine compatibility, allowing developers to run smart contracts created for Ethereum.

The project comes as U.S. lawmakers debate banking access for crypto companies and other lawful businesses. Industry participants have used the term “debanking” to describe cases in which financial institutions restrict or terminate services for companies involved in digital assets.

Banking disruptions shaped the network

Ault Blockchain founder Todd Ault has linked the network’s design to banking problems faced by companies under his leadership. During the COVID-19 period, according to Ault, one business lost access to money held in its account and received a limited period to transfer the funds elsewhere.

Based on those experiences, Ault Blockchain has focused on creating settlement infrastructure that does not stop operating when a banking relationship ends. The company has described continued access as a central part of the project, rather than presenting the network only as a way to lower fees or process transactions faster.

As reported by crypto.news, Ault Capital launched the network’s public testnet in February, opening the Cosmos-based system for institutional onchain trading and settlement. The testnet also gave developers access to its EVM environment, which executes Ethereum-based smart contracts within the Cosmos architecture.

Ault Capital’s background differs from many teams developing new Layer-1 blockchains. The publicly listed corporate group operates across Bitcoin mining, artificial intelligence hardware and data centers, giving the project links to businesses that already use computing and digital-asset infrastructure.

Governance and token rules limit open access

Compliance requirements have also influenced how Ault Blockchain will operate. According to the company, governance will use a Wyoming DAO LLC structure, while participants must complete identity checks before taking part.

Voting rights will face additional limits intended to prevent control from becoming concentrated among a small number of participants, the company stated. Through its DAO-led framework, eligible members will oversee protocol rules, economic settings and long-term network upgrades using onchain governance.

Unlike many blockchain projects, Ault Blockchain does not plan to sell its native token through a public offering. The company expects to distribute tokens over an extended period under a schedule linked to mining-node participation and measurable network activity.

This model ties token allocation to contributions made inside the ecosystem instead of an upfront public sale. According to Ault Blockchain, the structure supports its plan to serve identified participants and regulated businesses seeking onchain settlement without depending entirely on traditional banking relationships.