Kris bursts into Bunk 5 gasping. You made it, Billy soothes, adding that it’s just play. “It doesn’t feel like play, Billy,” Kris says. “I know,” Billy answers. “But it is.” Everything the film taught them converges on the bed. Billy lies over her, tells her she’s almost there, almost dead, and asks her to do what Billy did on that mattress decades ago: watch herself through his eyes. Kris does. Billy once left her body to survive a scene; Kris leaves hers to arrive in one.
We enter Little Death’s perspective, taking in the blue door, the candles on the railing, the slow approach down the hallway, while Kris narrates her own stalking in a mounting gasp: He’s walking inside, he’s coming closer, she can see herself now. Terror is no longer distinguishable from arousal. “Billy, I don’t want to die,” she pleads, and then, in the same breath, “Billy, please don’t leave me.” Billy stays. The spear comes down through them both, and Einbinder plays the instant of it with astonishing precision: Kris’s face moving from something like surprise into unmistakable release, her eyes fluttering as the blood arrives.

Trump Media and Technology Group’s (DJT) bitcoin holdings shrank during the second quarter of the year as falling crypto prices saddled the Truth Social parent with $360.6 million in losses in the first half of the year.

The company held 9,477.16 bitcoin BTC$64,001.76 with a fair value of $557.1 million as of June 30, according to its quarterly filing Monday. That’s down from 9,542.16 BTC at the end of March, translating to a 65 BTC decline in holdings through the quarter.

Trump Media’s Crypto.com-linked cronos CRO$0.04726 holdings remained unchanged at roughly 756.1 million tokens, but their fair value fell to $40.6 million from $68 million at the end of 2025.

A significant chunk of the company’s bitcoin was also tied up as collateral. Trump Media, which is majority owned by the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, had 4,260.73 BTC pledged against convertible notes and another 2,077.34 BTC pledged for its bitcoin options strategy as of June 30.

U.S. President Donald Trump owns a significant stake in the trust, which is controlled by Donald Trump, Jr., one of the president’s children.

The results landed only days after Trump Media pared back parts of its crypto ambitions.

Ethereum’s updated roadmap adds native rollups, stronger privacy, and post-quantum scaling as advances in cryptography and AI reshape the network’s long-term technical priorities, according to co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin compared the network’s 2023 roadmap with its current Strawmap in an Aug. 10 X post, identifying several technologies that have gained, lost, or changed priority over the past three years.

Buterin said the two plans retain substantial overlap, but the order and implementation of several goals have changed. Quantum security has moved closer to the front of the roadmap, while verifiable delay functions and some proposed Ethereum Virtual Machine improvements have received less attention.

Older technical designs have also been replaced as Ethereum researchers identified alternatives. Plans involving Verkle trees shifted toward a unified binary tree and later a PBT design, while state expiry evolved into a broader proposal for new state types.

The biggest difference, according to Buterin, comes from the areas that did not appear in the 2023 roadmap. These include native privacy, post-quantum scaling, simpler specifications for formal verification, markets for future blob and gas capacity, native rollups, and a wider range of possible replacements or modifications for the EVM.

Ethereum privacy and quantum security move forward

Native privacy is one of the clearest additions to Ethereum’s long-term direction. Buterin listed keyed nonces, recent roots, parts of FOCIL, lean privacy pools, and wormholes among the mechanisms now being explored.

Keyed nonces could make it harder for observers to connect a user’s transactions, while recent-root mechanisms may allow private applications to verify recent blockchain states without revealing a complete history. FOCIL, meanwhile, is intended to make transaction inclusion more resistant to censorship by block builders.

The changes build on Buterin’s three-step Ethereum privacy plan released in May. That proposal combined account abstraction with FOCIL, keyed nonces, and changes at the wallet and access layers to reduce metadata leaks.

Post-quantum scaling has also become a separate priority. Ethereum currently depends on cryptographic systems that could eventually become vulnerable if sufficiently powerful quantum computers emerge. Replacing them without sharply increasing signature sizes, verification costs, or network bandwidth presents an additional scaling problem.

The current roadmap considers LeanSPHINCS signatures, signature aggregation, and “zkzk frames” as potential parts of the solution. Crypto.news previously reported that an Ethereum researcher demonstrated account-level post-quantum protection at an estimated cost of $0.07 per account, showing that wallet-level preparation may begin before a full protocol upgrade.

Ethereum’s Strawmap is not a finalized schedule. It is a coordination document covering proposed upgrades through 2029, with individual changes still requiring research, testing, and agreement among developers before they can reach the network.

Native rollups enter Ethereum’s design space

Native rollups were not included in the 2023 roadmap because zero-knowledge proof systems were not mature enough for developers to seriously consider integrating them into Ethereum’s base protocol, Buterin said.

Rollups currently operate as separate layer-2 systems. They process transactions outside Ethereum’s main execution layer and submit proofs or transaction data to the base network. Each rollup generally maintains its own contracts, proof system, upgrade controls, and security assumptions.

A native rollup would move part of that verification process into Ethereum itself. The base protocol could provide a standardized mechanism for checking state transitions, potentially reducing the amount of custom infrastructure each rollup must maintain.

Such a change could simplify the relationship between Ethereum and its layer-2 networks, though the exact design remains unsettled. Developers would still need to decide what functions should become native, how different virtual machines would be supported, and whether protocol-level verification could avoid creating new complexity.

The proposal arrives as Ethereum’s broader scaling approach changes. Buterin said the network is moving away from trying to scale every type of activity through one general mechanism. Instead, developers may build highly scalable but more restricted systems for common use cases such as token transfers, decentralized exchange trades, and privacy protocols.

This approach could allow Ethereum to process specific high-volume activities more efficiently without requiring every node or application to support the same expanded execution environment.

Blob and gas futures are another addition that did not exist as a developed roadmap concept in 2023. Such markets could allow users or layer-2 networks to lock in future access to Ethereum’s data or execution capacity, reducing uncertainty over costs during periods of heavy demand.

AI could make Ethereum easier to verify

Ethereum’s updated roadmap also places more weight on simplifying the protocol specification so developers can formally verify its behavior.

Formal verification uses mathematical proofs to determine whether software follows its intended rules. Applying it to an entire blockchain protocol has historically required substantial time and specialist work, particularly when the protocol includes multiple clients, cryptographic systems, and interacting layers.

Buterin argued that advances in artificial intelligence are making large-scale verification more practical. He previously said AI-assisted formal verification could become the “final form” of software development, allowing developers to combine optimized code with machine-checkable evidence that it works correctly.

That work is closely tied to Ethereum’s use of STARK proofs. Recursive STARKs allow one proof to verify another, producing compact evidence for increasingly large batches of computation.

Buterin said the same underlying verification method could eventually operate across Ethereum’s execution, consensus, and data layers. However, using a common proof system throughout the protocol would make the security of its implementation especially important, increasing the need for formal verification and independent testing.

Ethereum’s virtual machine may also change as these systems develop. Buterin said zkzk frames could require the protocol to expose an instruction set other than the EVM, with leanISA and RISC-V among the possible candidates.

Under one potential model, the EVM could continue serving developers and existing applications while operating as an intermediate representation above a simpler underlying instruction set. Buterin cautioned that this part of the design remains too early even for inclusion in the current Strawmap.

Roadmap remains a long-term coordination plan

Buterin’s comparison provides additional detail on Ethereum’s proposed Lean rebuild, which seeks to make the protocol quantum-safe, private, censorship-resistant, and easier to verify over the coming years.

The direction could eventually affect U.S. wallet providers, exchanges, institutional stakers, and layer-2 operators that rely on Ethereum. However, the post announced no immediate software release, hard fork, or mandatory action for users.

Each major proposal must still move through Ethereum’s research and governance process. Native rollups, alternative instruction sets, and post-quantum signatures remain technical directions rather than confirmed features with fixed activation dates.

Ethereum (ETH) showed no clear positive reaction to the roadmap update. ETH traded near $1,875 at the time of writing, down about 2.6% over the previous 24 hours as the broader crypto market weakened.

The latest comparison nevertheless shows how Ethereum’s development priorities have widened since 2023. Scaling remains central, but privacy, quantum resistance, and verifiable protocol design now carry more weight in determining how the network could operate through the end of the decade.

Cointelegraph is committed to providing independent, high-quality journalism across the crypto, blockchain, AI, and fintech industries.

All news, reviews, and analyses are produced with full journalistic independence and integrity. For more details on our standards and processes, please read our Editorial Policy.

BlackRock has expanded its Canadian spot-Bitcoin ETF lineup with two Toronto Stock Exchange listings, including one fund that pairs broad international equity exposure with a small allocation to Bitcoin. The new products begin trading Monday on the TSX.

The ETFs are the iShares Equity + Bitcoin ETF Portfolio (IBQT) and the iShares Core MSCI All-International Equity Index ETF (XINT). While both are managed through BlackRock Asset Management Canada under the RBC iShares alliance, only IBQT includes a direct Bitcoin component.

Key takeaways

• IBQT is a “core” equity fund with a 3% Bitcoin sleeve, implemented via exposure to BlackRock’s Canadian iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT).
• XINT provides diversified international equities by tracking the MSCI ACWI ex North America IMI Index across more than 5,000 companies.
• Both funds primarily hold other iShares ETFs, using fund-to-fund structures rather than selecting individual stocks directly.
• BlackRock positions Bitcoin access as a small allocation within a broader portfolio approach rather than a standalone Bitcoin product.

A Canadian equity fund with a Bitcoin allocation

IBQT is designed to combine globally diversified equities with limited Bitcoin exposure. According to BlackRock, the fund allocates 97% of its portfolio to Canadian, U.S., international and emerging-market equities, with the remaining 3% dedicated to Bitcoin exposure through BlackRock’s Canadian iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT), which trades on Cboe Canada.

Importantly, IBQT does not attempt to hold individual stock positions on its own. Instead, it primarily invests in other iShares ETFs to gain both its equity exposure and its Bitcoin component. The structure matters for investors who are evaluating how Bitcoin is being integrated: rather than building a portfolio around crypto volatility, IBQT is framed as an incremental allocation inside an equity-oriented portfolio.

XINT targets ex–North America international diversification

The second listing, XINT, focuses on international equities outside Canada and the United States. BlackRock states that the fund tracks the MSCI ACWI ex North America IMI Index, a benchmark that aims to capture large-, mid-, and small-cap companies across developed and emerging markets.

BlackRock also highlights the breadth of the index XINT follows: exposure to more than 5,000 companies spanning over 40 developed and emerging markets outside Canada and the U.S. For Canadian investors who prefer a “set and track” approach to international equity diversification, XINT offers a standalone index-linked option alongside IBQT’s hybrid design.

What BlackRock says about scale in Canada and beyond

Both funds are managed by BlackRock Asset Management Canada through the RBC iShares alliance. BlackRock said its iShares ETF business managed approximately $6.2 trillion in assets across more than 1,700 ETFs as of June 30.

That scale is relevant when new ETF products launch, because it can influence operational maturity—such as liquidity management, fund administration practices, and index/fund replication workflows—especially for multi-asset products that rely on holding other ETFs.

Bitcoin access follows BlackRock’s existing ETF footprint

IBQT’s Bitcoin sleeve routes through BlackRock’s Canadian iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT). BlackRock’s U.S.-listed iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) is also a major reference point in the company’s spot Bitcoin ecosystem.

CoinMarketCap data indicates IBIT is the largest U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF by assets under management, with about $47.9 billion in AUM at the time referenced by the listing data: CoinMarketCap.

By using IBIT as the mechanism for its 3% Bitcoin allocation, IBQT effectively imports the established Bitcoin ETF wrapper into a broader equity product. That approach may appeal to investors seeking Bitcoin exposure without making it the dominant risk driver—though it also means the Bitcoin allocation will typically be smaller in magnitude than what many standalone Bitcoin ETFs provide.

Why this matters for Canadian investors

Bringing a “small allocation” Bitcoin fund to the TSX signals a continued push to normalize crypto exposure inside traditional portfolio frameworks. For investors, the practical question is how the 3% Bitcoin allocation changes the character of an equity-heavy holding—especially in periods when Bitcoin trades independently of global equities.

Traders and portfolio managers may also watch how BlackRock’s fund-to-fund implementation performs in Canada, since IBQT’s design depends on the underlying Canadian iShares Bitcoin ETF for its BTC exposure while the rest of the portfolio is tied to broad equity holdings via iShares ETFs.

As with any newly launched ETFs, attention will likely turn to how assets build after the initial trading start, as well as to whether the funds attract consistent flows from investors seeking either diversified international equities (XINT) or a blended approach that includes Bitcoin (IBQT).

Investors should monitor near-term developments such as IBQT’s uptake on the TSX, trading liquidity as the market digests the new hybrid structure, and how BlackRock’s Canadian iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT)—the source of the BTC sleeve—continues to perform as demand for Bitcoin exposure broadens beyond standalone products.