Reddit’s popular r/Bumble community – where half a million people share dating stories and discuss app features – has largely questioned the platform’s rule changes.

In particular, users have asked how Bumble was now different from any other dating app.

“If you women want men to message first, use a different app,” one person wrote, while another said they “really valued” women making the first move.

“Women get swamped with messages, so any woman who messaged me showed real interest,” they said.

Others argued the feature had already been diluted when Bumble introduced “Opening Moves” – a feature allowing women to set a pre-written prompt for men to respond to.

But some women said they supported the change – or admitted they had grown frustrated with initiating conversations only to receive no reply.

“Honestly, men barely responded when I messaged first on Bumble,” said one person, while another claimed the “majority” of men they messaged “let our matches expire.”

Professional matchmaker Sarah Louise Ryan welcomed the move, saying Bumble’s signature feature had “run its course”.

“At first, the idea was empowering, but over time the novelty wore off,” she told BBC News.

“Women were effectively being asked to hold the narrative and energy of the connection, while men were left feeling passive or anxious.

“Bumble had real success with that positioning initially, but they relied on it for too long and failed to adapt as the dating landscape shifted.”

CHICAGO — A single Powerball ticket sold in Illinois matched all six numbers in Wednesday night’s drawing to win a $1.04 billion jackpot, ending a months-long run without a winner and claiming the eighth-largest prize in the game’s history.

The winning ticket was purchased at a Hy-Vee Fast & Fresh store located at 310 N. 36th St. in Quincy, Illinois, according to the Illinois Lottery. The winning numbers for the August 12 drawing were 4, 26, 66, 67 and 69, with a Powerball number of 9 and a Power Play multiplier of 2. The identity of the winner had not been publicly announced as of Thursday morning.

The jackpot marks the largest Powerball prize won so far in 2026 and the second-largest lottery prize ever won in the state of Illinois. Wednesday’s drawing was the 44th consecutive drawing since the jackpot was last won, on May 2, a run that had steadily pushed the prize higher week after week as ticket sales climbed.

The winner faces a significant decision on how to collect the prize. The jackpot can be claimed as an annuitized payment of $1.04 billion, distributed across 30 graduated payments over 29 years, with each annual payment increasing by 5%, or as a lump-sum cash option of $450.5 million. Both figures are before taxes. According to an analysis by Casino.org, the lump-sum option would shrink to roughly $261.5 million after accounting for the 37% federal tax rate and Illinois’ 4.5% state tax on lottery winnings.

Beyond the jackpot itself, Wednesday’s drawing produced a wave of smaller prizes across the country. More than 3 million tickets won cash prizes of some amount. Four tickets, sold in Arizona, California, Florida and North Carolina, matched all five white balls to win the Match 5 prize, worth a set $1 million in most states, though California’s prize payouts are determined on a pari-mutuel basis based on total sales and the number of winners in that state. A fifth ticket matching all five white balls, sold in Massachusetts, included the Power Play option, boosting its prize to $2 million. Powerball also reported 70 tickets winning $50,000 each, with 16 of those tickets carrying the Power Play multiplier, doubling their prize to $100,000.

The retailer that sold the winning ticket also benefits directly from the jackpot win. Under Illinois Lottery rules, the store will receive a $500,000 cash bonus for selling the jackpot-winning ticket, an incentive designed to encourage retailers across the state to continue participating in the lottery program.

Wednesday’s drawing carried additional significance as the first jackpot run to include players from the United Kingdom, following the launch of Powerball ticket sales there on July 21. Powerball officials have said the expanded international player base is expected to help fuel even larger jackpots going forward by increasing the overall pool of ticket sales feeding into future prize pools.

“For more than three decades, Powerball has shown that a winning ticket can be sold anywhere the game is played, giving every $2 ticket the chance to change not only a winner’s life, but generations to come,” Powerball said in a statement following the drawing, adding that continued growth in participation across markets is helping fuel larger jackpots and greater excitement around the game.

Wednesday’s win adds to a growing list of billion-dollar-plus lottery jackpots won in recent years. The largest Powerball jackpot ever recorded remains the $2.04 billion prize won by a single ticket in California on November 7, 2022. The second- and third-largest Powerball jackpots in history were both won last year, with a $1.817 billion prize claimed in Cabot, Arkansas, on December 24, 2025, and a $1.787 billion jackpot split between two tickets sold in Missouri and Texas on September 6, 2025.

Since the current jackpot run began on May 4, Illinois Lottery players alone purchased more than $53.8 million worth of Powerball tickets, generating over $21.5 million in proceeds for the state’s Common School Fund, which supports kindergarten-through-12th-grade public education across Illinois.

The jackpot winner now has one year from the date of the drawing to come forward and claim the prize. Illinois Lottery officials have urged the ticket holder to sign the back of the winning ticket immediately and store it in a secure location until they are ready to formally claim their winnings.

With Wednesday’s jackpot now claimed, the Powerball prize resets to an estimated $20 million for the next drawing, scheduled for Saturday night, restarting the cycle that will once again begin building toward the game’s next potential nine- or ten-figure jackpot. Powerball drawings are held three times a week, on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday evenings, with tickets available through authorized retailers across participating states, as well as online through individual state lottery websites and mobile apps where permitted.

Companies often begin using digital assets through a collection of separate tools: one provider for customer payments, another for conversion, an exchange account for liquidity, a wallet for custody, and spreadsheets for approval and reconciliation.

Finance leaders who want to see the platform approach should evaluate whether these activities can be governed through one operating layer without creating a single point of failure.

The goal is not to force every transaction through one vendor. It is to give treasury a consistent view of balances, obligations, approvals, counterparties, fees, and settlement status while preserving the ability to route through appropriate providers.

The Difference Between a Product and an Operating Layer

A payment product completes a task. An operating layer coordinates tasks across a lifecycle.

For digital assets, that lifecycle can include:

1. Creating an invoice or payout obligation.
2. Selecting an asset and blockchain network.
3. Generating or validating an address.
4. Screening parties and transactions.
5. Detecting and confirming transfers.
6. Converting assets.
7. Managing custody and balances.
8. Releasing payouts.
9. Reconciling fees and rates.
10. Producing accounting and audit records.

If these steps are isolated, operations teams reconstruct the story manually. An integrated platform should preserve the connection between the business event and each financial movement.

Start With a Treasury Policy

Technology should enforce a policy that already defines:

• approved assets;
• approved blockchain networks;
• permitted counterparties;
• custody arrangements;
• balance and concentration limits;
• conversion rules;
• payout destinations;
• authorization thresholds;
• valuation sources;
• exception owners.

Without policy, an attractive dashboard merely makes inconsistent decisions faster.

Build a Canonical Transaction Record

A single internal record can connect commercial, blockchain, and accounting data.

The record should survive changes in provider. Otherwise, the company’s audit trail is trapped inside vendor portals.

Collections and Payment Detection

For customer payments, the platform needs a reliable way to associate a blockchain transfer with an order.

Possible approaches include unique addresses, unique amounts, payment references supported by a network, and customer-authenticated instructions. The system must handle delayed confirmations, underpayments, overpayments, duplicate transfers, expired quotes, and unsupported assets.

A customer-facing status should distinguish:

• instruction created;
• transfer detected;
• network confirmation pending;
• compliance review;
• payment accepted;
• conversion or settlement complete;
• action required.

Calling every intermediate state “pending” produces avoidable support.

Asset and Network Governance

The same token can exist on multiple chains. Network choice affects fees, settlement assumptions, wallet support, security, liquidity, and operational recovery.

A deliberate rollout may begin with a small number of token-network pairs. Expansion can follow verified customer demand.

For each pair, document:

1. Contract or canonical asset identifier.
2. Required confirmations.
3. Minimum and maximum values.
4. Approved wallets and custody.
5. Screening support.
6. Conversion liquidity.
7. Network-fee funding.
8. Incident and pause procedure.

Interfaces should repeat the network prominently. An unsupported-network transfer can be technically visible yet operationally inaccessible.

Custody Architecture

Custody may involve self-hosted wallets, specialist custodians, exchanges, smart contracts, or a combination.

Treasury should separate transactional balances from reserves and define maximum exposure by provider. Not every asset needs to remain where it was received.

Key and Access Controls

No employee should be able to create a destination, approve it, and release a large transfer alone.

Controls can include:

• hardware-backed keys;
• multi-party authorization;
• role-based limits;
• destination allowlists;
• cooling-off periods;
• dual approval;
• transaction simulation;
• anomaly alerts;
• immutable logs;
• emergency pause.

Recovery procedures deserve the same attention as routine access. A secure wallet that becomes permanently inaccessible is still a failure.

Conversion and Liquidity

Treasury needs rules for retaining, converting, or reusing received assets.

Immediate conversion can reduce token exposure but adds spread and provider dependence. Holding assets can support later payouts but creates issuer, custody, and liquidity risk. Netting collections against outgoing obligations may reduce conversions if legally and operationally appropriate.

The platform should show:

• gross asset received;
• reference rate;
• quote and validity;
• explicit fee;
• embedded spread where measurable;
• asset sold;
• settlement currency;
• final amount;
• provider and venue.

This makes total cost comparable across routes.

Stablecoin Risk

Stablecoins target a reference value; they do not guarantee it. Treasury should review issuer, reserves, redemption, legal rights, market liquidity, network representations, and concentration.

A stablecoin limit can reflect:

1. Issuer exposure.
2. Asset and reserve quality.
3. Redemption access.
4. Trading liquidity.
5. Custodian exposure.
6. Jurisdiction.
7. Operational usefulness.

Contingency plans should define what happens after a depeg, issuer restriction, network incident, or loss of conversion liquidity.

Payout Orchestration

An integrated platform may route supplier, contractor, marketplace, or affiliate payouts. The underlying business obligation should remain distinct from the delivery attempt.

Recipient onboarding should validate identity, country, currency, and destination. Wallet changes require strong verification because blockchain transfers are generally irreversible.

Routing should consider:

• recipient eligibility and preference;
• net amount delivered;
• settlement time;
• reversibility;
• fee;
• liquidity;
• compliance;
• provider availability.

Stablecoins can be one option rather than the default for every recipient.

Compliance Workflow

Compliance should be embedded at relevant points:

• account onboarding;
• address creation;
• transaction detection;
• destination change;
• payout release;
• unusual behavior;
• periodic review.

An alert is not a decision. The platform should preserve the rule triggered, information reviewed, analyst, outcome, and supporting evidence.

Automation can clear routine cases according to policy while routing higher-risk activity to humans. The company should monitor false positives and case age.

Reconciliation

Digital-asset reconciliation must connect:

1. Internal obligation or receivable.
2. Blockchain movement.
3. Processor or custodian record.
4. Conversion event.
5. Bank or wallet settlement.
6. Fees.
7. Ledger entries.

A transaction hash proves an on-chain event, not its business purpose, ownership, valuation, or accounting treatment.

Tolerance rules can address small underpayments, rounding, network fees, and rate expiry. Exceptions need an owner rather than accumulating in suspense.

Valuation and Accounting

Finance should define:

• approved price sources;
• timestamp convention;
• hierarchy when sources differ;
• functional-currency conversion;
• fee classification;
• realized and unrealized treatment;
• evidence retained;
• cutoff for the reporting period.

The platform should export records at transaction level. A dashboard total is not sufficient for audit.

Vendor and Counterparty Risk

An operating platform may depend on custodians, exchanges, banks, node providers, screening vendors, and cloud services.

Due diligence can cover:

• legal entity and jurisdiction;
• regulatory status;
• financial condition;
• security and incidents;
• subcontractors;
• custody and segregation;
• service levels;
• data portability;
• business continuity;

The architecture should show dependencies so that apparent diversification is not built on one hidden provider.

Cash and Digital-Asset Forecasting

Treasury forecasting becomes harder when incoming payments can arrive continuously but banking, conversion, and supplier obligations follow different calendars.

A useful forecast separates confirmed receivables, unconfirmed transfers, available wallets, assets pending review, balances locked with providers, planned conversions, approved payouts, network-fee reserves, and bank settlement in transit.

The system should not treat every visible token balance as immediately usable. Some assets may be restricted, awaiting confirmations, or committed to an outgoing obligation.

Forecast accuracy can be measured by asset and horizon. Large variances may indicate delayed integrations or weak data rather than a forecasting problem.

Fees and Unit Economics

The economic case should include subscription, processing, network, custody, conversion, banking, compliance labor, reconciliation work, prefunding capital, and error recovery.

Compare cost per successful, reconciled transaction—not cost per attempted transfer. A cheaper route that produces more exceptions may be more expensive overall.

Unit economics should be segmented by network, corridor, and transaction size. Fixed network costs affect low-value payments differently from percentage spreads.

Customer and Recipient Experience

Integration should reduce internal complexity without transferring it to users. A payment page or payout notice needs to explain the asset, network, amount, timing, fees, and support path.

Users do not need to understand every custody dependency. They do need enough information to avoid sending the wrong token or expecting a bank-like reversal.

Support teams need a single event timeline. If an agent sees only “pending,” the platform has not provided enough operational context.

Change Management

Adding a network, stablecoin, custodian, or payout provider changes risk. Review legal availability, liquidity, monitoring, accounting, technical integration, incident response, and communication.

Material changes should be versioned and approved. Removing an asset also needs a plan for balances, outstanding invoices, and users who have not withdrawn. Audit teams may need to know which rule applied months earlier.

Data Governance and Privacy

Records can include public addresses, identity, bank information, and sensitive commercial relationships. Access and retention should follow a documented purpose.

The company should classify data, minimize what each provider receives, encrypt sensitive fields, monitor exports, and define retention. Public blockchain data does not make the associated customer identity public by default; linking the two can create privacy obligations.

API Resilience

Integrations need idempotent transaction references, secure authentication, retries that do not duplicate payments, webhook monitoring, and reconciliation when events arrive out of order.

Test:

1. Timeout after successful submission.
2. Duplicate request.
3. Delayed confirmation.
4. Provider outage.
5. Partial batch failure.
6. Network reorganization.
7. Stale price.
8. Expired credentials.

Operational controls should fail safely. When status is uncertain, the system should investigate before sending again.

Business Continuity

A continuity plan can identify:

• backup providers;
• alternative networks;
• secondary custody;
• manual emergency procedure;
• maximum unconfirmed exposure;
• communication owner;
• decision authority;
• reconciliation after recovery.

Backups should be tested with limited real transactions. A contract alone does not prove operational readiness.

Metrics

Segmentation by asset, network, corridor, and provider identifies concentrated problems.

A Phased Implementation

Phase 1: Map and govern

Document current flows, risks, assets, providers, and approvals. Establish policy and baseline metrics.

Phase 2: Integrate one lifecycle

Choose a narrow use case, such as receiving one stablecoin and converting to one settlement currency.

Phase 3: Test exceptions

Simulate delays, underpayments, changed destinations, provider outage, and reconciliation differences.

Phase 4: Add routing

Introduce additional networks or providers only when monitoring and records are stable.

Phase 5: Expand and audit

Review access, counterparties, policy exceptions, and measured outcomes periodically.

The Real Benefit of Integration

Integration is valuable when it increases control and evidence, not when it hides complexity. Treasury should be able to see where assets are, why they moved, who approved the movement, what it cost, and what obligation it satisfied.

A durable platform keeps commercial context attached to blockchain activity, lets policy govern routing, and preserves options when a provider fails. That is the difference between owning several digital-asset tools and operating coherent financial infrastructure.

Conference Call Participants

Ralph Profiti – Stifel Nicolaus Canada Inc., Research Division
Andrew Mikitchook – BMO Capital Markets Equity Research
Anita Soni – CIBC Capital Markets, Research Division
Raymond McCormick
Rabi Nizami – National Bank Financial, Inc., Research Division

Presentation

Dubbed “Harvey Nicks” by Edina and Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous, the two often found an excuse to nip into the department store for a spot of shopping and a long liquid lunch in the heyday of the 1990s.

But Catherine Shuttleworth, retail expert and boss of Savvy Marketing, said: “If you go into a Harvey Nicks store – and I did last week – they look terrible, they look really tired and basically they’ve suffered from a lack of investment.”

She told BBC Wake Up to Money that department stores “are cash-hungry monsters, they need investing, they need to look good and if you’re at the top of the luxury market that’s got to be constant”.

Harvey Nichols chief executive Julia Goddard said the deal marked “an important milestone” for the company and “provides a strong platform for the next phase of the business’s evolution”.

“Over the past year, we have made significant progress in repositioning this iconic business, investing in our flagship store, broadening our customer proposition, and strengthening the brand DNA,” she added.

As well as Sports Direct, Frasers has bought up a huge number of retailers and their brands over the years. These include upmarket fashion chain Flannels, Savile Row tailor Gieves & Hawkes and luxury lingerie firm Agent Provocateur.

It also owns Jack Wills and House of Fraser.

Shuttleworth said Frasers’ boss Murray has “got his finger right on the pulse of how those [young] shoppers shop”.

“If you look at what the group have done with Flannels, [Harvey Nichols] is going to be more Flannel-esque than it is going to be Sports Direct-esque,” she said.

Fraser Group’s purchase of Harvey Nichols is part of its strategy to increase its presence in the luxury section.

It recently launched a takeover approach for German brand Hugo Boss, which it has a stake in already.

Tesla Inc. shares advanced nearly 3% on Thursday, reclaiming ground after a volatile stretch, as investors weighed the electric-vehicle maker’s record vehicle deliveries against thinner margins and heavy spending on autonomy and artificial intelligence.

The stock rose $8.93, or 2.73%, to $336.44 in afternoon trading on the Nasdaq, according to market data as of 1:20 p.m. EDT on Aug. 13. The move extended a recent rebound that has partially erased losses from a sharp sell-off following second-quarter results. Tesla remains well below its 52-week high near $499 and is down substantially for the year, reflecting ongoing debate over the pace of its transition from pure automaker to a company centered on robotaxis, humanoid robots and energy storage.

In the second quarter ended June 30, Tesla delivered a record 480,126 vehicles, a 25% increase from a year earlier and well ahead of its own earlier guidance. Model 3 and Model Y accounted for the vast majority of those deliveries. Total revenue climbed 26% to $28.24 billion, the first time the company generated more than $100 billion on a trailing twelve-month basis. Energy storage deployments reached 13.5 gigawatt-hours, up 41%, while services and other revenue jumped 50% to a record $4.58 billion.

Profitability told a different story. Adjusted earnings came in at 33 cents per share, missing Wall Street estimates that had clustered around 50 cents. Operating income fell sharply and free cash flow turned negative by more than $1 billion as capital spending surged. Regulatory credit revenue, once a reliable profit contributor, dropped significantly. The company has guided for more than $25 billion in capital expenditures this year, roughly triple historical levels, directed at expanding battery capacity, AI compute, Cybercab production and Optimus manufacturing lines.

Tesla said Cybercab, its purpose-built autonomous vehicle without steering wheel or pedals, began production at Gigafactory Texas. Engineering test drives on public roads started, and employee rides were underway on the Texas campus. The unsupervised Robotaxi service expanded to seven major U.S. metros, including new Florida cities, with the company reporting hundreds of thousands of unsupervised miles and no notable safety incidents in the period. Full Self-Driving subscription adoption continued to rise, with more than half of North American deliveries including the feature at the time of purchase.

Construction of Optimus production lines advanced at the Fremont factory after the company decommissioned Model S and Model X assembly there. Tesla Semi volume production remains on track for later this year at a new Nevada facility. Megafactory Texas, focused on energy storage, neared completion. In early August, Tesla and SpaceX jointly announced plans for Terafab, a large semiconductor facility in Grimes County, Texas, with an initial investment of $16.8 billion aimed at producing AI chips for vehicles, robots and data centers.

China remained a mixed picture. Tesla’s retail sales there have faced pressure even as the broader battery-electric vehicle market expanded, with recent monthly figures showing a notable year-over-year decline for the company while overall EV demand rose. International markets outside China, including parts of Asia, Europe and Latin America, posted record deliveries in several countries during the quarter.

Chief Executive Elon Musk, speaking on the second-quarter earnings call, emphasized the company’s dual focus on near-term execution and longer-term autonomy and robotics. “We’re super excited about our autonomy and robotics roadmap,” Musk said. “There is so much awesome stuff coming that it is difficult to squeeze everything into an earnings call. We will have a lot of product announcements. This is going to be a great year for Tesla … one of our best years ever and I think next year will be even better.”

Musk also noted shifting customer behavior around Full Self-Driving. “In fact, a lot of people are buying Tesla full self-driving with the car attached, as opposed to a car with FSD,” he said. On Optimus, he described the humanoid robot as potentially the biggest product the company has ever pursued while acknowledging the difficulty: “It is a very complex problem to solve … No one’s ever achieved this.”

Analysts remain divided. Consensus ratings lean toward Hold, with an average price target in the low $400s, implying meaningful upside from current levels if the company can demonstrate sustained progress on Robotaxi utilization, Optimus production and margin recovery. Valuation remains elevated relative to traditional automakers, reflecting the premium investors assign to Tesla’s AI and autonomy ambitions. High capital intensity and the need to convert software and robotics investments into recurring high-margin revenue continue to dominate the debate.

The broader electric-vehicle landscape has grown more competitive. Global EV sales continued rising in 2026, yet U.S. demand has faced headwinds after the expiration of certain incentives. Chinese manufacturers have gained share in key markets. Tesla’s ability to differentiate through software updates, energy products and autonomous services will likely determine whether the current recovery in the share price can extend.

Tesla next reports third-quarter results in late October. Until then, investors will watch weekly Robotaxi metrics, battery production progress, any further regulatory developments on unsupervised driving, and signals on Optimus timelines. The stock’s recent bounce shows willingness to look past near-term margin compression toward those longer-term catalysts, but the path remains sensitive to execution and broader market sentiment toward high-growth technology names.

Market participants also noted recent comments from Musk on broader mobility visions, including a brief social-media remark that flying cars would eventually arrive. Such statements keep attention on Tesla’s expansive technological agenda even as day-to-day trading focuses on deliveries, cash flow and the pace of autonomy commercialization.

For now, the Aug. 13 advance leaves Tesla shares trading with a market capitalization around $1.3 trillion to $1.4 trillion, still reflecting substantial optimism about the company’s ability to scale beyond traditional vehicle sales. Whether that optimism proves durable will hinge on the coming quarters of operational progress in robotaxis, energy storage and humanoid robotics.