Care Bears is becoming part of the Authentic Brands Group portfolio.

On Tuesday, the brand and entertainment platform said it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the intellectual property of Care Bears, a global entertainment franchise that has generated more than $12 billion in retail sales since being introduced as a greeting card concept in the early 1980s.

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Terms of the purchase from Ivest Consumer Partners and Cloverlay were not disclosed but the deal is expected to close in the third quarter. The private equity firms acquired Care Bears in 2023 from the Weiss family, sole owners of the brand for more than 40 years. The brand is on track to exceed $750 million in retail sales by year-end 2026.

Authentic Studios and Authentic Live, divisions of Authentic Brands Group, will be key to extending the Care Bears universe through new stories, audiences and fan experiences. Since launching in 2023, Authentic Studios has introduced new ways for audiences to engage with the company’s brands through original content and experiences, such as Beckham, Shaq’s Dunkman League and EPiC Elvis Presley. Authentic Live connects brands with the world’s biggest moments in sports, culture and entertainment through more than 60 annual events.

“Care Bears is the gold standard of family entertainment,” said Corey Salter, chief executive officer of Authentic’s entertainment division. “It arrives with a nearly 45-year history of genuine emotional connection, an active content pipeline, a vast network of more than 500 licensing partners and a devoted fan base that keeps growing. Our opportunity is not simply to steward the brand and its message of positivity; it’s to bring Care Bears into Authentic’s powerful platform and write the next great chapter in one of entertainment’s most enduring franchises.”

The company had no further comment on its plans on Tuesday. This marks the fourth merger or acquisition Authentic has made this year after Kevin Hart, Guess and Lee.

Since its founding, Care Bears has grown into one of the most loved family entertainment franchises. It offers more than 100 bears, each representing a distinct emotion such as Cheer Bear and Grumpy Bear. It reaches consumers in more than 190 countries and offers short-form content, gaming, live experiences and films in 26 languages.

“Care Bears had extraordinary cultural equity that had been fundamentally undercommercialized for decades,” said Mark Matheny, chair of Care Bears and operating partner, Ivest Consumer Partners and Aston Loch, co-founding partner, Ivest. “We transformed it from a children’s entertainment business into a consumer products licensing company. We are proud of what the Care Bears team built, and we look forward to seeing Authentic carry it into its next chapter.”

Ironically, on the same day as Authentic announced its acquisition, Skechers unveiled a footwear collaboration with the brand featuring women’s and kids. The shoes in the Skechers x Care Bears collection feature many of the brand’s most popular bears including Funshine Bear and Good Luck Bear.

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Theo, an onchain capital markets platform, has invested $20 million in Fidelity International’s USD Digital Liquidity Fund (FILQ). Theo said the investment makes it the first crypto-native platform to allocate capital to the asset manager’s tokenized fund.

Executed through Sygnum, a Swiss digital asset bank that provides regulated banking, custody and tokenization services for institutional clients, the allocation adds FILQ to Theo’s institutional tokenized Treasury product, thBILL.

FILQ is a Moody’s Aaa-mf-rated tokenized US dollar liquidity fund built on Sygnum’s Desygnate platform that invests in diversified short-term money market instruments designed to preserve capital and liquidity. Chainlink provides onchain net asset value and distribution data for the fund through its Runtime Environment, while JPMorgan receives and approves the daily NAV data, according to the release.

Fidelity International managed $1.06 trillion in total assets as of March 31, according to the company, while Theo said its products have processed more than $1 billion in cumulative trading volume across more than 80,000 users in over 60 countries.

RWA.xyz data shows FILQ currently manages about $55.1 million in onchain assets, suggesting Theo’s $20 million allocation represents a significant share of the fund.

Source: RWA.xzy

Related: Franklin Templeton launches dedicated crypto division after closing 250 Digital acquisition

Traditional asset managers expand tokenized fund offerings

Tokenized US Treasury products have become the largest segment of the tokenized real-world asset market. According to RWA.xyz, the sector has more than doubled over the past year, growing from about $6.9 billion in distributed value in late June 2025 to approximately $14.6 billion as of late June 2026.

RWA.xyz tracks 83 tokenized Treasury products held by more than 64,000 investors, with offerings from Circle, BlackRock, Ondo, Franklin Templeton and Securitize each managing more than $2 billion in distributed value.

Tokenized US Treasuries. Source: RWA.xyz

The market’s growth has been accompanied by new fund launches and distribution partnerships from traditional financial firms. In May, JPMorgan launched JLTXX, a tokenized government money market fund on Ethereum (ETH) that invests in US Treasury bills and overnight repurchase agreements.

The following month, Franklin Templeton partnered with MoonPay to expand institutional access to its BENJI tokenized money market fund, allowing eligible institutions to move between supported stablecoins and tokenized fund exposure through an onchain trading workflow.

Magazine: Bitcoin decouples from tech stocks, Ether eyes ‘selling wave’: Market Moves

Michael Saylor’s Strategy won support from some Wall Street analysts after unveiling a new capital framework, but the changes also sparked debate over the company’s long-term Bitcoin strategy and sustainability.

Benchmark Equity Research on Monday reiterated its Buy rating on Strategy’s Class A stock MSTR and maintained a 12-month price target of $570, according to a report reviewed by Cointelegraph.

Strategy’s common Class A stock, MSTR, rose 12.6% to about $92.70 on Monday, while its STRC preferred shares climbed 12.2% to around $83.70, according to TradingView and Yahoo Finance.

However, both stocks edged lower in premarket activity on Tuesday as some investors and industry observers remained skeptical about the durability of the new capital model.

What changed in Strategy’s capital framework

With its latest capital framework update, Strategy authorized potential Bitcoin (BTC) sales of up to $1.25 billion to raise capital instead of relying solely on issuing stock or debt.

The amount is equal to roughly 21,082 BTC at current prices, according to CoinGecko, or about 2.5% of the company’s total holdings of 847,363 BTC.

Source: TradingView

While Strategy has long described itself as a long-term accumulator of Bitcoin, the move is not the first time it has sold the biggest cryptocurrency. The company sold 32 BTC for $2.5 million in May 2026 and previously sold 704 BTC in 2022 as part of a tax-related transaction strategy, later repurchasing a similar amount of BTC.

Why Benchmark sees framework as positive

Benchmark argued the new framework addresses the main concerns investors had raised following weeks of volatility, giving the company more flexibility to manage its capital structure.

In the report, the research analysts said the changes transform Strategy from a “one-way” Bitcoin accumulation vehicle into an active manager of both sides of its balance sheet.

Source: Benchmark Equity Research

“The upshot is that Strategy is now an active manager of both sides of its capital structure, an approach that we view as a significant positive for its shareholders,” Benchmark’s analysts wrote.

Related: Grayscale’s Pandl says Strategy should sell $3B Bitcoin to restore confidence

Investor Simon Dedic said the move could mark a local bottom, suggesting that recent concerns around the company’s structure may have been overdone. The Moonrock Capital founder and managing partner also suggested some of the recent selling pressure may have come from Strategy preparing liquidity in advance of the update.

Skeptics question long-term implications

Not everyone viewed the new framework as a positive. Trader and investor Scott Melker said Strategy appears to be making the changes investors wanted to see, including building a larger cash reserve and adopting a more flexible capital strategy.

However, he cautioned that “only time will tell” whether the new framework restores investor confidence, adding that Strategy has been the market’s main Bitcoin buyer.

Arca chief investment officer Jeff Dorman said that Strategy may need to sell about $2 billion to $3 billion worth of Bitcoin to eliminate a “constant overhang” on the market.

Source: Jeff Dorman

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse also criticized the company’s approach, arguing that “financial engineering doesn’t drive long-term value.” He told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” that Michael Saylor’s team “wasn’t focused on the right stuff” and that the strategy had “hurt the overall market.”

Magazine: Bitcoin slides to $58K, XRP hits $1 but onchain data promising: Market Moves

Cryptocurrency exchange OKX has rolled out the beta launch of its marketplace for artificial intelligence (AI) agents.

The OKX AI platform enables users to list their own AI agents, enables AI agents to find work, transact autonomously and build an onchain reputation, according to a Tuesday announcement shared with Cointelegraph.

The platform connects two marketplaces: An agent marketplace where builders can earn income by listing their AI agents for services and a task marketplace where agents post work and find other agents for their tasks.

Agentic AI is expected to drive a 24-fold increase in token consumption, that is units of compute, by 2030 as consumers and enterprises adopt the technology, Goldman Sachs Research said last month. OKX is the latest crypto platform to venture into AI infrastructure, following similar initiatives from Coinbase, MetaMask and Nansen. 

The marketplace will remain in beta until “consistent, repeat usage patterns” emerge among users, with trading, onchain activity and research tasks expected to become the primary early categories on the platform, a spokesperson for OKX told Cointelegraph. 

“OKX is economic infrastructure for agentic commerce. Nobody is combining identity, reputation, payments, and a skills marketplace into one platform,” explained the spokesperson.

OKX AI agent marketplace. Source: OKX.ai 

AI agent builds will be paid in Stablecoins, initially Tether’s USDT (USDT) and Paxos’ Global Dollar (USDG). Payments will settle through escrow-based contracts for complex work or instant pay-per-call transactions for standardized services.

Disputes will be resolved by a staked network of evaluators, instead of a central entity. All types of tasks will contribute to the same onchain reputation of AI agents, which is managed through the OKX Agentic Wallet.

The marketplace launches with support from companies including Amazon Web Services (AWS), AltLayer, CertiK, the Ethereum Foundation, the Solana Foundation, Opentensor Foundation and StraitsX.

Onchain reputation seeks to prevent malicious AI agents

The onchain reputation and escrow system is built to create trust in AI agents by tracking their work history. Agents with no track record or a history of failed or disputed work will be less likely to get hired by other agents.

For larger projects, payment sits in escrow until the task is completed and verified, which aims to “limit” the damage a bad actor can cause in a single transaction.

A spokesperson for OKX said that the onchain reputation system will prevent agents from hiring other malicious agents, especially as more transaction history accumulates.

The spokesperson said the platform is working on additional defense layers, including more sophisticated dispute resolution and an anomaly detection system against coordinated bad-actor behavior.

Crypto platforms join AI wave as agentic payments increase

Cryptocurrency platforms are venturing into autonomous AI infrastructure. On June 12, Coinbase launched a tool that allows AI agents to make payments and trade crypto on behalf of users.

Days earlier, MetaMask launched a self-custodial cryptocurrency wallet that enables AI agents to transact across decentralized finance protocols within user-defined spending and security limits, as reported by Cointelegraph on June 8.

In January, crypto analytics platform Nansen launched autonomous cryptocurrency trading tools that enabled users to execute trades through natural language prompts, instead of traditional charts or order books.

Related: Not every AI agent needs its own cryptocurrency: CZ 

Agentic payment activity on Coinbase’s Base network topped 100 million transactions on June 3, signaling that machine-to-machine payments have moved beyond the proof-of-concept.

Cumulative agentic transfer volumes on Base. Source: Chainalysis

The x402 protocol allows software agents to make onchain payments directly through web requests. 

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MetaMask is rolling out a new way for users to earn yield on its wallet-native MetaMask USD (mUSD) stablecoin—while keeping the wallet self-custodial. The Consensys-backed team says its newly launched Money Account can provide up to 4% variable APY on eligible deposits, with funds intended to be spent via a card on the Monad blockchain.

The launch lands at a moment when US regulators and lawmakers have been closely debating whether yield-bearing stablecoins—especially those that pay interest to token holders—should be treated like traditional financial products. MetaMask’s approach attempts to separate the stablecoin’s reserve backing from the mechanics of how returns are generated.

Key takeaways

• MetaMask Money Account targets up to 4% variable APY on eligible mUSD deposits in supported jurisdictions.
• Yield is described as coming from DeFi lending activity, not issuer-paid interest.
• mUSD reserves are said to be backed 1:1 by US dollar assets held by Bridge, a Stripe company.
• Availability is limited: the product excludes the UK, EU member states, and sanctioned jurisdictions.
• Because MetaMask is self-custodial, KYC is not performed by MetaMask itself, but is required for regulated features like fiat on-ramps and the MetaMask Card.

A yield product that MetaMask says is “structurally separate”

Consensys positions Money Account as a two-layer system that distinguishes how mUSD is backed from how users’ yield is produced. In an explanation provided to Cointelegraph, Johann Bornman, MetaMask senior director of product, said the design deliberately separates the stablecoin’s reserve backing from the yield layer.

According to Bornman, the first layer concerns reserve backing. He said Bridge, described as holding US dollar reserves and short-term Treasury bills, backs mUSD on a 1:1 basis. In this model, the issuer is not portrayed as paying yield to holders.

The second layer is the onchain yield engine. When users open a Money Account and deposit mUSD, the stablecoin is routed into a DeFi system managed through a vault provider called Veda. Veda then allocates capital into lending protocols including Aave and Morpho.

Bornman summarized the intent behind the product’s architecture by stating that reserve backing and yield generation are “structurally separate,” adding that the yield “doesn’t come from the issuer” but from DeFi protocol activity.

How users can earn—and where the spend flow fits

MetaMask says Money Account allows users to earn yield and spend without waiting to redeem. In remarks attributed to Consensys CEO Joe Lubin, the company characterized the product as enabling users to earn the moment funds are added and spend the moment they need to.

While MetaMask frames the yield mechanism as DeFi-driven, the company’s spending functionality is tied to a specific environment: yield-bearing funds are intended to be spent via a card exclusively on Monad. The product’s rollout therefore appears to combine an earnings layer built on DeFi lending with an application layer for spending within a particular blockchain ecosystem.

Investors and traders watching stablecoin yield mechanics will likely focus on whether this “separation” of backing versus yield impacts regulatory exposure. That question has been central in the broader US debate over whether certain stablecoin designs resemble interest-bearing investment products.

Regulatory friction in the US, and the CLARITY Act backdrop

MetaMask’s launch comes amid continued discussion in the United States around yield-bearing stablecoins. The article notes that the CLARITY Act contains provisions related to restricting payment of interest or yield on payment stablecoins when tied to holding.

MetaMask’s product design—using reserve backing by Bridge and generating yield via DeFi protocols—can be read as an attempt to fit into a narrower interpretation of how returns are created. Still, the practical regulatory classification will depend on how authorities interpret the overall arrangement, including how users experience “yield” and how control and economics are distributed.

For readers, the key takeaway is that Money Account may offer a clearer explanation of its mechanics, but it does not automatically resolve regulatory risk. What matters next is how regulators treat yield features in practice, especially where stablecoins are used with spending rails like cards.

Self-custody, KYC boundaries, and restricted access

Money Account is rolling out globally starting Tuesday, but excluding the United Kingdom, EU member states, and sanctioned jurisdictions, Bornman said.

MetaMask’s self-custodial model affects how compliance is implemented. The wallet itself, as described, does not require KYC because it does not custody user funds. However, Bornman emphasized that KYC is required for features that interact with regulated services—explicitly including fiat on-ramps and the MetaMask Card.

Bornman further said Money Account does not require KYC and that users can hold mUSD and earn yield with the “click of a button.” In cases where KYC is needed, he attributed the responsibility to third-party providers that operate regulated services, rather than MetaMask.

For users in eligible jurisdictions, this could reduce friction compared with yield products that require full identity verification before deposit. For builders and compliance teams, the model suggests a split between self-custody interfaces and regulated rails—something the market increasingly looks for as stablecoin products scale.

mUSD is still small—so the rollout is about distribution

The broader story here is not only the yield feature, but MetaMask’s push to expand the utility of mUSD. The launch follows MetaMask’s wallet-native stablecoin debut in September 2025. CoinGecko data cited in the article shows mUSD’s market capitalization briefly peaked above $100 million shortly after launch, then fell below $30 million. At the time of writing, mUSD’s market cap was around $32 million, placing it among smaller US dollar-pegged stablecoins by market size.

That context matters: Money Account could help drive additional demand for mUSD by turning a wallet-native token into an yield-bearing balance with a spending pathway. But market participants will likely watch whether the yield feature increases sustained usage—or whether deposits remain limited given the restricted geography and the narrower user flow to Monad-based card spending.

With Money Account now live, the next signals to monitor are user uptake in supported regions, any changes in APY as DeFi strategies and conditions evolve, and how the product’s “issuer vs DeFi yield” structure is received by regulators amid US debates over yield-bearing stablecoins.

The Clarity Act is widely viewed as the crypto industry’s most important market structure bill because it would establish clear rules for when digital assets are regulated as securities by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or commodities by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), replacing years of regulatory uncertainty.

Supporters say that legal clarity would make it easier for banks, asset managers and other institutions to launch tokenized products, custody services and blockchain-based financial offerings, potentially unlocking broader institutional adoption and investment in the sector.

According to Jefferies, passage would provide the durable regulatory framework banks, asset managers and exchanges need to expand tokenization, custody, staking, lending and other blockchain-based services. The bank also expects it to accelerate tokenized securities, broaden crypto exchange-traded fund (ETF) offerings beyond bitcoin BTC$58,348.58 and ether (ETH), and revive the pipeline for crypto infrastructure IPOs.

A delay, however, would extend regulatory uncertainty. While recent SEC, CFTC and OCC guidance has improved the outlook, the report said agency actions can be reversed by future administrations, potentially prompting regulated financial institutions to slow blockchain initiatives while reassessing legal and compliance risks.

The bank’s analysts expect the legislative process to drive volatility in crypto-linked equities including Circle (CRCL), Coinbase (COIN) and CoinDesk’s owner Bullish (BLSH), as well as select crypto tokens.