Solana Foundation has appointed former Binance chief marketing officer Rachel Conlan as chief strategy officer and former Polygon Labs executive Jamal Raees as general manager of payments.

Conlan will lead strategy across institutional partnerships, ecosystem growth and efforts to bring businesses onto Solana, the foundation said Thursday. She spent three years at Binance and previously held senior roles at OKX, CAA Sports and Havas.

Raees said he would deepen the foundation’s engagement with major payments companies and focus on infrastructure used by teams building payment services on Solana.

“My focus will be on driving greater adoption and usage of stablecoins and tokenized deposits, with an emphasis on global markets,” he said in a statement provided by Solana Foundation.

The appointments follow the March launch of the Solana Developer Platform, which includes Modern Treasury as a payments infrastructure partner. Mastercard and Western Union were named as early users of the platform.

Separately, Amazon Web Services included Solana among the networks supported by its x402 feature, which lets website owners charge AI agents in USDC for access to content.

Solana is preparing to deploy Alpenglow, a planned network upgrade intended to reduce transaction finality from about 12.8 seconds to roughly 150 milliseconds. The faster finality remains a target for the upgrade.

The network has processed more than $5 trillion in stablecoin volume so far in 2026. It also reported more than $4.5 billion in real-world assets on the network and more than $620 million in tokenized equity supply.

Related: Era of pure crypto exchanges is ending, Bybit CEO says

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The Solana Foundation has appointed former Binance executive Rachel Conlan as its new chief strategy officer, adding a high-profile crypto industry veteran as the Solana (SOL) blockchain makes a bigger push into institutional finance and tokenized assets.

Conlan will lead strategy across institutional partnerships, ecosystem growth and efforts to bring more companies onto Solana, the foundation said Thursday. She spent previously three years at Binance, most recently as global chief marketing officer, before leaving the crypto exchange in June.

The foundation also hired Jamal Raees as general manager for payments. Raees joins from Polygon Labs, the development organization behind the Polygon network (POL), and previously worked at stablecoin infrastructure firm Bridge (now part of Stripe) and crypto payments firm Wyre. He will focus on getting payments companies and other businesses to use Solana for moving money.

The appointments come as Solana increasingly courts traditional financial firms and positions its network as infrastructure for more than crypto trading. Stablecoin payments, tokenized funds and equities have become a bigger part of that pitch as financial institutions experiment with moving assets and settlement onto public blockchains.

Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest is putting its venture fund on blockchain rails, bringing a portfolio that includes stakes in OpenAI, Anthropic, Stripe and Databricks onto blockchain rails.

The ARK Venture Fund (ARKVX) will issue tokenized interests using infrastructure from Securitize (SECZ), with the tokenization firm handling onchain issuance and the investor experience.

ARKVX will be first available on Ethereum with other networks potentially following, the firms said.

“Making the ARK Venture Fund available onchain is a natural extension of our mission to democratize access to technologically enabled disruptive innovation,” Wood, ARK’s founder, CEO and chief investment officer, said in a statement.

For Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo, one draw is giving investors diversified exposure to sought-after private technology companies.

“If you don’t know whether OpenAI or Anthropic are gonna win the AI race, here you get both of them in a diversified pool,” Domingo told CoinDesk TV.

NEW YORK (AP) — Pressure from the U.S. bond market hit a new level on Wall Street Wednesday after a surprisingly strong report on the economy raised worries about inflation, while oil prices halted their slide. The squeeze caused U.S. stocks to sink.

The S&P 500 fell 0.8% after finishing the prior day just 0.4% below its record set last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 352 points, or 0.7%, while the Nasdaq composite sank 1.1% from its own all-time high.

Stocks wilted after the yield on the 10-year Treasury jumped to 5.10% from 4.96% late Tuesday, which is a considerable move for the bond market. High yields undercut prices for stocks and other investments, while also slowing the economy by making it more expensive for everyone to borrow money.

Wednesday’s jump briefly sent the 10-year yield near 5.14%, back to where it was in 2007 before the global financial crisis caused yields to crater. Yields have been climbing since bottoming out in the COVID pandemic, and they’ve accelerated recently because of worries about high inflation, the U.S. government’s heavy debt and other concerns.

Worries about inflation got a jolt Wednesday morning after a preliminary report suggested growth in U.S. business activity surged to its strongest level in more than five years. That’s an encouraging signal, to be sure, but it indicates the economy may have plenty of fuel for more inflation.

The report also suggested costs for businesses are leaping at the fastest rate in four years, in part because of more expensive oil, according to Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence. That could mean businesses will pass those higher costs onto their customers in coming months.

Oil prices are high because of worries that the war with Iran will keep oil bottled up in the Middle East for a long time.

The price for a barrel of Brent oil to be delivered in November rose 3.9% to $103.08 on Wednesday. That reversed a decline for Brent, which had been falling since it neared $110 last week. Talks are continuing with mediators between U.S. and Iranian officials, but nothing concrete has come from it yet.

Brent oil to be delivered in December, where most of the trading in the market has moved, rose 2.8% to $98.12 per barrel.

Even with its recent decline, the price for a barrel of Brent remains much higher than the roughly $72 it cost before the war with Iran began.

Inflation has remained so stubbornly high that the Federal Reserve raised its short-term interest rate last week for the first time in three years in hopes of slowing down increases in the cost of living.

Fed Gov. Michael Barr said in a speech on Wednesday that further hikes “are likely to be needed” to get inflation to the Fed’s 2% target. Traders now see better than a 50% probability that the Fed will hike its federal funds rate at each of its next two meetings, in October and December, according to data from CME Group.

So far, strong growth in profits for U.S. companies has helped support the U.S. stock market despite higher interest rates and more expensive oil.

KB Home became the latest to deliver a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. But its stock nevertheless swung between losses and gains after the homebuilder’s executive chairman said conditions got even tougher for the industry over the last three months. It finished with a loss of 3%.

Potential customers are becoming more cautious because of higher mortgage rates caused by the rise in the 10-year Treasury yield. They also are feeling pressure from “geopolitical uncertainty and broader economic headwinds,” Jeffrey Mezger said.

General Mills likewise reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. But the company behind the Cheerios and Progresso brands said it also expects growth this fiscal year to fall below its historical track record “driven by a continued challenging consumer backdrop,” and it did not raise its forecast for profit over the full fiscal year.

Its stock flipped between gains and losses before rising 1%.

All told, the S&P 500 fell 58.61 points to 7,706.03. The Dow dropped 352.10 to 51,511.59, and the Nasdaq composite sank 308.24 to 26,936.04.

In stock markets abroad, indexes slipped across much of Europe and Asia.

Stock indexes fell 1% in Hong Kong and 0.4% in Shanghai ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Washington, which is kicking off Wednesday.

The leaders are expected to attempt to steady fragile ties in their third meeting since Trump returned to the White House. That is despite the world’s two largest economies seeking the upper hand on artificial-intelligence developments and trade, while pushing for leverage in persistent hot spots like Iran and Taiwan.

___

AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Michelle Chapman contributed to this report.

An AI ad for crypto prediction market Kalshi stole a YouTube video by popular Asian content creator Elliot Choy and “turned him into a white dude.”

Choy shared a screenshot of Kalshi’s advert alongside his original New York apartment video yesterday. 

The content creator said, “I guess Kalshi saw this and thought they should steal my video, turn me into a white dude, and run it as an ad.”

Read more: Suspicious Kalshi bot shuts down amid wash trading claims

NPR correspondent Bobby Allyn confirmed that Kalshi’s advert was real and that the firm is now reviewing its relationship with its marketing agency. 

Kalshi told Allyn it was an old advert, and that it no longer uses AI-generated ads. 

Despite this claim, the advert was promoted this week on YouTube and spotted by Choy.

Another Kalshi ad branded ‘insane’

Another AI-generated Kalshi ad is also being ridiculed by users online. 

Made in the style of a Pixar animation, it depicts a couple in financial trouble and features cheating as its main theme.

By the end of the video, one partner reveals she isn’t cheating, and that she’s actually gambling egg prices on Kalshi using her knowledge of running a bakery.

Users have described the spot as “cringe,” “out of touch,” and “insane.”

Some have noted that the animation style might make it appealing to kids, while others suggested that the woman depicted in the ad might actually be insider trading. 

One user bluntly pointed out that “this ad is just showing gambling addiction.”

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Kalshi accused of wash-trading 

Kalshi has been under a lot of scrutiny this week after it was forced to deny a series of wash trading allegations.

The Wall Street Journal recently found that there was $5 billion worth of uniform $5,500 trades across ETH perp volume in one month. 

Its report built upon the findings of quant analyst Benoit Dubosson, who decided to investigate the platform after falling out with its crypto lead IcoBeast.eth.  

Read more: CFTC orders Kalshi to continue operations amid New York lawsuit

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To top it off, users have begun to speculate that Kalshi paid various popular X accounts, many of which are unrelated to the prediction market niche, to share its rejection of wash trading allegations. 

Others claim to have spotted Kalshi inflating user metrics by boosting the number of people chatting.

Protos has reached out to Kalshi for comment and will update this piece should we hear anything back. 

Got a tip? Send us an email securely via Protos Leaks. For more informed news and investigations, follow us on X, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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The slow-motion liquidity crisis in private credit has rolled into its third quarter, with Apollo gating another three months of withdrawal requests from its flagship retail private credit fund.

On Tuesday, the fund disappointed investors who had asked to cash out 14.7% of their shares. 

It will honor about two thirds less at just 5%, and has gated withdrawals for at least nine months.

The rationed exit is supposed to prevent a stampede for the exits that gating during the first and second quarters was supposed to alleviate.

Stock prices across the private credit market continue to crater. Apollo’s own common stock closed down 14% year-to-date, far underperforming the S&P 500 at +12% YTD.

Private credit peers are also underperforming their benchmarks year-to-date: Blackstone has lost 22%, Ares is down 24%, KKR is down 23%, Carlyle is down 33%, and Blue Owl has declined 36%.

Apollo Debt Solutions BDC, a private credit fund, is a retail vehicle holding a $25.9 billion portfolio of senior secured loans.

Investors wanted to redeem 11.2% of shares in the first quarter but were told to expect about 45 cents per dollar worth of requests.

In the second quarter, they asked for 16.8% of shares back, yet received just 5%.

Apollo has even titled its quarterly 5% limitation using corporate jargon. It prefers another name for denials of its customers’ full withdrawal requests: “Quarterly Liquidity: Considered & Intentional.”

Read more: Private credit firms prepare for bank run-type panic by gating investor withdrawals

Private credit redemption requests have piled up

Cliffwater’s $31 billion Corporate Lending Fund similarly limited withdrawals to 5% this month after investors asked for about 16%.

It was that fund’s third consecutive redemption limitation.

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Blackstone also had to limit withdrawals this quarter. Its $77 billion BCRED private credit fund gated third quarter withdrawals at 5%, with requests running at roughly double that threshold.

Another fund, BlackRock’s HPS Corporate Lending Fund, fielded requests for 11.5% of shares that it will only honor at 5% this quarter.

Apollo tried to recast the ongoing crisis in a positive light for media in August, estimating that many withdrawal requests were simplying carrying over from prior months.

To everyone’s ostensible relief, withdrawals weren’t accelerating in current months. “The vast majority of third-quarter requests reflect investors re-tendering unfulfilled requests from prior quarters,” the company claimed.

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Apollo also tried to highlight its other fundamentals. It booked $200 million in gross subscriptions for the quarter, it said, and reported a net total return of 8.2% since launch.

Industry-wide, analysts at Fitch estimated the US private credit default rate at a record 6.3% for the 12 months ending August 2026. 

Got a tip? Send us an email securely via Protos Leaks. For more informed news and investigations, follow us on X, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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Stablecoin infrastructure company HIFI has raised $37 million in a Series A funding round led by Left Lane Capital as the use of stablecoins for payments and cross-border transfers continues to grow despite weakness in the broader crypto market.

Cross-border stablecoin flows rose 77.5% to $220.3 billion in the 12 months ending June 2026, even as the wider crypto market shrank by more than a third over the same period, according to Chainalysis.

HIFI CEO Zach Walsh told Cointelegraph that the Series A is the company’s first priced funding round. The company did not disclose its valuation. “HIFI is processing approximately $7 billion in annualized volume directly through its platform,” Walsh said.

The funding comes as more payments and financial assets move onto blockchains, increasing demand for infrastructure connecting those networks to the banking system. 

Firms such as Visa and the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) have been rolling out or testing blockchain-based financial infrastructure. 

HIFI expands into tokenized capital markets

HIFI’s infrastructure allows customers to move dollars into and out of stablecoins, send payouts through US banking rails and cards, and settle the cash side of tokenized repo and Treasury transactions in US dollars.

“This financing will support the scaling of HIFI’s tokenized capital markets infrastructure and the expansion of its broader product suite, including stablecoin payments products,” Walsh told Cointelegraph.

In July, DTCC conducted production trades using tokenized securities across several market functions, including US Treasury and repo settlement, equity transactions, securities lending and collateral workflows. HIFI was among more than 30 firms that participated, alongside BlackRock, Goldman Sachs and Nasdaq.

The transactions included US Treasury and repo delivery-versus-payment trades, equity transactions, securities lending and collateral workflows using assets held at the Depository Trust Company that had been converted into tokenized representations. DTCC plans to launch its Tokenization Service in October.

Related: US stablecoin adoption could surge with bank-like protections: Visa survey

HIFI has also expanded into card-based payouts through Visa Direct. Its platform allows customers to convert USDC and send the proceeds to eligible Visa debit and credit cards globally, according to the company’s website.

The expansion comes as Visa reports growing use of stablecoins across its payments network. On Sept. 9, the company said more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs were live globally during its fiscal second quarter, with payment volume through those programs rising nearly 200% year over year. 

Visa also said its stablecoin settlement volume had surpassed a $20 billion annualized run rate, more than 15 times its level a year earlier.

Magazine: Winners and losers of the SEC’s new tokenized stocks rules