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Crypto Is the Future, Says CEO of $1.5 Trillion Financial Giant

by admin June 12, 2025

In her recent op-ed published by Fortune, Jenny Johnson, chief executive officer at financial giant Franklin Templeton, argues that the financial industry can no longer afford crypto and blockchain, arguing that they represent the future of finance.

Johnson has warned that legacy firms that are reluctant to embrace this disruptive technology could end up getting “wiped out” like American video rental shop Blockbuster.

This inevitable disruption is expected to take place within the next five years, according to the Franklin Templeton boss.

She believes that legacy financial systems are too slow and geographically siloed to remain relevant.

Johnson is convinced that crypto and blockchain can offer significant advantages to investors since they are way more efficient. They offer 24/7 trading, seamless asset tracking, flexible tokenization, and so on.

The 61-year-old executive has noted that such blockchain networks as Solana and Sui can rival Visa in terms of transaction throughput. At the same time, decentralized exchanges of the likes of Uniswap are capable of handling trillions of dollars worth of trading volume.

Franklin Templeton’s crypto journey

Franklin Templeton is, of course, not new to crypto. It started exploring the nascent asset class in 2018.

In September 2021, the firm filed to raise $20 million via its first blockchain venture fund.

The company also offers several cryptocurrency ETFs. In late 2024, the company obtained approval to launch the first ETF that combines Bitcoin and Ether in partnership with Hashdex.

As reported by U.Today, Franklin Templeton is also the largest player to file for spot-based Solana ad XRP ETFs.

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June 12, 2025 0 comments

Crypto Trends

XRP To Capture 14% Of SWIFT’s Volume, Says Ripple CEO

by admin June 12, 2025

Trusted Editorial content, reviewed by leading industry experts and seasoned editors. Ad Disclosure

Ripple chief executive Brad Garlinghouse used XRPL Apex 2025 to set an audacious target for the company’s native asset. “If you’re driving all the liquidity, that’s good for XRP … so I’ll say five years, 14 percent,” he told the audience, distinguishing sharply between SWIFT’s well-known messaging layer and the liquidity rails that actually move money.

“SWIFT today, there’s two ways to think about SWIFT. There’s messaging and there’s liquidity. Liquidity is owned by the banks. I think less about the messaging and more about liquidity,” the Ripple CEO said.

Garlinghouse’s forecast came during a dialogue with Ripple’s chief technologist David Schwartz, who framed the broader prize: “We’re going to see many, many hundreds of billions of dollars in tokenized … assets fairly quickly.” Schwartz argued that blockchains solve a mundane but stubborn problem in corporate audits—“How do you know I don’t owe somebody money that isn’t in the records you’re checking?”—and that this built-in transparency will accelerate adoption.

What XRP’s 14% SWIFT Takeover Could Mean

Quantifying Garlinghouse’s projection depends on which slice of SWIFT’s activity one counts. From the daily lens, industry data widely quoted in payments-technology literature shows SWIFT messages directing almost $5 trillion every 24 hours. Fourteen percent of that flow is roughly $700 billion per day—a value that could, under Ripple’s thesis, migrate to XRP-based liquidity rails.

From the annual payments lens and the cross-border payment traffic alone, SWIFT has been estimated to settle about $150 trillion a year. Fourteen percent of that narrower baseline would still amount to $21 trillion annually, more than the combined 2024 GDP of Japan and Germany.

Either yard-stick underscores the scale of the ambition: if XRP were to intermediate even the lower $21 trillion figure, its settlement throughput would eclipse that of most major national payment systems.

Garlinghouse’s insistence on “liquidity” rather than “messaging” mirrors Ripple’s strategy since 2018, when it began pitching XRP as a real-time bridge asset for banks preferring to keep nostro-vostro balances lean. SWIFT itself, serving over 11,500 institutions, acknowledges it “sends trillions of dollars every day,” a breadth Ripple cannot ignore.

That focus also explains Ripple’s recent engineering milestones showcased in Singapore: Native support for institutional-grade tokenization modules, aimed at the “hundreds of billions” Schwartz referenced. A re-architected liquidity hub that auto-routes fiat and digital-asset trades to minimize slippage when large banks unwind positions intraday.

XRP is the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, hovering near $132 billion during the conference. Although the token has quadrupled in value since the 2024 US election cycle, turnover remains a fraction of what would be required to handle a multi-hundred-billion-dollar daily flow.

Ripple says its on-demand liquidity corridors processed “single-digit billions” last quarter; scaling to Garlinghouse’s target would therefore entail a two-order-of-magnitude jump.

At press time, XRP traded at $2.25.

XRP price, 1-day chart | Source: XRPUSDT on TradingView.com

Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

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June 12, 2025 0 comments

Crypto Trends

Binance CEO Drops Bombshell on Institutional Crypto Surge

by admin June 12, 2025

According to Binance CEO Richard Teng, the way institutions are talking about crypto has changed. They are not asking if they should get involved anymore. They are working out how.

Teng said, in a short post that has been making the rounds on X, that the next decade will not be about speculation or hype but about integrating crypto into the core of how finance works.

Crypto winter? No more

Teng’s comments align with what Michael Saylor, who is well-known for his aggressive Bitcoin accumulation, recently said we may be past the era of long crypto winters. With government support increasing and regulations catching up, he thinks institutional momentum will drive the space forward.

Why “there’s not going to be enough Bitcoin” according to Bitwise CEO

by admin June 12, 2025

The parabolic run of Bitcoin in recent years has ignited debates about demand, supply, and where the broader crypto market is headed next. While many investors are focused on higher price milestones beyond $110K, Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley believes a major real shift is on the horizon.

According to Horsley, once Bitcoin (BTC) crosses the $130,000 to $150,000 price levels, long-time holders will likely stop selling. He emphasized that many of these individuals and institutions accumulated Bitcoin years ago at much lower prices, and the recent price upticks have translated into profit-taking for the majority.

I think once Bitcoin breaks through eg $130-150k, no one is going to sell their Bitcoin.

Right now at $100k, it seems individuals who hold a lot of Bitcoin that was bought a long time ago at very low prices, are selling some.

That said, once Bitcoin breaks new levels, this…

— Hunter Horsley (@HHorsley) June 10, 2025

But in his view, that trend may soon change. The higher Bitcoin climbs, the more confident holders become and Horsely believes that rather than selling, many will likely turn to alternative liquidity options that don’t require them to part with their assets. This shift could remove even more supply from circulation and put upward pressure on prices.

Not everyone agrees with Horsley’s view. Market participants argue that the inherent ‘buy-and-sell’ nature will trigger profit-seeking behavior as prices rise, resulting in more sell-offs. However, current market data supports Horsley’s thesis.

Bitcoin supply dries up

Recent on-chain analytics has revealed a tightening BTC supply, lower short-term selling pressure, and growing signs that investors are becoming more confident in holding their Bitcoin for the long term. According to a June 10 CryptoQuant report, the amount of Bitcoin held on exchanges continues to fall.

Over the past year alone, more than 550,000 BTC has been withdrawn from centralized exchanges. The numbers build on previous findings that exchange balances have dropped to their lowest levels in over eight years, an indicator that more investors are opting to store their assets privately rather than sell them.

Also fueling the supply crunch is the growing institutional appetite for Bitcoin. From ETFs to national reserves, global financial heavyweights are building long-term positions. U.S.-listed Bitcoin ETFs launched in January now hold around 6% of the total BTC supply, and more countries are exploring creating their various dedicated Bitcoin reserves.

Unlike retail traders, these institutional investors do not chase short-term gains, supporting the idea that more Bitcoin may be taken out of circulation and held for the long haul.

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June 12, 2025 0 comments

Crypto Trends

Ripple CEO Admits He Was Wrong About Dogecoin

by admin June 11, 2025

Trusted Editorial content, reviewed by leading industry experts and seasoned editors. Ad Disclosure

At Ripple Apex, the company’s flagship gathering for developers and partners, Ripple president Monica Long and chief executive Brad Garlinghouse took the stage for an unscripted fireside chat that quickly zeroed in on one of the industry’s most polarizing sub-sectors: meme coins. In an exchange that mingled candor with contrition, Garlinghouse acknowledged that his once-unyielding dismissal of Dogecoin no longer holds.

Dogecoin Forces Ripple CEO To Backtrack

The session began with the moderator’s binary provocation—meme coins, overrated or underrated?—to which Long replied that, taken at face value, many are “outright scams,” yet their speculative magnetism has nevertheless “miraculously become real functioning markets.” Long credited the phenomenon with seeding vital infrastructure—wallets, capital, developer mind-share—that she likened to Ethereum’s own 2016–2017 ICO surge. “There’s a lasting impact from meme coins,” she said.

The Ripple CEO offered what he called “the other side” of the argument. “I think meme coins are generally maybe grossly overrated,” he said, framing most of them as “not sustainable” projects that amplify regulatory skepticism. He contrasted that short-term gambling impulse with what he described as Ripple’s “long arcs of time” approach.

Yet the conversation turned when Garlinghouse revisited Dogecoin, a target of his past derision. “For people who have followed some of my public statements, I used to really speak not so kindly towards Dogecoin,” he admitted. “I was just like, Dogecoin? It literally was created as a lark… it is literally a pile of shit as the logo.”

His original objection, he explained, was that an asset conceived as parody could not credibly represent an industry courting institutional capital: “If we’re trying to engage institutions and build those bridges between traditional finance and decentralized finance… Dogecoin isn’t representing us well.”

What changed his mind was not a newfound appreciation for the token’s fundamentals but the market reality forged by Elon Musk’s relentless advocacy. “Where I agree with Monica, and I think I got wrong, is Elon Musk willed Dogecoin into so much liquidity that it’s not going away,” the Ripple CEO conceded. “It’s part of the ecosystem. It plays a role.”

Even with that reversal, Garlinghouse made clear that most meme-coin launches remain “get-rich-quick rug pulls” that “reflect badly on those of us in the industry trying to build real products for real customers.” He cited US Senator Elizabeth Warren’s focus on negative use cases as a political example of how hype-driven projects can taint the wider field.

Pressed to nominate a single meme that captures crypto’s “chaos or brilliance,” Garlinghouse did not hesitate: “Doge. It is both the chaos and the brilliance.” Musk’s influence, he said, demonstrated how “liquidity begets liquidity,” underscoring the difficulty newcomers face in replicating Dogecoin’s network effects amid today’s “explosion” of imitators.

Long, for her part, maintained that even dubious tokens serve as experimental sandboxes that, over time, strengthen underlying blockchains. Garlinghouse ultimately stuck with his “overrated” verdict for meme coins as a category, yet his concession on Dogecoin—effectively elevating it from punchline to permanent fixture—marked a notable shift for the CEO of a company long positioned at the institutional end of the spectrum.

At press time, Dogecoin traded at $0.201.

DOGE price, 1-day chart | Source: DOGEUSDT on TradingView.com

Featured image from YouTube, chart from TradingView.com

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June 11, 2025 0 comments

GameFi Guides

PayPal CEO Breaks Silence on Stellar (XLM) Milestone: Details

by admin June 11, 2025

In a significant move for blockchain adoption and stablecoin utility, PayPal’s CEO has officially acknowledged a key milestone in the company’s dollar-pegged stablecoin expansion: PayPal USD (PYUSD) is set to launch on the Stellar network, pending regulatory approval.

PYUSD is coming to @StellarOrg, reaching a broader group of developers and unlocking new opportunities for the stablecoin. More blockchains, greater access – and we’re not stopping now. pic.twitter.com/DDfpb9JBzM

— Alex Chriss (@acce) June 11, 2025

PayPal confirmed in an official release that the PayPal USD (PYUSD) stablecoin will soon be available on the Stellar network, pending regulatory approval by the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS).

PayPal USD (PYUSD) would employ Stellar for new use cases, including extending everyday payments, remittances and “PayFi” solutions to millions of customers and merchants.

This marks a significant expansion for PYUSD, PayPal’s dollar-pegged stablecoin, beyond its existing presence on Ethereum and Solana.

Acknowledging the milestone, PayPal CEO Alex Chriss wrote, “PYUSD is coming to Stellar, reaching a broader group of developers and unlocking new opportunities for the stablecoin. More blockchains, greater access—and we’re not stopping now.”

Expansion significant

An expansion to Stellar would provide PYUSD users with access to its wide network of on- and off-ramps, as well as expanded access via digital wallets and connections to local payment systems and cash networks.

Lars Wingefors steps down as Embracer CEO, Phil Rogers to take on role in August 2025

by admin June 11, 2025

Embracer co-founder Lars Wingefors is stepping down as CEO, with current deputy CEO Phil Rogers taking over the role in August 2025.

Rogers joined Embracer in 2022 after the firm acquired Eidos Montreal. Prior to taking on the position of CEO, Rogers was also boss of Crystal Dynamics and Plaion.

Wingefors is set to remain at Embracer, having been proposed to take on the position of executive chair of the board. Current chair of the board Kicki Wallje-Lund is proposed to be deputy chair of the board.

Wingefors will also be appointed director of Coffee Stain Group alongside the division’s CEO and co-founder Anton Westbergh. Embracer noted that “additional directors will be appointed to the spin-off of Coffee Stain Group and no later than in August 2025”.

Current Embracer group financial director Erik Sunnerdahl will be appointed CFO of Coffee Stain Group.

Last month, Embracer announced it would spin-off Coffee Stain Group last into a “standalone group of community-driven game developers and publishers” by the end of the year.

It will consist of “more than 250 passionate game developers and publishers, focused on community driven experiences” including Coffee Stain, Ghost Ship, and Tuxedo Labs.

“With the start of this new phase, I am thankful for the years and lessons learned as CEO of Embracer,” said Wingefors.

“While the road has not always been straight, I am incredibly proud of the achievements made possible by our talented teams, which have created some incredible experiences for gamers.

“This new phase allows me to focus on strategic initiatives, M&A, and capital allocation, ensuring Embracer’s continued growth and success.”

He continued: “I am more convinced than ever that the best is still ahead of us. Having worked very closely with Phil over the past years, I have high confidence in his abilities. I look forward to a continued close collaboration to further strengthen the business and drive value in the coming years.”

Wingefors became CEO of Embracer following THQ Nordic’s rebrand in September 2019.

He oversaw major expansion at Embracer, which included the acquisitions of Gearbox for $1.3 billion, Saber Interactive for $525 million, and Crystal Dynamics for $300 million, as well as the €2.75 acquisition of tabletop games publisher Asmodee.

However, a nine-month restructuring program was implemented in 2023 after a $2 billion deal with Savvy Games Group – the publishing and esports firm owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund – collapsed.

This restructuring program resulted in the loss of 1,400 jobs and the closure of three studios. Gearbox and Saber Interactive have since been sold, while Asmodee was spun off alongside Coffee Stain and Fellowship Entertainment.

There have also been layoffs at Eidos-Montreal and Crystal Dynamics since this restructuring program ended.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Wingefors responded to the criticisms regarding the restructuring program and subsequent layoffs and studio closures.

“As a leader and an owner, sometimes you need to take the blame and you need to be humble about if you’ve made mistakes and if you could have done something differently,” he explained.

“I’m sure I deserve a lot of criticism, but I don’t think my team or companies deserve all the criticism. I could take a lot of that blame myself.

“But ultimately, I need to believe in the mission we set out and that is still valid, and we are now enabling that by doing this [new] structure.”

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June 11, 2025 0 comments

NFT Gaming

Ripple CEO Changes His Tune on Dogecoin

by admin June 11, 2025

During the recent Apex 2025 event, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said that Dogecoin (DOGE) is not going away.

“It’s part of the ecosystem. It plays a role,” he said, pointing to its high liquidity.

In the past, however, Garlinghouse was critical of the meme cryptocurrency since he was convinced that it would not reflect well on the industry.

Still, Garlinghouse believes that meme coins negatively affect those industry actors who are trying to build real products.

“I’ve never purchased a meme coin, ever,” Garlinghouse said.

Garlinghouse said that he had been introduced to Bitcoin in 2012.

Back then, he thought that Bitcoin’s Achilles’ heel would be the anti-bank and the anti-government sentiment.

Garlinghouse was convinced that there would not be a parallel system, meaning that there would be bridges between traditional finance and crypto.

The Ripple CEO previously stated that the Bitcoin community was not an enemy of XRP holders.

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June 11, 2025 0 comments

GameFi Guides

OpenAI CEO Says We’ve Already Passed the “Superintelligence Event Horizon”

by admin June 11, 2025

In brief

Altman believes ChatGPT now outpaces any human who has ever lived.
Altman referred to this moment as an “event horizon” as AI approaches superintelligence.
ChatGPT now has 800 million weekly users, who Altman said rely on the technology.

Humanity may already be entering the early stages of the singularity, the point at which AI surpasses human intelligence, according to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. In a blog post published Tuesday, Altman said humanity has crossed a critical inflection point—an “event horizon”—marking the beginning of a new era of digital superintelligence.

“We are past the event horizon; the takeoff has started,” he wrote. “Humanity is close to building digital superintelligence, and at least so far it’s much less weird than it seems like it should be.”

Altman’s analysis comes at a time when leading AI developers warn that artificial general intelligence could soon displace workers and disrupt global economies, outpacing the ability of governments and institutions to respond.

The singularity is a theoretical point when artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence, leading to rapid, unpredictable technological growth and potentially profound changes in society. An event horizon is a point of no return, beyond which the course of the object, in this case, an AI, cannot be changed.

Altman argued that we’re already entering a “gentle singularity”—a gradual, manageable transition toward powerful digital superintelligence, not a sudden wrenching change. The takeoff has begun, but remains comprehensible and beneficial.

As evidence of that, Altman pointed to the surge in ChatGPT’s popularity since its public launch in 2022: “Hundreds of millions of people rely on it every day and for increasingly important tasks,” he said.

The numbers back him up. In May 2025, ChatGPT reportedly had 800 million weekly active users. Despite ongoing legal battles with authors and media outlets, as well as calls for pauses on AI development, OpenAI shows no signs of slowing down.

Altman emphasized that even slight improvements in the technology could deliver substantial benefits. But a small misalignment, scaled across hundreds of millions of users, could have serious consequences.

To solve for these misalignments, he suggested several points, including:

Ensure AI systems act in line with humanity’s long-term goals, not just short-term impulses.
Avoid concentrated control by any one person, company, or country.
Start global discussions now on what values and limits should guide the development of powerful AI.

Altman said the next five years are critical for AI development.

“2025 has seen the arrival of agents that can do real cognitive work; writing computer code will never be the same,” he said. “2026 will likely see the arrival of systems that can figure out novel insights. 2027 may see the arrival of robots that can do tasks in the real world.”

By 2030, Altman predicted, both intelligence and the capacity to generate and act on ideas will be widely available.

“Already, we live with incredible digital intelligence, and after some initial shock, most of us are pretty used to it,” he said, pointing out how quickly people shift from being impressed by AI to expecting it.

As the world anticipates the rise of artificial general intelligence and the singularity, Altman believes the most astonishing breakthroughs won’t feel like revolutions—they’ll feel ordinary, and the bare minimum AI players need to offer to enter the market.

“This is how the singularity goes: wonders become routine, and then table stakes,” he said.

Edited by Josh Quittner

Generally Intelligent Newsletter

A weekly AI journey narrated by Gen, a generative AI model.

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June 11, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

After overseeing thousands of layoffs and numerous studio closures, Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors is stepping down

by admin June 10, 2025

Lars Wingefors, the Embracer Group CEO who oversaw thousands of job cuts and a significant number of studio closures following a turbulent few years for the company, has announced he’s stepping down from his role. Wingefors is not, however, parting ways with Embracer, and will instead become its executive chair of the board.

“While the road has not always been straight, I am incredibly proud of the achievements made possible by our talented teams, which have created some incredible experiences for gamers,” Wingefors said in a statement announcing his change of role. “This new phase allows me to focus on strategic initiatives, M&A, and capital allocation, ensuring Embracer’s continued growth and success. I am more convinced than ever that the best is still ahead of us.”

With Wingefors’ focus shifting elsewhere, Phil Rogers will step into the vacated CEO role from 1st August. Rogers is currently deputy CEO of Embracer and CEO of Crystal Dynamics – Eidos.

Wingefors’ time as CEO has been turbulent to say the least. He oversaw a rapid period of expansion at Embracer, with the company embarking on a massive acquisition spree, snapping up the likes of Gearbox, Saber Interactive, Crystal Dynamics, and more – including the €2.75bn purchase of board game publisher Asmodee – over a number of years. However, the unsustainability of that expansion became clear after a $2bn deal with the Saudi government-funded Savvy Games Group collapsed dramatically in 2023.

Following the deal’s collapse, Wingefors announced a “comprehensive restructuring program” that ultimately resulted in thousands of employees losing their jobs, while a substantial number of studios were either divested or outright closed. Saints Row developer Volition shut its doors in August 2023, for instance, while the revived Free Radical Design, which was working on a new TimeSplitters project, was closed just a few months later. Soon after, Gearbox was sold to Take-Two Interactive, while Saber Interactive went its own separate way. Further layoffs, at the likes of Eidos-Montréal and Crystal Dynamics, have been announced since then.

Wingefors later admitted there was a “long list” of things he’d have done differently, but that it was “easy to look back in hindsight”.

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June 10, 2025 0 comments