VerifiedX said its Foundation has opened a $15 million financing round, with initial institutional investors already participating, to fund a wider push into institutional Bitcoin infrastructure. Cantor Fitzgerald is acting as the company’s investment banking partner for the raise, while the Foundation has not disclosed the identities of the initial investors or the terms of their participation. The proceeds are slated for several areas at once: expanding custody arrangements, supporting exchange listings, and building borrow-and-lend rails tied to Bitcoin. VerifiedX said BitGo, a digital-asset custodian listed on the New York Stock Exchange, will hold vBTC and vBTC.b, the project’s Bitcoin-collateralized token and its Base-based counterpart. It also said tier-one centralized exchanges are expected to list vBTC and VFX, with a first announcement anticipated within weeks. The company is positioning vBTC as an alternative to conventional wrapped Bitcoin structures, saying users retain self-custodial deposit addresses on the Bitcoin network, can redeem back to native BTC at any time, and can use the asset for payments, trading, collateral, lending, and treasury activity, including on Base through vBTC.b.

Tencent has officially launched the WorkBuddy open platform, opening its Agent capabilities to hardware vendors, industry applications, and developers. The initial release includes five types of capabilities: Buddy apps, experts, Skills, connectors, and hardware. Over 100 partners have already joined the ecosystem. Nine co-branded smart hardware devices are among the first batch, with partners including Plaud, Rokid, Insta360, iFLYTEK, Anker, Momax, and JD-made. More than 30 industry applications have been integrated, covering finance, legal, healthcare, education, and public welfare. Liu Yi, Vice President of Tencent Cloud and head of CodeBuddy and WorkBuddy, stated that the goal is to position WorkBuddy as the 'operating system for the Agent era.'

The U.S. Treasury said Wednesday it lifted counterterrorism sanctions on two aircraft and three airlines tied to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). In detailed information posted on its website, the Treasury identified the affected entities as FLY BAGHDAD AIRLINES, Iraq Express (IRAQ EXPRESS), Fly Baghdad, and two aircraft with tail numbers YI-BAF and YI-BAN. The three airlines had previously been accused of links to the IRGC's Quds Force, a unit of the IRGC. The two aircraft were linked to FLY BAGHDAD AIRLINES. Reuters reported the development, and Odaily, a Chinese crypto news outlet, relayed the news in a flash update. The Treasury's announcement removes the sanctions that had applied to these named entities. The Treasury did not disclose a specific reason for the removal. The website posting also listed the aircraft registrations as part of the action.

SpaceX closed its Nasdaq debut at $160.95, up about 19% from its $135 IPO price, giving it a market value of roughly $2.1 trillion. The listing drew money away from other space stocks, with Virgin Galactic down 31%.

Explore Franklin (FLY) token and its Black Ocean dark pool platform incubated by VRM. Key data: fully circulating supply of 1.69B, all-time high of $0.6. Analyzes differential impacts on institutional vs retail investors.