News & Updates
The latest news and updates from companies in the WLTH portfolio.
Anthropic, White House Have Not Discussed Government Stake in Firm | PYMNTS.com
So far, rival artificial intelligence startup Anthropic does not seem to have followed suit, according to a corresponding report from Reuters. A source familiar with the matter told the news outlet that the White House and Anthropic have not talked about the government taking a stake in the company. That comment followed a Financial Times report that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had discussed giving the federal government a 5% share of the company, which Reuters says raises the question of whether other AI firms are holding similar talks. Both companies, the report added, are facing government scrutiny over possible misuse of advanced AI models, and whether the public would benefit from the sector's soaring valuations. Last month, the Commerce Department imposed and then later lifted export controls on two of Anthropic's most advanced models following concerns that the tools did not come with proper safeguards. The government has also increased oversight on new models, the report added, though submitting these models for review is voluntary. President Donald Trump has said he was considering plans to offer the public a stake in leading AI companies. The FT report also noted that Altman had in recent weeks talked with Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats. Sanders has lobbied for the creation of a sovereign wealth fund allowing for public ownership of nearly half of each American AI company. In other AI news, new research from PYMNTS Intelligence suggests that employers are becoming an increasingly influential force in guiding which AI platforms consumers use in their personal lives. As covered here last week, 78% of employees whose companies provide access to an AI platform say they use the same tool outside of work. "For years, much of the industry's public discussion has centered on model performance. Companies compete over benchmark scores, reasoning capabilities, multimodal functionality and increasingly sophisticated AI agents," that report said. "Those advances remain important, but the PYMNTS findings suggest another competitive variable may prove equally influential: consistent daily exposure to AI tools." Unlike regular consumer software adoption, which hinges on convincing people to try a new application, enterprise AI introduces users via daily work requirements. Employees learn prompting techniques, develop workflows and build confidence using tools at work before deciding if those tools will be useful at home. "That familiarity appears to carry significant weight," PYMNTS added. "Rather than beginning their consumer AI journey by comparing competing models, many users simply continue using the platform they already know." For all PYMNTS AI coverage, subscribe to the daily AI Newsletter.
Kraken's $600 Million Reap Deal Makes Corporate Cards a Battleground | PYMNTS.com
On Wednesday (July 1), Payward, the parent company behind the crypto platform Kraken, completed its acquisition of Reap in a deal valued at up to $600 million, adding stablecoin-native card issuing, embedded payments, cross-border money movement and treasury-management infrastructure to Payward Services. Reap will continue to operate as a standalone brand within Payward, retaining its leadership team and go-to-market approach, according to a company press release. The deal works because Payward can supply liquidity, custody, regulatory infrastructure and settlement while Reap supplies card issuance and corporate payment workflows. This enables the combined business to offer enterprises something more practical than a crypto product: a way to move value across jurisdictions, fund cards and manage treasury with stablecoins operating in the background. The Kraken parent is not betting that businesses will abandon cards. It is betting that the funding, settlement and reconciliation layers behind those cards are up for grabs. Read also: Stablecoins Outgrow the Exchanges That Built Them Stablecoins Are Moving Behind the User Interface Stablecoins do not need to become a consumer habit to become a corporate payments force. They only need to become useful enough, compliant enough and embedded enough that businesses stop thinking of them as crypto at all. And while there is a huge untapped opportunity for corporate adoption, the flip side of that coin is that most businesses today aren't that interested in stablecoins. Data in "Waiting for Certainty: Why Most CFOs Are Holding Back on Crypto and Stablecoins," a recent installment of PYMNTS Intelligence's 2026 Certainty Project, shows that most middle market companies remain cautious about digital assets. Usage is limited; 13% of firms use stablecoins and 5% employ other cryptocurrencies. Building enterprise payments infrastructure, after all, is not just a software problem. It requires market access, compliance capacity, liquidity relationships, risk management and trust. In other words, stablecoin infrastructure has to look less like crypto experimentation and more like institutional-grade financial plumbing. A faster rail that creates new uncertainty for the finance or risk function will not become core infrastructure. The winners will not simply be the firms with the fastest settlement but the ones that can combine speed with controls, licensing, transparency and interoperability with existing financial systems. PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster has repeatedly highlighted this theme with Ryan Rugg, global head of digital assets for Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS), on "From the Block," where Rugg has called ERPs "the gating factor for adoption at scale." Read also: Nobody Told the ERP That Blockchain Won The New Competition in Corporate Finance Is Workflow Ownership Banks have historically controlled cross-border corporate payments because they control accounts, compliance, liquidity, FX access and payment connectivity. Processors and card networks control acceptance, authorization and spend flows. Enterprise software providers control the systems where finance teams approve, track and reconcile payments. Stablecoin infrastructure firms are trying to sit across those layers. If a platform can issue cards, initiate cross-border payments, manage treasury liquidity and connect to digital-asset settlement through one integration, it becomes more than a payment vendor. It becomes a financial operating layer for businesses that want fewer intermediaries and faster access to working capital. This is where the competitive line begins to blur. Crypto infrastructure firms want to become more like regulated financial infrastructure providers. FinTechs want to use stablecoins to improve money movement. Banks want to preserve client relationships while modernizing their own rails. Card and payment processors must decide whether stablecoins are a threat, a funding source, a settlement option or all three. Still, stablecoins are unlikely to replace commercial banking in one sweep. The ore immediate pressure point is narrower: high-friction, cross-border B2B money movement. If stablecoin-enabled platforms can make those workflows faster, cheaper or easier to reconcile, they can capture parts of the payment chain that banks and correspondent networks have long treated as defensible. That could change fee pools, weaken some legacy intermediary roles and force incumbents to improve settlement speed, transparency and programmability. That is the broader significance of stablecoins entering the corporate card stack. The technology is moving away from the front-end question of who pays with crypto and toward the back-end question of who controls the movement of business money.
SpaceX Investors Get Preview of Musk's AI Handset | PYMNTS.com
Elon Musk's rocket/artificial intelligence (AI) company had shown the prototype of this device to investors ahead of its recent initial public offering (IPO), the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Wednesday (July 1), citing sources familiar with the matter. The device, said to be slimmer than an iPhone, was designed to run on a proprietary operating system and integrate AI technology from SpaceX's xAI, some of the sources said. The device is in its early stages and its design could change, the WSJ added. PYMNTS has contacted SpaceX for comment but has not yet gotten a reply. The WSJ had reported last year that Musk had considered building a smartphone out of frustration over Apple's control of the distribution of third-party apps, like his social media platform X. However, the WSJ said, it is not easy for newcomers to enter the hardware space. "The idea of making a phone makes me want to die," Musk said last October. "But if we have to make a phone, we will." But in February, the newly-minted trillionaire denied reports that the company was working on a phone that would connect directly to its Starlink satellite network. "We are not developing a phone," he posted on X. The WSJ's sources said that the device prototype SpaceX showed its investors draws on the "everything app" concept Musk pushed when he acquired X in 2022. Also known as "super apps," the WSJ added, these programs are popular in Asia, letting users do things like transfer money, order food, book trips and play games from one app. Musk has been exploring this idea with X Money, which includes accounts for everyday spending and saving, as well as the ability to "pay anyone, any way," including paying rent, sending a wire, mailing a check or paying friends, as covered here recently. Meanwhile, PYMNTS wrote last month about SpaceX's $60 billion acquisition of AI coding startup Cursor, completed soon after its IPO. That deal followed SpaceX's absorption of xAI earlier in the year. "The merger gave SpaceX the computing infrastructure but not the product," PYMNTS wrote. "Cursor supplied what xAI couldn't: a widely adopted AI coding tool with a large base of professional software engineers already paying for it."
Anthropic Says US Has Lifted Fable 5 AI Model Ban | PYMNTS.com
"We've received notice that the Department of Commerce has lifted export controls on Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5," the artificial intelligence (AI) company announced on social media platform X late Tuesday (June 30). "We'll begin restoring access tomorrow, and will share an update soon. We're grateful to our users for their patience, and to everyone who worked with us on redeploying the models." Anthropic introduced Fable 5 and Mythos 5 AI on June 9, saying it had developed safeguards to keep them from being misused. Days later, the company announced it had disabled some access to the Fable 5 and Mythos 5 AI models in response to a U.S. government export control directive that cited unspecified "national security authorities." That directive also called on Anthropic to suspend access to those models by "any foreign national," whether within or outside the U.S. "Our understanding is that the government believes it has become aware of a method of bypassing, or 'jailbreaking' Fable 5," Anthropic said. While it complied with the directive, the company said it disagreed with the notion that a "narrow potential jailbreak" was enough justification for recalling a model that it had deployed to hundreds of millions of users. In a blog post Tuesday, Anthropic said it had worked with the government to address potential cybersecurity concerns, and would make Fable 5 available Wednesday (July 1) to users globally on the Claude Platform, Claude.ai, Claude Code, and Claude Cowork. "We will re-enable access on AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Foundry as quickly as possible," the post added. Anthropic has also restored access to Mythos 5 "for a set of U.S. organizations," the company said, after receiving government approval last week. The company says it will keep working with the government to offer access to the broader set of foreign and domestic partners involved in its Glasswing cybersecurity program. In other Anthropic news, the company on Tuesday debuted a Claude Sonnet model that can make plans, use tools such as browsers and terminals, and operate autonomously at a level that a few months ago would have required larger and more expensive models. The startup also introduced an AI workbench for scientists called Claude Science, building on Anthropic efforts in the life sciences it launched last fall.
Polymarket Faces CFTC Probe and Deals With $3 Million Hack | PYMNTS.com
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is engaged in what CNBC described as an "ongoing and extensive" probe into the prediction market, per a Friday (June 26) report. This regulatory inquiry comes to light just as the company reportedly manages the fallout of a $3.1 million phishing attack that compromised several user wallets. The CFTC follows a Wall Street Journal investigative report last week detailing alleged questionable marketing tactics by Polymarket. That report alleged that the company had flooded social media with seemingly genuine video clips of content creators winning trades on its side. In reality, that report said, Polymarket created almost exact copies of its website, then told creators to simulate trades on those duplicate sites without disclosing they were being paid to do so. The news led lawmakers to call for greater regulatory scrutiny into the company, according to a WSJ report later in the week. Polymarket issued a statement to the news outlet saying it intended to conduct an audit of active promotional content. The company also said it was "committed to maintaining accurate, fair, and transparent markets. We are part of a rapidly growing industry and are constantly evaluating ways to improve how we're engaging and earning the trust of our audience." PYMNTS has contacted Polymarket and the CFTC for comment but has not yet gotten a reply. The CNBC report characterized the investigation as a notable reversal of Polymarket's fortunes. Though originally banned from the U.S., past probes by the CFTC and Department of Justice were dropped without charges last year. The report added that this marks the first high-profile investigation into a prediction market company under the leadership of CFTC Chairman Michael Selig, who had until now been known for championing the industry. Meanwhile, a report Saturday by CoinDesk said that Polymarket is also addressing a major security exploit that resulted in the theft of $3.1 million in PUSD tokens. The breach, which affected 11 user wallets, was traced to a compromised third-party vendor that injected a malicious script into the platform's frontend. Blockchain intelligence firms reported that the stolen assets were taken from the Polygon network and immediately bridged to Ethereum. Polymarket has promised to provide full refunds to all victims holding its native PUSD collateral, the report added.
Anthropic Gets Greenlight From US to Restore Mythos Access | PYMNTS.com
This came after the AI startup resolved the White House's concerns about the potential national security danger represented by the model, Bloomberg News reported late Friday (June 26). "Anthropic has worked with the US government to address risks associated with the Covered Models," Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick wrote to the company in a letter seen by Bloomberg News. "These efforts have yielded significant progress," he wrote, adding that the model could be released to "certain trusted partners." According to the report, the clearance cools a conflict that began earlier this month when the government blocked Anthropic from letting foreign nationals and businesses access Mythos 5 and sister model Fable 5. "In just two weeks, we have worked diligently to ensure America remains the global leader in AI while safeguarding our security," Commerce Department spokesman Benno Kass told Bloomberg. Anthropic issued a statement to Bloomberg affirming that it could begin redeploying Mythos 5 to a small group of cyberd efenders and infrastructure providers. "We are working to provision the approved set of providers and restore their access to Mythos 5 as quickly as possible. We are pleased to see this progress and continue to work with the government to expand access to Mythos 5 and make Fable 5 available for general use again." The report added that it isn't clear what measures Anthropic took to ease the government's concerns that it was possible to "jailbreak," or bypass guardrails on, Mythos and Fable. A source familiar with the matter said the company would hold further talks on Fable over the weekend. The news outlet had spoken last week with European Commission Executive Vice President Henna Virkkunen, who said that the regulator had met with the White House to discuss gaining access to Mythos. In other AI news, PYMNTS wrote last week about the way the technology has made corporate expense management more difficult. That field, the report said, "has long treated the receipt as proof of transaction. An employee submits a receipt, a finance team member reviews it and the claim is approved or flagged." This model was fine in an era when creating convincing fakes required photo editing skills or a paid online service, but no longer works now that free AI image generators can create a receipt with realistic paper texture, accurate itemization and a matching timestamp in under a minute. "These receipts have become so good, we tell our customers, 'Do not trust your eyes,'" Chris Juneau, senior vice president and head of product marketing at SAP Concur, told PYMNTS in an October report. For all PYMNTS AI coverage, subscribe to the daily AI Newsletter.
