September Opens With Key Partnerships From Solana And Google
This week’s list is heavy on infrastructure quietly reshaping ownership itself: the FTSE 100 going on-chain, sports team equity getting tokenized, digital assets gaining a single lifecycle layer instead of five stitched-together vendors. Even MrBeast’s AI deal turns out to be smaller than the headline suggests, once you look closely.
Ripple Custody Integrates With SettleMint to Expand Digital Asset Services in Asia
Ripple Custody has integrated with SettleMint’s Digital Asset Lifecycle Platform, giving financial institutions a single infrastructure layer to manage digital assets from custody through issuance, compliance and settlement rather than stitching together separate vendors for each piece of that chain, which has been a persistent headache as digital asset programs move from pilot testing into actual production.
The division of labor is fairly clean: Ripple Custody handles the secure holding and governance of the assets themselves, while SettleMint’s platform manages everything downstream: issuance, compliance, permissioning and ongoing servicing.
Together, the pitch is that institutions get a unified system instead of managing reconciliation gaps between providers that were never designed to talk to each other.
That reconciliation problem is a real one for banks moving beyond experimentation. Multiple vendors covering custody, issuance and settlement separately tends to create exactly the kind of operational friction that stalls a digital asset program right as it’s supposed to scale.
This integration is a fairly direct attempt to remove that friction rather than reinvent any of the underlying pieces.
It’s also part of a broader pattern for Ripple, which has been steadily expanding its list of institutional infrastructure partners across Asia as it tries to push blockchain adoption further into mainstream finance rather than keeping it confined to crypto-native firms.
MrBeast Signs a Multi-Year Gemini Deal With Google, But AI Isn’t Writing the Scripts
Google has struck a multi-year partnership with Beast Industries, bringing Gemini and Google Health into Jimmy Donaldson’s videos starting September 5, with the first installment putting teams through a survival challenge across jungle, desert and Arctic terrain, using Gemini to flag hazards and track shifting weather conditions in real time.
Beast Industries CEO Jeff Housenbold described it as a bet on AI as both a creative tool and a business one, though he was noticeably careful to draw a line around what that actually means in practice.
Asked directly whether AI is shaping the content itself, he was blunt: “what we’re not doing is using it to make the content.” Humans still write, shoot and edit every video.
Gemini’s role is closer to research and feasibility work, like figuring out whether a stunt is actually possible before anyone attempts it.
That’s a narrower role than Google’s own campaign language implies, and it echoes a pattern showing up elsewhere in Google’s consumer AI push: folding Gemini into products mostly behind the scenes rather than putting it front and center on screen.
Housenbold declined to share financial terms, though he noted the deal had sign-off from Google CEO Sundar Pichai, suggesting this carries more strategic weight for Google than a typical creator sponsorship would.
LSEG Partners With Kraken Parent Payward to Put the FTSE 100 on Blockchain
The London Stock Exchange Group and Payward, Kraken’s parent company, announced a partnership on September 1 to tokenize the 100 largest companies listed on the LSE, making them available as blockchain-based xStocks across more than 110 countries in the coming weeks.
It’s a genuinely different structure from prior xStocks deals with Deutsche Börse, Nasdaq and GTN.
LSEG is the first major incumbent exchange to connect xStocks directly to its own regulated settlement infrastructure, rather than simply joining as another distribution partner.
That infrastructure is LSEG’s Digital Securities Depository, built inside the UK’s joint FCA/Bank of England Digital Securities Sandbox, designed to let tokenized securities settle across multiple blockchain networks while staying interoperable with legacy systems like Euroclear and CREST.
Whether these particular FTSE 100 tokens will actually settle on-chain through the DSD, or trade with more conventional settlement underneath a blockchain wrapper, hasn’t been specified yet, and that distinction is architecturally significant, not just a technicality.
There’s an odd wrinkle buried in the announcement too: British investors are excluded from buying these tokens, despite the underlying companies all trading in London.
LSEG CEO Julia Hoggett acknowledged the broader tension directly, saying tokenization “must develop in a way that preserves the trust, rights and role of regulated markets”, language that reads like an implicit admission that today’s xStocks don’t yet carry the same legal weight as owning the actual shares.
Solana Adds Grok, PayBox and MoonPay to Simplify Buying Assets on Its Network
Solana has rolled out new integrations with Grok, PayBox and MoonPay aimed squarely at removing friction from the process of actually buying crypto.
The goal being fewer steps between wanting an asset and actually holding it, since every extra step in a purchase flow tends to shed users along the way.
Each partner covers slightly different ground, but the underlying logic is the same across all three: rather than building purchasing infrastructure from scratch, Solana is plugging in companies that already do that well and letting users transact without leaving Solana’s own ecosystem.
It’s becoming a fairly standard playbook across crypto generally. Chains increasingly compete less on raw technical specs and more on how painless it is to actually get money in and out.
The timing is notable given that the broader crypto market has been sending mixed signals lately. Leaning into payments and commerce utility rather than pure price momentum is a deliberate bet that product depth outlasts short-term sentiment swings.
Whether these particular integrations meaningfully move the needle on user growth isn’t something that can be measured yet.
They’re early enough that real adoption numbers will take some time to surface, and Solana will need more than three new partners to hold its position as competition among payment-focused chains keeps intensifying.
Tether, TRON and TRM Labs Launch a Joint Crime Unit to Fight USDT Misuse
Tether has teamed up with TRON and blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs to launch the T3 Financial Crime Unit, a private-sector effort specifically targeting illicit use of USDT on the TRON network.
The unit has already frozen more than $12 million linked to scams since standing up, a meaningful early number for an initiative barely off the ground.
USDT’s scale is exactly why this matters: it’s reportedly surpassed Visa in raw transaction volume, and its use has grown particularly fast in countries with weaker currencies, where people increasingly treat it as an inflation hedge rather than a speculative asset.
That kind of real-world reach also makes it a bigger target for illicit finance, which is presumably the gap this unit is meant to close.
TRON founder Justin Sun struck an optimistic note, saying he believes “tech can be used for good” and framing the collaboration as a clear signal that illicit activity has no home in the industry.
The companies’ joint statement was similarly direct about the mission, describing the goal as building a “safer crypto community for everyone.”
For now the focus stays narrowly on TRON, though the partners have left the door open to extending similar units to other blockchains if this one proves out.
Tether has separately helped the Justice Department recover $5 million in USDT earlier this year, so this isn’t its first foray into working directly with law enforcement.
Coinbase Expands Its Webull Partnership Into Canada
Coinbase has extended its existing partnership with Webull into Canada, adding to a collaboration that already covers the US, Brazil and Australia.
Webull Canada will integrate Coinbase’s Crypto-as-a-Service platform, giving Canadian customers access to digital asset trading backed by institutional-grade custody, while Webull keeps the actual investment experience inside its own app rather than redirecting users elsewhere.
The expansion tracks a real shift in Canadian investor behavior. An Ontario Securities Commission survey found crypto ownership among Canadian investors has climbed to 25%, up from just 10% in 2023.
Michael Constantino, Webull Canada’s CEO, said digital assets have become an increasingly expected part of what customers want from an investment platform, crediting Coinbase with providing the “scale and reliability” needed to expand that offering credibly.
Webull Canada operates as a regulated investment dealer under the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization, though it’s worth noting that Canadian Investor Protection Fund coverage doesn’t extend to crypto holdings, a distinction Canadian users should probably keep in mind.
This is one piece of a broader Coinbase expansion push: the exchange recently secured a MiCA license in Luxembourg covering all 27 EU member states, and it’s rolling out nearly 4,000 US stocks for UK customers, alongside tokenized stock products built on Base using Chainlink’s pricing infrastructure.
Securitize and Socios.com Partner to Bring Tokenized Sports Team Equity to Market
Securitize and Socios.com announced a partnership on September 2 to build regulated tokenized equity offerings covering minority stakes in professional sports teams, under a new brand called Socios Equity Token: a notably different product from Socios’s existing Fan Tokens, which are built purely around fan engagement rather than actual financial ownership.
The split in responsibilities mirrors each company’s core strength.
Socios.com will lead relationships with teams and the fan-facing side of things, while Securitize handles the regulated securities work: issuance, investor onboarding, ownership records and ongoing servicing through its regulated affiliates.
If it launches as planned, the companies expect it to be the first project to go live through Securitize’s authorized European trading system under the EU’s DLT Pilot Regime.
The market opportunity being cited is sizable.
Professional sports franchises collectively worth roughly $500 billion globally, according to Sportico’s franchise valuations, with ownership stakes that are notoriously illiquid and hard for outside investors to access.
Alexandre Dreyfus, founder of Chiliz Group and Socios.com, framed the partnership as the “next stage” of the direct relationships his platform has already built between clubs and fans.
Carlos Domingo, Securitize’s CEO, was more focused on the access problem itself, noting that sports teams represent “a significant asset class” that’s stayed largely closed off to outside investors until now.
Details on which teams might actually participate, along with offering terms and eligibility, are still to come.
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About The Author
Alisa, a dedicated journalist at the MPost, specializes in crypto, AI, investments, and the expansive realm of Web3. With a keen eye for emerging trends and technologies, she delivers comprehensive coverage to inform and engage readers in the ever-evolving landscape of digital finance.
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Alisa, a dedicated journalist at the MPost, specializes in crypto, AI, investments, and the expansive realm of Web3. With a keen eye for emerging trends and technologies, she delivers comprehensive coverage to inform and engage readers in the ever-evolving landscape of digital finance.
