Kraken and Backed Expand Tokenized Stocks to BNB Chain as RWA Momentum Accelerates
The move allows token versions of U.S. stocks such as Apple (AAPLx), Tesla (TSLAx) and S&P 500 ETF (SPYx) to be issued as BEP-20 tokens and accessible to users across BNB Chain's ecosystem. The development comes with BNB Chain joining the xStocks Alliance, a network of exchanges and decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols that offers trading with 60 equity and ETF tokens on crypto rails.
Kraken said it will allow users to deposit and withdraw xStocks tokens through the BNB Chain in the upcoming weeks. The goal is to integrate equity tokens deeper into DeFi, making them available to move across protocols and chains or post as collateral for borrowing, Adam Levi, co-founder of Backed, said in a press release.
"This is the beginning of an always-on equity market — one that is permissionless, transparent, and built for the internet," Arjun Sethi, co-CEO of Kraken, said in a statement. "These instruments behave as programmable settlement primitives, unlocking atomic settlement, real-time global transferability, and composability with on-chain lending, derivatives, and structured products."
Trading platforms are racing to bring equities onto blockchain rails as tokenization of traditional financial instruments, or real-world assets (RWA), gains steam. Backed's xStocks debuted last week on Kraken, Bybit and Solana-based (SOL) DeFi platforms, while Gemini and Robinhood have introduced trading with tokenized U.S. stocks.
Crypto exchange Bitget also introduced xStocks tokens on its trading platform on Wednesday after joining the alliance, the exchange said in a press release.Sign in to access your portfolio
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Boston Globe
a few seconds ago
- Boston Globe
Food prices are rising, the economy is slowing, and the Fed is standing pat. What's next?
Still, the increases aren't anything close to the ferocious inflation spike we saw during the pandemic. Advertisement But with President Trump's trickle of tariff deals starting to impose higher import taxes on goods from Europe, Brazil, and other countries that supply lots of food items, Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up And that's before accounting for Trump's self-imposed deadline on Friday to reach deals with dozens more countries or raise tariffs to punitive levels. ( At the same time, A deep dive into Wednesday's gross domestic product report revealed slowing consumer spending, residential construction activity, and federal government outlays, though business investment increased. Advertisement Also on Wednesday, we learned that And Tuesday's labor market report for June found fewer people hired and fewer job openings than a month earlier. Could the economy be on the cusp of Economists don't see that happening, at least not yet. 'The economy is switching to a lower gear but not going in reverse,' Bernard Yaros, lead US economist at Oxford Economics, wrote on Wednesday. 'Consumers are slowing their spending but not heading for the bunkers outright.' In the GDP report, volatile trade flows masked an overall slowing of economic activity, analysts at Goldman Sachs noted. A surge of imports trying to beat Trump's tariffs in the first quarter was followed by a sharp slowdown of imports as tariffs started to bite in the second quarter, explaining the somewhat misleading gyrations in top-line GDP: a 0.5 percent decrease in the first quarter followed by a 3 percent increase in the second quarter. Goldman and other analysts pointed to a somewhat obscure statistic in the GDP report for a clearer reading. Called 'final sales to private domestic purchasers,' the stat excludes changes in exports, inventories, and a few other items to focus more on the current demand for goods and services from consumers and businesses. Such sales rose 2.9 percent in the fourth quarter, 1.9 percent in the first quarter, and 1.2 percent in the second quarter, Wednesday's GDP report showed. Advertisement Or, as Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell summed up after the Resisting pressure from Trump to lower interest rates immediately, Powell said a majority of the Fed's Open Market Committee was still worried about a too hasty rate cut stoking inflation. In a rare departure from the committee's usual unanimity, two of the 12 members voted for a rate cut. (The issues were 'very thoughtfully argued all around the table,' the always diplomatic chairman said.) Meanwhile, the stock market has managed to block out all the noise. The broad market S&P 500 Index closed at The upward trend may not last, however, if more of Trump's tariff deals raise prices for a wider range of goods and economic activity continues to slow. While regular people have continued buying stocks despite the tariffs, larger investors like pension and hedge funds have grown more cautious. Almost half of the large investors polled by Boston research firm CoreData said the stock market was 'too complacent' about trade risks, in a survey released on Tuesday. And 56 percent said they expected stock prices to fall over the next three months. Thursday will provide more data points, including initial jobless claims, which are expected to tick up, and the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, the core personal consumption expenditures index, which is expected to show an almost 3 percent rise year-over-year. Friday brings two potentially more significant announcements, as the Labor Department reports on job growth and unemployment for July and the president's trade deal deadline arrives. Advertisement As J.P. Morgan's co-head of investment strategy Stephen Parker said recently, it may be time for investors to 'get comfortable being uncomfortable.' Aaron Pressman can be reached at
Forbes
a minute ago
- Forbes
The Most Valuable Sports Agencies 2025
E ach of the 10 times that Forbes has ranked the most valuable sports agencies—starting in 2013 and most recently in 2022—CAA has come out on top. But if the outcome is beginning to feel a bit preordained, what it means to be North America's largest agency continues to grow—and grow, and grow. CAA once again takes the No. 1 spot in the ranking on the basis of its $1.14 billion in maximum commissions, up 18% from three years ago. The Los Angeles-based agency now has more than 3,000 clients for talent representation and oversees an estimated $15.9 billion in team-sport playing contracts and $4.59 billion in non-playing contracts, including endorsements as well as its coaching and sports media groups. 'The sports business has grown so much just in the past three or four years that people want to be in the game,' says Howie Nuchow, co-head of CAA Sports, 'and that creates opportunities for smart strategic business decisions.' Despite CAA's continued expansion, its rivals have gained some ground. Wasserman and Excel Sports Management—Nos. 2 and 3 across the last five editions of the agency ranking, dating to 2018—have boosted their estimated maximum commissions 31% and 57%, respectively, over the last three years, to $956 million and $783 million. Octagon (No. 4 this year with $463 million in maximum commissions) and Klutch Sports Group (No. 5, $351 million) have experienced even more robust growth—119% and 252%. Combined, the top 10 North American sports agencies are generating up to $4.61 billion in commissions on more than $72 billion in active contracts under management, with those figures representing rises of 22% and 25% from $3.79 billion and $57.8 billion three years ago. Years of consolidation preceded that 2022 ranking, and the mega-agencies' shopping sprees haven't let up in the years since. For instance, Roc Nation Sports and Klutch parent UTA enhanced their global soccer rosters with deals for Brazil's TFM and Germany's ROOF, respectively. You First, which ranked 10th on Forbes' 2022 agency list, was itself acquired by Hollywood talent agency Gersh last year (and narrowly missed the 2025 agency top 10). CAA, meanwhile, has continued its push beyond talent representation—sports, entertainment or otherwise—by absorbing consulting firm Portas and Hanold Associates, which leads searches for human resources executives. Jeff Schwartz, CEO of Excel, which entered on-field NFL representation for the first time with its 2023 purchase of REP 1 Football, says his agency has meetings 'probably monthly' to discuss its growth priorities and potential acquisition targets. But while competition at the top remains fierce—just last week, leading NFL agency Athletes First announced that it had pried away Tory Dandy, CAA's co-head of football, to become an equity partner—'it's not just grow to grow,' says Jason Ranne, Wasserman's president of global talent representation. Agencies are focused on exploiting specific financial opportunities and expanding client services rather than merely keeping up with the Joneses. 'We don't actually view it as some unusual pace,' Ranne adds of Wasserman, which has either acquired or entered into strategic partnerships with 10 smaller agencies over the last two years, bolstering its hockey group in April with a deal for KO Sports. 'It's just kind of par for the course for us for the last 10 years.' One other major factor driving the M&A activity has been an influx of institutional investors. At least seven of this year's top 10 agencies have been backed by private equity or venture capital money in recent years, with Excel currently seeking a new investor as Shamrock Capital considers selling the minority stake it acquired in the firm in 2020. Schwartz, who in addition to his position overseeing Excel comes in at No. 2 in Forbes' 2025 ranking of sports agents, says he expects the fundraise to close by the end of the year. 'It's no different than healthcare and the other places where private equity shows up,' Ranne says. 'It does tend to push for M&A activities—that's kind of their bread and butter.' CAA, which had already been controlled by private equity firm TPG, offered a proof of concept in 2023 when it sold a majority stake in the agency to François-Henri Pinault and his billionaire family's investment company, Groupe Artémis. The deal reportedly valued the entirety of CAA—including its entertainment business, which is now smaller than the sports side—at roughly $7 billion, a big step up from TPG's $1.1 billion purchase in 2014. The most notable change in this year's agency ranking, however, runs against the consolidation trend. WME Sports, which was No. 3 on the 2022 list, went private in a transaction that closed in March and has been forced to divest its football and basketball divisions to avoid violating NFL and NBA conflict-of-interest rules, which do not allow team owners to simultaneously hold a representation business in the sport. (Egon Durban, the billionaire co-CEO of Silver Lake, which led the WME deal, has a stake in the Las Vegas Raiders, and tech billionaire Michael Dell, whose family office invested in the new WME, owns a piece of the San Antonio Spurs.) Sports will remain a focus for WME, which still has a major presence in tennis, golf, action sports and media, although it fell just outside Forbes' 2025 agency ranking. WME's former football division, now rebranded as WIN Sports Group, also missed the cut despite Joel Segal landing at No. 14 on Forbes' agent list. But its newly independent basketball business—using the name WME Basketball, at least temporarily—came in at No. 10 among North American sports agencies, with Bill Duffy at No. 4 on the top agents list. Among the other changes to the talent representation landscape since Forbes' last ranking in 2022, virtually all of the top 10 agencies have significantly expanded their college NIL practices—and are seeing an actual financial return, beyond the benefits of cultivating a talent pipeline. 'I would say this year it made the move to justifying the effort,' CAA's Nuchow says. 'This is now a whole new budget line item that you hadn't had before that is millions of dollars.' Women's sports are also a new, or renewed, area of focus for much of the industry, even though playing contracts for female athletes remain modest. And while agencies wait for the millions to come for some of those clients, they are benefiting from the rising tide in other ways. 'We're working on the areas where the growth is happening, meaning franchise values,' Nuchow says, noting that CAA advises on media rights and stadium construction. Beyond talent representation, agencies have been building out their divisions that work with brands, teams and leagues—areas that are excluded from the Forbes ranking but can have superior profit margins. Still, even as sports agencies branch out in new directions—and talent representation becomes a smaller piece of total revenue—they aren't planning to get out of the business that got them here. 'Talent is in our DNA at Excel, and talent opens the door for so many of these other areas,' Schwartz says. 'Could revenues be greater in some other areas? Maybe—but I still think there's so much to do globally on the talent side that we're focused on.' Most Valuable Sports Agencies 2025 #1. CAA 📍 Los Angeles Key Sports: Football, Basketball, Soccer, Baseball, Hockey Key Clients: Josh Allen, Devin Booker, Sidney Crosby, Jack Grealish, Shohei Ohtani Estimated Clients: 3,070 Estimated Playing Contracts Under Management: $15.9 billion Estimated Non-Playing Contracts Under Management: $4.59 billion Maximum Commissions: $1.143 billion Tom Wilson/#2. Wasserman 📍 Los Angeles Key Sports: Baseball, Basketball, Soccer, Hockey, Football, Golf, Olympic Sports, Rugby, Action Sports Key Clients: Maxx Crosby, Katie Ledecky, Connor McDavid, Evan Mobley, Zack Wheeler Estimated Clients: 4,360 Estimated Playing Contracts Under Management: $9.52 billion Estimated Non-Playing Contracts Under Management: $3.07 billion Maximum Commissions: $956 million#3. Excel Sports Management 📍 New York City Key Sports: Basketball, Football, Baseball, Golf Key Clients: Caitlin Clark, Jared Goff, Nikola Jokic, Cal Raleigh, Tiger Woods Estimated Clients: 750 Estimated Playing Contracts Under Management: $6.56 billion Estimated Non-Playing Contracts Under Management: $3.5 billion Maximum Commissions: $783 million #4. Octagon 📍 McLean, Virginia Key Sports: Hockey, Baseball, Basketball, Football, Golf, Tennis, Soccer, Olympic Sports Key Clients: Simone Biles, Stephen Curry, Leon Draisaitl, Trinity Rodman, Bobby Witt Jr. Estimated Clients: 900 Estimated Playing Contracts Under Management: $3.55 billion Estimated Non-Playing Contracts Under Management: $1.64 billion Maximum Commissions: $463 million#5. Klutch Sports Group/UTA 📍 Los Angeles Key Sports: Basketball, Football, Baseball, Soccer Key Clients: Rafael Devers, Kai Havertz, Jalen Hurts, LeBron James, A'ja Wilson Estimated Clients: 680 Estimated Playing Contracts Under Management: $6.27 billion Estimated Non-Playing Contracts Under Management: $1 billion Maximum Commissions: $351 million #6. Boras Corporation 📍 Newport Beach, California Key Sport: Baseball Key Clients: Pete Alonso, Carlos Correa, Bryce Harper, Corey Seager, Juan Soto Estimated Clients: 110 Estimated Playing Contracts Under Management: $4.89 billion Estimated Non-Playing Contracts Under Management: $80 million Maximum Commissions: $260 million #7. Roc Nation Sports 📍 New York City Key Sports: Football, Soccer, Basketball, Baseball Key Clients: CJ Abrams, LaMelo Ball, Skylar Diggins, Kyler Murray, Vinicius Jr. Estimated Clients: 260 Estimated Playing Contracts Under Management: $2.14 billion Estimated Non-Playing Contracts Under Management: $510 million Maximum Commissions: $218 million #8. Athletes First 📍 Laguna Hills, California Key Sport: Football Key Clients: Justin Herbert, Micah Parsons, Dak Prescott, Jalen Ramsey, Tua Tagovailoa Estimated Clients: 220 Estimated Playing Contracts Under Management: $5.68 billion Estimated Non-Playing Contracts Under Management: $400 million Maximum Commissions: $197 million#9. GSE Worldwide 📍 New York City Key Sports: Golf, Tennis, Football Key Clients: Chase Brown, Bryson DeChambeau, Joaquin Niemann, Tommy Paul, Jessica Pegula Estimated Clients: 290 Estimated Playing Contracts Under Management: $210 million Estimated Non-Playing Contracts Under Management: $580 million Maximum Commissions: $122 million#10. WME Basketball 📍 Beverly Hills, California Key Sport: Basketball Key Clients: Luka Doncic, Anthony Edwards, Chet Holmgren, Sabrina Ionescu, Jalen Williams Estimated Clients: 270 Estimated Playing Contracts Under Management: $1.8 billion Estimated Non-Playing Contracts Under Management: $400 million Maximum Commissions: $120 millionMethodology Forbes' 2025 list of the most valuable sports agencies ranks firms based in North America according to an estimate of the maximum commissions they can generate from the contracts they manage. Agencies that do the bulk of their business in Europe or Asia—such as TEAM8, which is headquartered in Ohio but has the vast majority of its contracts under management attached to Roger Federer—are excluded. However, for any agency that is included in the ranking, the contract and client estimates do include overseas divisions, such as CAA's Stellar soccer group. Estimates for Klutch Sports Group include contracts negotiated by ROOF, a European-focused soccer agency that was acquired by Klutch parent UTA in 2024. Estimates for WME Basketball are strictly for the divested basketball division of WME Sports. The list considers both playing and marketing contracts for clients in all team sports at the ranked agencies (including sports that have a relatively small presence in North America, such as cricket and rugby). The list also considers marketing contracts for clients in individual sports, such as golf and tennis, as well as clients who are retired. In addition to endorsements, the non-playing contract estimates include contracts for coaches and sports media personalities and athletes' content deals. All figures reflect only individual talent; agency divisions that represent brands or sports properties such as leagues and teams are not included. Clients from outside the sports world are also excluded in the case of agencies that have entertainment divisions, such as CAA, Wasserman, Klutch/UTA and Roc Nation. Contract figures represent estimates of the total value of all active deals under management as of December 31, 2024, including both money that has already been paid out and money that has yet to be paid. To calculate commissions on playing contracts, Forbes multiplied the contract value either by the maximum agent fee allowed by that league's players' union or by the standard market rate in cases where there is no cap—3% in the NFL, 4% in the NBA and the NHL, 5% in MLB and 10% in European soccer. (In golf and tennis, agents traditionally do not earn commissions on their clients' prize money.) Forbes assumes a 20% commission rate on endorsement contracts, and lower rates on other sorts of non-playing contracts, in line with industry standards. Forbes' contract total estimates are rounded to the nearest $10 million. Maximum commission estimates are rounded to the nearest $1 million. Agency client count estimates are rounded to the nearest 10. Figures were compiled through conversations with industry insiders and with the help of public reports and databases such as Spotrac, Inside the League, PuckPedia and Capology. Some clients and contract figures that could not be independently corroborated were not included. 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Forbes
a minute ago
- Forbes
Mastitis Costs The Dairy Industry $32 Billion A Year. Julia Somerdin Is Trying To Change That
J ulia Somerdin's test subjects line up for work before dawn, their tails swishing at flies as a robotic milking machine attaches to their udders to complete work once done by a farmer's hands. Somerdin has a particular interest in the robotic milking agents—and specifically, the ways in which this 21st century technology is still failing to solve a challenge to milk production as old as dairy farming itself: mastitis. The bacterial infection of the udder can spread through a herd, reducing milk supply and requiring milk be discarded. This not only causes pain for the animal but added expenses for farms. Somerdin is building a tool, via her agtech startup Labby, that can detect an infected cow from a rise in immune cells in her milk—often before the cow begins to show physical symptoms. Early detection is key on big, busy farms where farmers don't have the time to check on every cow, every day, Somerdin says. 'The really important thing is they give their time and resources to the cow who truly needs attention,' Somerdin tells Forbes . 'It's like a classroom; your teachers need to pay attention to the kids who need help, not to the kids who don't need help.' Each case of mastitis can cost as much as $500 in lower production and lost product per cow, and on any given month farmers will have two- to five percent of their cows suffering from the contagious infection. The condition affects 250 million cows each year, worldwide, costing the global dairy industry $32 billion. Somerdin, one of the listees on the 2025 Forbes 50 Over 50, is working to change these statistics, and she's doing so with Labby, the milk-testing startup she developed through MIT. Labby's system, MilKey (the dairy world loves a pun) uses a combination of advanced imaging technology and includes a device that looks like a handheld Game Boy to capture data from milk samples in real time. An AI-powered algorithm analyses the milk's composition for fat, protein and somatic cell count, which detects if the cow's immune system is responding to an infection. The data is then delivered to the farmer through a cell phone app, and the idea is to alert the farmer to an infection before a cow shows symptoms—and well before the current farming practice of batch testing milk after it's taken from a farm. 50 Over 50: 2025 Our fifth annual list of 200 women who are redefining what's possible in life's second half. VIEW THE FULL LISTST 'We all know in the past 20 years how big data has transformed human health,' Somerdin says. 'More and more we realize how animal health is connected to human health.' Somerdin has been clear on the need-case for her Rochester, New York-based company since she launched it in 2017. But the path from concept to market success has been neither fast nor smooth. In this way, she has much in common with the small dairy farmers struggling to keep their family enterprises going. 'I know exactly why I'm doing this: to make a real impact, to solve overlooked problems in agriculture, and to show what's possible when you don't give up — even when the odds say you should,' she says. Born in China and an electrical engineer by training, Somerdin spent the first half of her career building the business aspects of technology platforms that solve complex problems in telecommunications and defense. She earned an MBA at Northeastern University and in 2013 she started a graduate program in systems design and management at MIT. There she met cofounder Anshuman Das, a postdoc physicist with expertise in optics, imaging and materials science. Somerdin said she didn't know anything about dairy farming then—although she'd spent summers on her grandfather's farm in China—but wanted to pursue a mission-driven startup idea. Das and engineer Akshat Wahi were patenting a new mobile fluid testing technology that felt like a perfect fit for the $990 billion global dairy industry. From this, Labby was born. Out of the gate, Labby accumulated startup competition wins and modest investments from both in the U.S. and Europe. The company was selected for the Techstars Lisbon Accelerator program in 2020 and the Dairy Farmers of America innovation program. It's been awarded two non-dilutive U.S. Small Business Innovation Research grants totaling more than $1.25 million. But like farming, Labby was a lot of work without immediate returns; by 2022 Somerdin said the company used up its resources and had become a one-woman operation. 'Most startups fold under those conditions. But I didn't,' she says. Later that year, Labby won $250,000 in the Grow-NY competition and that opened the door to a prestigious hardware accelerator in Rochester. Somerdin relocated the company from Boston to Rochester to be closer to upstate dairy farmers. More grants followed and Labby now has a team of eight. Today, the company's business model is based on revenue streams from the hardware and a per cow/per day data collection and analysis subscription. Labby is prices its systems on a farm-by-farm basis depending on how milking parlors are set up and how many cows are to be monitored. 'It has that predictive capability, whether the problem is going to happen in a few hours or a few days. That can make a huge difference in economic return or resource allocation,' Somerdin explains, noting there is also industry-wide value in the collective data Labby eventually will amass. 'Why do I do this? Help the dairy, help the people, help the planet.' Julia Somerdin, Labby cofounder and CEO Labby has been testing and validating its system at the Cornell Agriculture Systems Testbed and Demonstration Site (CAST) for the Farm of the Future. CAST's director, Professor Julio Giordano, says that what makes Labby unique is it can be used in any milking parlor and integrate other data streams, such as environmental readings, farmers collect. There are other technologies that capture the same data as Labby's technology, he said, but much of that technology is specific to the milking parlor systems they're attached to. Labby's flexibility makes it unique. 'Data integration is one of the biggest challenges we are facing now,' Giordano says, referring to the wider dairy industry. 'There's so many diverse data streams on farms, from sensors to non-sensor systems, the challenge is putting them together in ways that can be truly useful.' In May, Labby's first commercial installation at the SmartHolstein Lab in Bowling Green, Kentucky, went live. Jeffrey Bewley, the executive director of genetics and innovation for Holstein Association USA and a partner in the SmartHolstein Lab, says that cows already are outfitted with a bovine version of a FitBit to monitor how much they are eating, ruminating and moving as markers of good health. But at more than 1,000 pounds each, cows can be clumsy and curious, nosing at wires and cameras installed in barns. Labby accounts for those challenges in its contactless design and housing, Bewley explains. 'There's no moving parts and no downside to measuring continuously,' he says. 'It can run as long as the milking parlor is running.' Bewley grew up on a dairy farm and went on to earn a PhD at Purdue University researching precision dairy farming technologies, so he's seen his fair share of dairy innovations. Labby's other value proposition, he says, is that it can essentially be 'always on,' accounting for the fact that at larger dairies, milking parlors can run as much as 22 hours a day. 'This allows us to have multiple eyes on the cows throughout the day and know when they are saying, 'Something is up with me,'' he says. 'It's about the health and well-being of the animal and everyone wants the animal to be well-cared for. This is a tool in the toolbox to do that.' As for Somerdin, she's focused on the bigger picture of how Labby might improve life at the dairy, not just in tending cows but for farmers who need more efficient systems to produce a high-quality product that keeps consumers satisfied and keeps farms financially viable while making supply chains more productive. 'When I started, a farmer in Massachusetts said, 'Julia, I don't need a toy,'' she said. 'Why do I do this? Help the dairy, help the people, help the planet.' More from Forbes Forbes 50 Over 50: Investment By Maggie McGrath Forbes 50 Over 50: Impact By Maggie McGrath Forbes 50 Over 50: Innovation By Maggie McGrath Forbes 50 Over 50: Lifestyle By Maggie McGrath Forbes 50 Over 50 Global: 2025 By Maggie McGrath Forbes Meet The Judges For The 2024 50 Over 50 List By Maggie McGrath Forbes The Age Of Disruption: Meet The 50 Over 50 2023 By Maggie McGrath
