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CARF covers just 14% of crypto's taxable activity as the U.S. weighs the Clarity Act. By Nora Bennett At least $457 billion in onchain crypto activity qualified as taxable in 2025, and the global reporting standard built to track it reached only a fraction of that. Chainalysis puts the coverage of the OECD's Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework at roughly 14% of the total, a gap that leaves tax authorities blind to the large majority of taxable transactions even as the framework moves toward wider adoption. The number lands at a moment when the infrastructure around digital assets is maturing far faster than the rules meant to govern it. Wall Street is wiring itself for tokenized markets, prime brokers are extending crypto plumbing into traditional equities, and Washington is debating a market-structure bill that one former defense official now frames in national-security terms. The reporting layer, by contrast, is still catching up to where the money already is. $457 billion onchain, 14% reported. Chainalysis's estimate covers activity that would generate a tax obligation somewhere: disposals, swaps, income events and the rest of the onchain footprint that regulators expect to see declared. CARF, adopted by the OECD to give jurisdictions a common language for exchanging crypto tax data, is designed to automate that visibility across borders. Its early reach of about 14% shows how much of the market still sits outside any coordinated reporting regime, whether because a jurisdiction hasn't implemented the standard or because the activity runs through channels CARF doesn't yet capture. The mismatch matters for how the next wave of regulation gets written. A market that produces close to half a trillion dollars in taxable events every year is no longer a niche compliance problem, and the distance between that figure and what tax agencies can actually observe is the kind of gap that invites tighter rules rather than lighter ones. RQD* raises $74 million for tokenized-market plumbing. The clearing and custody firm RQD* Clearing raised $74 million in a round led by Bain Capital, with the proceeds earmarked for expanding its digital asset and tokenization infrastructure. The company operates in the unglamorous middle of the market - clearing, settlement, custody - the part that has to work before tokenized securities can trade at institutional scale. That's the tell in this cluster. The capital is flowing not into another exchange or token, but into the back-office machinery that lets traditional finance handle tokenized assets the way it handles stocks and bonds today. Bain leading the round signals that established investors expect tokenization to become a mainstream settlement problem worth solving now, ahead of the regulatory clarity that would formalize it. Ripple Prime opens a Delta One desk. Ripple Prime launched a Delta One business this week, letting institutional clients trade total return swaps tied to U.S.-listed equities, indexes and digital assets through its multi-asset prime brokerage. The service, live for hedge fund and institutional clients, allows cross-margined exposure across those markets from a single platform - a structure that lets a crypto-native prime broker offer synthetic access to traditional equities without clients touching the underlying shares. It's a notable direction of travel: a firm built around digital assets moving into the derivatives plumbing of conventional stock markets, rather than the other way around. WalletInvestor's model leans constructive on XRP over a one-year horizon, though the Ripple-branded prime brokerage and the token trade on separate logic; the desk's expansion is a business development for the wider Ripple ecosystem, not a mechanical driver of the asset's price. The regulatory question underneath it is whether services blending equity derivatives and digital assets fall cleanly under existing securities rules or land in the same undefined territory the Clarity Act aims to settle. A former defense secretary's case for the Clarity Act. The Clarity Act, the U.S. market-structure bill that would divide oversight of digital assets between regulators and define when a token is a security, picked up an unusual advocate. A former U.S. Secretary of Defense argued that passing it is a national-security imperative, framing clear domestic rules as a way to keep digital-asset activity anchored in the United States rather than pushed offshore into jurisdictions Washington can't oversee. That argument, made in the official's own words rather than as settled policy, reframes a debate that has mostly turned on investor protection and jurisdictional turf. The counterweight, also raised in the discussion around the bill, is that codifying the rules could entrench the largest incumbents by handing them a compliance moat smaller firms can't match. Both are live claims about a bill that has not become law, and the security framing is one advocate's read, not a consensus position. Prices firmed while the losses piled up. The market backdrop was mildly positive as this played out. Total crypto market capitalization rose 1.36% over 24 hours to $2.68 trillion on Thursday, August 27, helped by ETF inflows and steadier sentiment, though the gains spread unevenly across major assets. Running underneath the price action is a security problem that keeps growing. CoinGecko tallped $3.63 billion in crypto losses from breaches over the stretch from January 2025 through mid-2026, a figure that tracks the same theme as the tax-reporting gap: the market's scale is outrunning the systems meant to secure and account for it. Every one of those stolen dollars is also, in most jurisdictions, a taxable and reportable event that the current framework struggles to see. For all the institutional buildout - the clearing rounds, the prime-brokerage desks, the market-structure bill - the reporting standard meant to bring order to it still touches only about one in seven taxable dollars onchain. Whether the Clarity Act narrows that gap or simply redraws the map around it is the question the next round of rulemaking will have to answer. Nora Bennett Senior markets editor, WalletInvestor Nora leads WalletInvestor's markets desk, covering macro data, central banks and the forces moving global equities and rates.

The Openwork Partnership bolsters growth strategy with senior leadership appointments. 24/08/2026 * Willem van Rooy joins from Quilter plc to lead Openwork's Strategic Investments team, as Aidan Chavasse becomes CFO of Omnis Investments. London, 24 August 2026 - The Openwork Partnership ("Openwork"), one of the UK's largest financial advice networks, today announces two senior leadership appointments across the Group, as it strengthens its acquisition, succession and investment capabilities to support the next phase of its growth strategy. Willem van Rooy will join Openwork as Director of Mergers, Acquisitions & Succession, taking up the role at the start of 2027. He will lead Openwork's Strategic Investments team, supporting the Partnership's development through strategic acquisitions and helping advisers and firms across the network navigate succession opportunities. Supported by Openwork's partnership with Bain Capital, the team has already made considerable progress in 2026, including the acquisition of West Midlands Mortgage Centre, a valued part of the Openwork network for more than 20 years. Willem joins from Quilter plc, where, as Mergers & Acquisitions Director, he led the development of the group's acquisition and integration framework and executed multiple transactions with a combined value of more than £2 billion. He brings over two decades of financial services experience to the role. As part of the changes, Aidan Chavasse, Openwork's current Strategic Investments Director, will take on the new role of Chief Financial Officer at Omnis Investments, which manages £11.4 billion in assets, from January 2027. Aidan has held several senior finance and strategy roles across Openwork, including as Interim CFO and Head of Finance & Strategy. His appointment comes at an exciting time for Omnis as it continues to evolve its proposition and executes on an ambitious growth plan. Rob Barker, CEO at The Openwork Partnership, said: "Supporting advisers through strategic investments remains central to Openwork's ambition of becoming the UK's leading financial advice network. Willem's record of building and executing acquisition strategies on a scale makes him the ideal person to lead that work. I look forward to welcoming him to Openwork. Aidan has already demonstrated the rigour, commercial acumen and leadership needed to deliver some of the Partnership's most significant strategic initiatives, and he will bring those same strengths to Omnis as it enters its next phase of growth and development." Willem van Rooy, incoming Director of Mergers, Acquisitions & Succession at The Openwork Partnership, said: "There is a significant opportunity to use M&A to drive inorganic growth and succession across the Partnership. I am excited to join at a point where there is real ambition to build a disciplined, scalable acquisition capability and to work with the team to turn that ambition into meaningful growth." Aidan Chavasse, incoming CFO of Omnis Investments, said: "I am incredibly proud of what we have achieved in the Strategic Investments team. Our initial work has delivered strong successes and set the Partnership up to excel in this space to function as a key lever in our growth journey. Equally, I am incredibly excited to be stepping into this new role at Omnis as it too takes on a pivotal stage in its evolution and growth." About The Openwork Partnership Openwork Limited is one of the UK's largest and longest-established financial advice networks, supporting nearly 5,000 advisers across 800+ firms across Openwork, 2plan, and Owl Financial. Covering the full spectrum of advice, from protection, mortgages, wealth planning, and investments, Openwork Limited help advisers grow their businesses and deliver outstanding advice to clients. Its network is built on partnership and collaboration. From support with recruitment, through to growth, succession and renewal, Openwork Limited enable its network firms to build and grow successful, sustainable practices and focus on delivering the best possible advice to their clients. This includes access to its proprietary investment proposition, Omnis Investments, the Openwork Business School, a dedicated platform to support recruitment, training and professional development across the network, and its 800+ strong central team which offers expert support in areas such as compliance, technology, marketing, and operations. The Openwork Group is majority-owned by the Openwork Partnership LLP with Bain Capital and its employees holding minority stakes. Media contact Hamza Farooq Senior External Communications Manager The Openwork Partnership

Apollo discloses data breach from ongoing wave of attacks hitting financial sector. The private equity firm said attackers broke into some of its cloud platforms during a five-day period in early July, compromising sensitive personal data. August 21, 2026 Apollo Global Management confirmed it was among several financial institutions impacted by a string of social engineering attacks that hit the sector last month, the company said Friday. Attackers gained unauthorized access to some of the private equity firm's cloud platforms between July 6 and July 10, the company said in a data breach notification filed in California. Apollo did not say when or how it became aware of the intrusion and did not respond to a request for comment. Apollo is the first victim to formally disclose that sensitive personal data under its care was compromised by a wave of attacks that have hit large private equity firms, law firms, financial rating agencies and medical technology companies. The company did not name the group responsible for the attack. Yet, Google earlier this month attributed the ongoing campaign to BlackFile, a threat group affiliated with The Com, that recently split its extortion operations across four brands with shared infrastructure: Redact, Pink, Helix and Falcon. "Upon detecting the incident, we promptly notified law enforcement, engaged leading outside cybersecurity and forensic experts, enhanced our security protocols, and launched an investigation," Matthew Breitfelder, global head of human capital at Apollo, wrote in the disclosure notice. As part of its ongoing investigation, Apollo said it determined on Aug. 12 that personal data including names, dates of birth, contact information, home addresses and Social Security numbers were compromised. The company did not say how many people were impacted, but noted it's thus far found no evidence any data was posted online or used for identity theft or fraud. Apollo is one of the world's largest private equity firms, with $1.05 trillion in assets under its management at the end of June, according to a regulatory filing. Researchers previously told CyberScoop some of Apollo's largest competitors, including Blackstone and Bain Capital, were also targeted with malicious infrastructure, but it's unclear if those firms were compromised. BlackFile and its various affiliates have impacted organizations in multiple industries, including healthcare, technology, transportation, logistics, wholesale, and retail and hospitality since the beginning of this year. The extortion group shifts from one sector to the next, impersonating IT support in voice-phishing and social-engineering attacks before threatening its alleged victims with extortion demands, which often start around $3 million and are typically negotiated down to less than $1 million. Google researchers also previously said some of the group's recent victims have been subject to threatening messages and other forms of escalation, including swatting incidents, a tactic adopted by several subsets of The Com.