Two of the U.K.’s most successful producers will have individual Spotlight Conversations at the 70th BFI London Film Festival‘s Industry Forum this October.
Neal Street Productions co-founder Pippa Harris (The Beatles, Hamnet, 1917) and indie producer James Wilson (The Zone of Interest, The Voice of Hind Rajab) are set to discuss their careers, current projects and navigating the international film and TV market in a rapidly changing landscape.
The LFF Industry Forum welcomes industry delegates from all over the world for a program of “thought-provoking conversations with some of the most exciting practitioners working in the screen industries and networking events with professionals from all over the world.” The full lineup will be announced in mid-September.
Harris will take a deep dive into her work on the hugely ambitious and much-anticipated quartet The Beatles films, directed by her Neal Street co-founder Sam Mendes, and discuss the challenges of development, production and her relationship with talent across her career. A prolific British film producer, her credits include the Oscar, Golden Golden Globe and BAFTA-winning Hamnet and 1917, Oscar and BAFTA-nominated Revolutionary Road, as well as Jarhead and The Magic Faraway Tree, Call the Midwife, Penny Dreadful and more.
Wilson is one of the U.K.’s most successful independent producers. He has worked for three decades in the business — for Fox Searchlight Pictures and Film4 before heading up his own company in the 2000s — and will speak during his Spotlight Conversation about the bold creative collaborations that have shaped his career so far. He has worked on the Oscar and BAFTA-winning The Zone of Interest and Under the Skin from Jonathan Glazer, as well as Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here, Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab and Aneil Karaia’s Hamlet.
“This year our industry programme puts a spotlight on producers and the vital role they play in shepherding artistic visions from their earliest stages through to the screen,” said Kristy Matheson, BFI London Film Festival Director. “I’m delighted that industry colleagues will have the opportunity to hear from Pippa Harris and James Wilson — two esteemed producers whose unique creative careers have given us some of the most memorable and critically acclaimed films of recent years.”
Attendance of international industry professional delegates to the LFF has doubled over the last five years. The 70th BFI London Film Festival, running Oct. 7-18, is set to open with Andrew Scott and Olivia Colman’s Elsinore, and close with Jesse Eisenberg’s musical-comedy The Debut.
In a year without Glastonbury, music lovers have turned to other festivals in the U.K. and Europe to fill the void. There’s Primavera Sound in Barcelona, with its proximity to the beach and genre-diverse lineup, or Reading and Leeds in England for those who want a true camping experience with a rock-focused flair. But look a little further north and you’ll find a hidden gem that’s capturing the attention of both festivalgoers and artists around the world: Øyafestivalen in Oslo, Norway.
Compared to a juggernaut festival like Glasto — known for its sprawling grounds, mandatory camping and rowdy atmosphere — Øya, which kicks off on Wednesday, delivers a more intimate experience. The capacity is about 10 times less (with 22,000 people expected to attend each day this year), it’s held in Tøyen Park in the middle of Oslo and there’s a certain Scandinavian politeness that seems to keep people from getting completely off their faces. But over the past decade or so, Øya has consistently delivered huge headliners and some of the best, most varied lineup curation on the festival scene, booking everyone from Blur to Kendrick Lamar to Charli xcx.
This year’s four-day lineup is headlined by the Cure, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Sombr and homegrown artist Dagny, but also includes Geese, Wilco, Lily Allen, Clipse, Blood Orange and Tomora (the collaboration between Chemical Brothers’ Tom Rowlands and Norwegian singer Aurora). There’s truly something for everyone, and its relatively small capacity, lack of huge crowds and overall peaceful vibe make it possible to actually see the artist you’re watching.
“Everybody can book a big headliner and put on a big show, but it’s the details and taking care of everything — being really nerdy on where you put the toilets and the bars and the sound bleed between the stages — all these things are very important,” says Claes Olsen, who co-founded the festival in 1999 and serves as its booking manager. “That’s what makes it unique.”
It’s such an enjoyable experience for artists and attendees alike that many of them — like the Cure, Nick Cave, Wilco and Blood Orange this year — are repeat bookings. As its profile has grown worldwide, Olsen says artist requests to play the festival have increased as well. Nowadays, Øya books its lineup up to 17 months in advance.
“We’re getting tons [of requests] every day,” Olsen says. “So as a booker, one of the most important jobs we actually do is to say no to people, which is not that fun. It’s hard. But of course, we also have to reach out a lot.”
Something Olsen is particularly proud of is that the Cure — who previously headlined the fest in 2019 — asked to come back before the band plans to retire in 2029. “We got an email from the agent for the Cure saying that Robert Smith wanted to play Øya before they stopped being the Cure,” he says. “I’ve been a fan since I was a teenager, so that was pretty amazing.”
Robert Smith from the Cure at Øya Fest in 2019.
Redferns
But it’s not just about attracting acts from the U.K. and U.S. for Øya — the festival puts a huge emphasis on local Norwegian artists, mixing them in throughout each day so it’s “not just them playing first and hoping somebody shows up,” Olsen says. And, the headlining spot on Saturday, the final day of the festival, always goes to a homegrown artist. This year, it’s dance-pop singer Dagny (pictured above), who hails from the city of Tromsø and broke through with hits like “Somebody” and “Drink About.”
For Dagny, headlining Øya has always been a dream, ever since she first played on a small stage at the festival a decade ago. “It’s kind of my Madison Square Garden, if you know what I mean,” she says. “Øya is one of those festivals where I feel like people are so open to music and to just being present, right there and then in the crowd. It’s really one of my favorites.”
She just released her third album, “Dancefloor Erotica,” which leans more into electro-pop and marks a real creative milestone in her career. “I feel weirdly out of my comfort zone, but at the same time I feel like I’m where I want to be,” Dagny says. “We have such a different energy now playing this record — it’s a bit darker, it’s a bit heavier, a bit more danceable.”
Another priority for Øya is gender parity, with the festival committing to a roughly even split between male and female performers. This year, Saturday’s main stage lineup is only women, headlined by Dagny but also including Lily Allen, Irish breakout CMAT and U.S. singer Hannah Cohen.
“Øya is real proof that [gender parity] doesn’t have to be a problem because they’re probably the biggest Norwegian festival and they always seem to get a pretty even balance,” Dagny says. “Not only am I the headliner on that stage with lots of female artists that day, but I think I’m also something like the fifth or sixth female artist to headline that slot in the last few years.”
This was of the utmost importance to U.K.-based feminist band Girl Group — four out of five members of which hail from Oslo — who are playing Øya for the first time. Having formed at the Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts in response to the male-dominated culture they experienced, Girl Group only works with women and nonbinary people, from the music-making process down to their videos and photography.
“They care a lot about the environment and feminism, and they try to make active choices for society, not just the festival itself,” Girl Group’s Mia Halvorsen says of Øya. “For us, being on a lineup with all the women we really value feels very special and meaningful. And obviously, our project is very political and very feminist, so it feels good to be seeing a bit more of that in festivals.”
Girl Group
Serskaten
In addition to its gender split pledge, Øya is a leader in festival sustainability, prioritizing waste management, stopping the use of fuel generators in 2008, and only serving meat-free food since 2024. Last year, the fest added human rights to this initiative, and is once again partnering with Amnesty International to fundraise for medical aid in Palestine.
“Working with Amnesty has helped us a lot to educate ourselves on the whole human rights situation, not only in Palestine but other places in the world as well,” Olsen says. “That work is super important going forward.”
As Øya has grown on the global stage, Norway as a whole has been experiencing a bit of a cultural moment. From Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value” bringing the country its first international feature Oscar earlier this year to their football team making it to the World Cup semi-finals, Norway’s profile is rapidly rising.
“It’s good to see Norwegian people charming the world a bit,” Olsen says. “It’s been really hard groundwork for the last 10 years, so I hope that continues.”
Dagny has not only observed an uptick in Norwegian artists being recognized internationally, but also on a local scale. “Music in the mother tongue has completely gone up,” she says. “I think after COVID, it’s pretty much just been Norwegian music that has been happening in Norway, with a few exceptions. Seeing how many Norwegian artists are doing so great, it’s helping to raise everyone’s bar of where we’re going to be at.”
Having lived in the U.K. for nearly a decade before moving back to Oslo before the pandemic, Dagny also believes that Norway’s environment contributes to her creative output. “Norway is thankfully a small and peaceful place, and sometimes what you need to be creative is time and space and quiet,” she says. “I think there is maybe something to the fact that I didn’t write an album until I moved back to Norway.”
Girl Group, who are currently based in Liverpool, have come to a similar realization — though for them, the artistic freedom they feel in Norway can be traced back to the way the country is run.
“We are a socialist country, we pay taxes, we have good education,” says Girl Group’s Katya Birkeland. “When you have good education, you get good directors, people who get to do acting, people who get to spend their time practicing football — you get people who get to do what they love.”
Adds member Maria Tollisen, “I think you need to be privileged and have a bit of financial safety and stability in order to be able to do art.”
Beyond just spotlighting homegrown acts, Øya also serves as a bit of a reunion for the local scene. “If you’re in a certain music scene in Oslo, it’s almost impossible to not have met a lot of [the acts],” Dagny says, mentioning that she’s looking forward to catching up-and-coming artist Ary and Tomora at the festival.
Girl Group also mentions Ary as a must-see artist, as well as the band Three40Four and singer-songwriters Elia and Ea Othilde. “One of my childhood best friends is a dancer for [Ary] now and I’ve not seen her for ages,” Birkeland says. “I can’t wait!”
FIFA president Gianni Infantino appears to have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
A month after the final of 2026 World Cup, which earned FIFA a record $15 billion in revenues, Infantino is fighting to keep his job. His controversial plan to sell off a stake in the World Cup to a group of private investors led by Joshua Kushner, the brother of President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, sparked a global backlash that shows no signs of abetting. The past week, soccer legends, sports authorities and even world leaders have called for Infantino to resign.
“Infantino must go,” wrote Portuguese soccer legend Luis Figo in an op-ed for the Daily Mail. “The Infantino era is over,” added Javier Tebas, president of Italy’s La Liga, an interview with French newspaper Le Monde. “It should be fatal,” said Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, on Infantino’s misstep with the sell-off plans. “Certainly I don’t have confidence in Mr. Infantino.”
The pile on has continued despite Infantino dropping his plan, officially ditching the proposal on July 31. The deal would have seen FIFA, a 96-year-old nonprofit, spin off its commercial interests into a new division, FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE). Kushner’s private equity group Thrive Capital would then buy a 21 percent stake in FFE for $4.2 billion. FIFA had argued the arrangement would raise billions to fund global sports development.
European soccer body UEFA called it an attempt to sell “the soul” of soccer and threatened to boycott future FIFA tournaments if the deal went through. The Asian Football Confederation and CONCACAF, which represents national organizations in North America, Central America and the Caribbean. also rejected the proposal.
FIFA quickly backed down. UEFA has not. Last week it said its boycott is still in place. The group reiterated its position that it has “lost confidence in Gianni Infantino’s presidency.” UEFA’s boycott will be tested at FIFA’s Under-20 Women’s World Cup, which kicks off in Poland Sept. 5.
On Friday, Norwegian soccer association directly called for Infantino to resign. “The trust is now gone for us,” Norwegian Football Federation president, Lise Klaveness, told The Guardian. “There is no way back for Infantino.”
Adding to the pile on was a report on Friday that a female employee alleged to have been in a relationship with Infantino when he was general secretary at UEFA, received a six-figure “departure payment.” UEFA confirmed the payment but FIFA said the allegations of inappropriate conduct by Infantino are “categorically untrue” and “defamatory,” adding that “no employee at UEFA and FIFA has ever raised a complaint regarding Mr Infantino’s behavior because there never was an incident where he was involved.”
FIFA on Saturday fired back at Infantino’s critics, accusing them of trying, “through allegation, insinuation or misinformation” to undermine “FIFA’s established democratic processes” by trying to oust Infantino before presidential elections next March.
UEFA is reportedly seeking support from other soccer confederations to call an emergency FIFA Congress to trigger a vote of no confidence in the president. UEFA, with 55 members, easily meets the threshold of 43 votes to call an emergency meeting. To topple Infantino, however, would require a majority of FIFA members, or 106 of the 211 national associations. The Confederation of African Football and South American confederation CONMEBOL have both publicly announced their backing for Infantino. Last week, Mexico broke with North American confederation CONCACAF to support FIFA’s beleaguered president.
The pressure is mounting on Gianni Infantino, but there is still time on the clock for him to turn this defeat back into a win.
Shibarium, the Layer-2 blockchain associated with Shiba Inu, has recorded a sharp rebound in daily transaction activity, with the network processing its highest number of transactions in a month.
According to data from Shibariumscan, the Shiba Inu L2 blockchain processed 4,480 transactions on August 9, marking a one-month high. The figure represents a dramatic recovery from the 738 transactions recorded on August 8. As a result, Shibarium’s daily transaction count jumped 507% within 24 hours.
The latest increase interrupts a prolonged decline in network activity. For context, Shibarium processed 5,170 transactions on July 10. However, daily activity gradually weakened afterward, eventually falling below 1,000 transactions for several consecutive days by August 2.
Therefore, the sharp increase recorded on August 9 represents a notable shift in network activity. Nevertheless, it remains unclear whether Shibarium can maintain this momentum over the coming days.
Shibarium’s Impressive Long-Term Stats
Meanwhile, Shibarium continues to post impressive long-term network statistics despite its recent weakness in daily activity.
Data from Shibariumscan shows that the Layer-2 network has now processed 1.56 billion transactions since launching in August 2023. In addition, the blockchain has recorded roughly 269.93 million addresses, highlighting the scale of its cumulative network usage.
Shibarium has also produced more than 18.47 million blocks, while its average block time currently stands at approximately 8.3 seconds.
Shibarium Transaction Volume Spikes
Shibarium DEX Activity Remains Extremely Weak
Despite the latest surge, Shibarium has yet to see a corresponding increase in decentralized finance activity.
At press time, decentralized exchanges on Shibarium had processed just $0.02 in trading volume over the previous 24 hours. This extremely low figure suggests that the increase in transaction activity has not yet translated into meaningful trading activity.
Similarly, Shibarium’s total value locked (TVL) stood at $25,273, while the network generated only $0.14 in fees and $0.14 in revenue during the same period.
Consequently, the latest transaction spike should not yet be interpreted as a broad recovery in Shibarium’s overall on-chain economic activity.
Shibarium TVL
Shiba Inu Burn Rate Declines 55%
Meanwhile, Shiba Inu’s token-burning activity has also weakened.
The $SHIB burn rate declined by 55% over the past 24 hours. During that period, the community permanently removed 4.72 million $SHIB tokens, worth around $22, from circulation.
The sharp slowdown contrasts with periods of elevated burn activity in recent weeks. However, the latest burn figure remains relatively small compared with the broader $SHIB supply.
$SHIB Slips to 29th in Crypto Rankings
The latest Shibarium developments come as $SHIB struggles to maintain its position among the largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.
After climbing to 25th place toward the end of July, Shiba Inu has since slipped to 29th. At press time, $SHIB had a market cap of $2.76 billion and traded at around $0.000004692.
Nevertheless, the token recorded a modest short-term recovery, gaining 1.28% over the previous 24 hours. Despite that increase, $SHIB remained down approximately 2.7% over the past seven days.
Open Doors, the Locarno Film Festival’s Locarno Pro-organized co-production platform and talent development program for filmmakers from regions where artistic expression is at risk, has wrapped up its 24th edition, its second with a focus on the African continent. And on Monday, its winners were unveiled.
Following a three-year cycle dedicated to Latin America and the Caribbean, the program’s current focus is on voices from Africa through its Projects, Producers, and Directors programs. It provides training, mentoring, and networking opportunities.
Open Doors Grant A total of CHF 50,000 sponsored by visions sud est (with the support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation), the City of Bellinzona, and the Open Doors initiative.
CHF 20’000 to A Vineyard for A Lobster by Talemwa Pius, produced by Emmanuel Gashumba (Gripmagic Uganda Limited), Uganda.
Synopsis: “The equatorial village of Rukumba has endured months of drought when suddenly snow falls overnight, an impossible event blanketing the land in white. Kamuturaki (48), a failed trader once mocked for selling winter jackets under the blazing sun, becomes an overnight success. Byeitaka (40), a disgraced preacher, declares the snow divine and sells melted snowflakes as holy water to frightened followers. Kagoro (38), the timid chairman, watches his authority erode as the village reorganizes itself around the miracle. When British envoys arrive promising support for Rukumba’s independence from Uganda in exchange for access to the snow for scientific research, the village committee embraces the deal as progress. As competing ambitions take hold across the village, tensions rise and unrest erupts, forcing Ugandan military forces to intervene. By the time the snowfall melts, Rukumba is no longer a community but a collection of competing interests, each convinced the miracle belongs to them.”
CHF 20’000 Accept My Plea for Burial by Mohammed Sheikh, produced by Kadir Harbi (Aleel Films), Somalia/Djibouti .
Synopsis: “In a remote Somali pastoral village, two 12-year-old boys, Waasuge and Warmooge, spend their days herding goats and playing games. Their playful rivalry turns tragic when Warmooge dies after falling into a steep dry riverbed during a game. No one sees exactly what happened, and the only witness, a mentally unstable man, gives conflicting accounts that deepen the uncertainty. As the village gathers, grief hardens into accusation. Warmooge’s mother, Saluugla, refuses to bury her son without justice, believing burial without accountability would erase his death. The elder, Alamagan, attempts to resolve the conflict through customary law and religious counsel, but the absence of truth fractures the community. Rituals are performed, oaths proposed and broken, and tensions escalate as the unburied body decays. Despite Waasuge’s age and the lack of evidence, the village demands resolution. Understanding what the adults cannot admit, Waasuge makes a choice that ends the conflict.”
CHF10’000 Too Much Music by Aseye Fiagbe, produced by Aseye Fiagbe (Aseye Fiagbe Creative Studio), Ghana.
Synopsis: “Too Much Music is a feature documentary about Kiki Gyan, a Ghanaian keyboard prodigy who rose to international fame as a teenager with Afro-rock pioneers Osibisa. As his musical contributions expanded without recognition, tensions around credit and ownership led him to leave the band and pursue a solo career across London, Lagos and New York, shaping African disco and funk in the process. Over time, the same system that profited from his brilliance proved indifferent to his vulnerability, and his life became reduced to a singular narrative of addiction and demise. Through archival material and testimonies from family and collaborators, the film reconstructs the forces that shaped his journey and asks how artists are remembered, who controls their stories, and what is lost when brilliance is reframed as failure.”
CNC Development Grant The CNC development prize is an incentive for the development of a project for the value of 8,000 euros.
Chapa 100 by Ique Langa, produced by Lara Sousa (Kulunga Filmes), Mozambique.
Synopsis: “In the busy streets of Maputo, 80-year-old flower vendor Sitóe offers brief moments of beauty to strangers passing through the city’s crowded “chapas”, the local minibuses that carry thousands of people every day. One morning, he meets Valentina, a vegetable seller in her seventies, and a simple flower sparks a quiet romance. Together, they dream of owning a small piece of land where flowers and vegetables can grow side by side. When a thief steals Valentina’s rented wig, Sitóe runs after him and is struck by a speeding chapa. The city moves on, but Sitóe does not. His spirit becomes tied to the very minibus that killed him, traveling through Maputo day after day among passengers carrying their hopes, grief, and exhaustion. Flowers slowly begin to bloom inside the vehicle, subtle signs of his lingering presence. One day, Valentina boards the chapa carrying the flower Sitóe once gave her. Surrounded by the quiet traces of his spirit, she feels his love beside her once again.”
Jury statement: “By awarding the CNC grant to the fiction project Chapa 100, directed by Ique Langa, the jury aims to support the development of a work imbued with genuine sensitivity and poetry. The jury was particularly moved by the film’s portrayal of a love story between two elderly characters – a rare theme in cinema – set against the vibrant backdrop of Maputo. Furthermore, the project’s artistic potential is reinforced by the director and producer’s strong commitment to establishing a robust international distribution strategy that would match the film’s universal appeal.”
ARTEKino International Award Providing an incentive for the development of a project for the value of 6,000 euros.
The Ones With the Tempered Flowers by Neema Ngelime, produced by Ivy Kiru (LBx Africa), Tanzania/Kenya.
Synopsis: “For Neema, being a woman has always meant a script: school, marriage, babies. When a doctor tells filmmaker Neema having children might be hard, she doesn’t expect it to confuse her. Those expectations wound her. Raised in a multi-religious home, her identity was forged by questions of what is haram and what would please Jesus. All Neema cared about was which hell she’d end up in. To her, the older women in her family are a mystery beyond work and family. Their lives feel prophetic to her own. Her sister and her try to rewrite their scripts through tarot. Her father taught her that anything is possible. Now he reminds her of her fate. She stages performances with her family, reenacting fragments of their lives. They believe these are fictions. But they’re memories, repurposed, hidden truths surfacing through play. This is the story of a woman studying her body’s relationship to self, society, and the political weight placed on women’s bodies in Tanzania, challenging duty masked as love.”
Jury statement: “ARTEKino aims to support emergent contemporary cinema through the ArteKino International Award and the ARTEKino festival. ARTE has decided to reward a young director, whose project is a performative essay and a personal journey that explores the expectations placed on women by family, society and tradition. This is the story of a woman studying her body’s relationship to self, society and the political weight placed on women’s bodies in her country.”
Sørfond Award The prize consists of the participation at the Sørfond Pitching Forum at the Films From the South festival for one of the Open Doors Projects, which will be held in November this year in Norway.
The Ones With the Tempered Flowers by Neema Ngelime, produced by Ivy Kiru (LBx Africa), Tanzania/Kenya .
EAVE Award Together with the Film Fund Luxembourg, professional training organization EAVE will offer a scholarship for the EAVE Marketing Workshop worth EUR 4,000.
Tabakalera-San Sebastian Film Festival Residency Award The prize consists of a residency in Tabakalera and taking part in the industry activities of the San Sebastian Film Festival, given in collaboration with the International Culture Center Tabakalera and San Sebastian Film Festival.
I Live in V.I., by Ugochukwu Azuya, produced by Olubunmi Ogunsola (ENSEMBLE), Nigeria
Jury statement: “We wanted to highlight the following project because it follows a great story that is set and represents a unique and specific spot of its country and has the power to connect with universal concerns like displacement, class struggle and housing and labor pressures. It is also a project that could benefit from the platform of our festival so that it can open new ways of collaboration, and searching partnerships that allow the film to strenghten and fulfill its necessities. And also: because we believe that every each of us carries a little Florence that tries to make its way in a varied and complex world, we want to welcome the team behind I Live in V.I., so that its producer Olubunmi Ogunsola can come to San Sebastian and make it through with their amazing project.”
Rotterdam Lab Award In collaboration with IFFR Pro, a participant from the Open Doors Producers will have the chance to take part in the training workshop Rotterdam Lab in January 2027, together with a delegation of more than 70 emerging international producers.
Adja Mariam Mahre Soro(Studio KÄ), Ivory Coast
Jury statement: “For her highly professional approach to her work as a producer and entrepreneur, and for the integrity and commitment she has demonstrated in building and developing her company. Her dedication to strengthening the local ecosystem through training initiatives and international collaborations is equally remarkable. She is now ready to build meaningful collaborations and co-productions across the continent and throughout Europe.”
Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) A consultancy prize to one selected feature film or series project directed by a national of an OIF Member State within the French-speaking Global South, produced or co-produced by a production company based in one of those same Member States.
Sarah, by Pocas Pascoal, Angola
Jury statement: “A film of revolution and independance, based on a moment in life of a revolutionary and independent woman, one of the first Black female filmmakers: Sarah Maldoror. Sarah by Pocas Pascoal is very promising narratively and visually and it will give space to a beautiful, multilingual, coproduction between several countries from Africa and Europe.”
AFP Critics Prize Presented by African Film Press (AFP) LLC, a cross-regional publishing alliance covering the African film, television, and digital media markets. The AFP Critics Prize comprises a USD 500 cash award, a certificate, and ongoing editorial coverage of the recipient and their future work across AFP’s three founding publications: Akoroko, Sinema Focus, and What Kept Me Up.
Submergido, by Ariel Añez, produced by Joseph Mata, co-produced by Ariel Añez (Maochas Filmes), Mozambique
Jury statement: “Sad and poignant yet ultimately hopeful, it offers a moving and incisive exploration of the human cost of conflict, especially for those whose loved ones are directly involved in war.”
Grayscale, one of the largest crypto asset managers based in the US, has withdrawn its ETF applications for three major altcoins.
At this point, Grayscale withdrew its ETF applications for Cardano, Hedera, and Polkadot, three altcoins that have recently caused significant disappointment with their price drops.
Grayscale has filed three Form RW withdrawal requests with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), seeking the withdrawal of S-1 registration statements for the Grayscale Cardano Trust ETF, Grayscale Hedera Trust ETF, and Grayscale Polkadot Trust ETF.
The SEC responded to this request in record time, with data showing that the ETF registrations were accepted just 190 seconds after the application was submitted.
Why Did Grayscale Withdraw Its ADA, HBAR, and DOT Applications?
The documents submitted to the SEC showed that all three applications contained standard and general justifications. Grayscale stated that it did not intend to proceed with the planned distribution of ETF shares under these registration statements. It was also noted that the registrations had not yet taken effect and no shares had been issued or sold.
In this context, neither Grayscale nor the SEC has explained the actual and clear reason for the withdrawal.
Finally, Grayscale currently has pending applications for Bittensor (TAO), Aave (AAVE), BNB, Near Protocol (NEAR), and Zcash (ZEC) ETFs. According to experts, this indicates that Grayscale is becoming more selective in its ETF applications.
Standard Chartered initiated coverage of Chainlink on Monday with a price target of $200 by end-2030, up from around $8 today.
The bank expects tokenized assets on-chain to reach $4 trillion by end-2028 and assets deployed in DeFi to grow 37-fold to $2.7 trillion by 2030.
LINK was trading at around $8.25 Monday, down 0.8% on the day, according to CoinGecko.
Standard Chartered has initiated coverage of Chainlink with a price target of $200 by the end of 2030, implying a roughly 25-fold gain from around $8 today and outperformance of both Bitcoin and Ethereum over the period.
Geoff Kendrick, the bank’s global head of digital assets research, laid out staged targets in a note published Monday: $13 by the end of this year, then $41, $82 and $133 before reaching $200. The same note pencils in Bitcoin at $500,000 and Ethereum at $40,000 by end-2030.
Kendrick expects the value of tokenized assets on-chain to climb roughly 12-fold to $4 trillion by end-2028 from about $340 billion now, and assets deployed in DeFi to grow 37-fold to $2.7 trillion by 2030. Because Chainlink charges for delivering data and moving assets between chains, the bank estimates its fees should rise about 25 times over that period, and assumes the token price follows fees.
Chainlink’s incumbency is the other half of the argument. The note puts its total value secured above $110 billion, covering roughly 70% of oracle-dependent value in DeFi globally and more than 80% on Ethereum. Aave V3 alone accounts for 44% of that secured value.
Wall Street on the client list
Kendrick named Swift, DTCC, Euroclear, JP Morgan, Mastercard, UBS, Fidelity and S&P Global among institutions using Chainlink services, and expects off-chain customers to become a growing share of fees. Tokenized funds and bonds need net asset values, rates and reserve attestations, making them more data-hungry than crypto-native assets.
On interoperability, Chainlink still trails LayerZero. The note says more than $7 billion in token value has moved from legacy bridges to Chainlink’s CCIP since a $292 million exploit in April, with quarterly CCIP volume reaching $4.9 billion in the second quarter, up 353% year on year. Decrypt reported in May that KelpDAO blamed LayerZero for that exploit and planned to rebuild on Chainlink, a characterization LayerZero disputes.
The note is the latest in a run of DeFi initiations from Kendrick, all built on the same 37-fold forecast. He set targets of $100 for Uniswap and $3,500 for Aave in June, and $60 for Morpho in July. UNI jumped double digits after its note landed. Chainlink’s response has been more muted, with LINK currently trading at $8.25, down 0.8% on the day, per CoinGecko data.
Risks flagged in the note include institutional tokenization scaling more slowly than expected, pilots failing to become recurring production workflows, specialist providers taking share, and technical failures denting confidence.
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Ugandan Talemwa Pius’ striking magic realist fable “A Vineyard for a Lobster” and “Accept My Plea for a Burial,” a Somalia set critique of ancient custom, emerged triumphant at Locarno’s 2026 Open Doors, winning its two biggest cash prizes.
Neither prize comes as a surprise.
Picturing a miraculous snowfall in a drought-ridden Ugandan village, in “A Vineyard for a Lobster,” Pius cleverly spins a political fable of broader collective breakdown, as characters – a desperate trader, a disgraced priest and a reluctant chairman – react to the miracle in self-serving ways rather than thinking about any common good. As their ambitions escalate, the village threatens to fall apart. From Kampala-based Gripmagic, “in the film, an impossible snowfall in a Ugandan village becomes a political allegory, echoing colonial intrusion,” Pius told Variety.
A €20,000 cash prize was also granted by Open Doors to “Accept My Plea for Burial” (“Baryo Aas Iga Gudoon”), by Mohammed Sheikh a Djibouti, Somalia and Qatar. It kicks in when Warmooge, 12, falls to his death while playing with Waasuge, a fellow goatherd. The village elder fails to resolve the case via customary law and religious counsel. Minnesota-based U.S.-Somali filmmaker Sheik’s follow-up to “Barni,” screening at Locarno, this is “a morally complex story where there is no clear truth, told through a rarely seen Somali cultural framework,” Sheikh told Variety.
Aseye Fiagbe’s “Too Much Music,” a rehabilitating music doc bio of Kiki Gyan, a Ghanaian keyboard prodigy, took in the same prize. Notably, however, Open Doors prizes announced Aug. 10 at Locarno Pro, the industry zone of Switzerland’s Locarno Film festival, were spread pretty evenly, every single titles among its six project focus walking off with some kind of compensation.
That prize sweep took in a development grant from France’s CNC national film board for “Chapa 100,” an endearing advanced age love story from Mozambique’s Ique Langa, who impressed with his Rotterdam main competition entry “The Prophet.”
An ArteKino International Award and a Sørfond Award went to “Tempered Flowers,” a diary-like essay, Tanzania’s Ngelime told Variety. It will use constructed archives, cinema verité performances with her family and stop motion to explore, respectively, Neema’s 1990s childhood, today and imagined future.
An EAVE Award was won by Burkina Faso’s Mamounata Nikiema at Pilumpiku Production, a prestigious documentary producer behind multiple doc-features, such as “Djeliya, Memory of Mandingo,” an ambitious, five-county co-pro.
“Exploring the lost hope of the Nigerian dream,” “I Live in V.I.,” a social class satire by Ugochukwu Azuya set on Nigeria’s luxurious Victoria Island, won a Tabakalera-San Sebastian residency. The high-energy Adja Soro at the Ivory Coast’s animation-focused Studio KÄ scored an invitation to the Rotterdam Lab.
The crypto market opened the week on a positive note, with bitcoin $BTC$64,978.83 up 0.54% since midnight UTC at $65,209 and ether $ETH$1,916.58 gaining 0.86% to $1,925 as sentiment stabilized following a turbulent July.
The move was correlated with Nasdaq 100 index futures, which rose by 0.45% since midnight, buoyed by speculation from the Middle East that Iran is ready to strike a deal with Oman to open the Strait of Hormuz.
The altcoin market is delicately poised, waiting to see if bitcoin can drive higher into the $68,000 to $72,000 range before benefiting from capital rotation.
Derivatives positioning
Long-short ratio flips bullish: The long-short ratio for taker volume in crypto futures has flipped bullish, with longs accounting for 52% of the flow. A taker is an entity that removes liquidity from the order book by trading at available prices.
$BTC OI growth remains elusive: Bitcoin futures market activity remains subdued as $BTC attempts to hold above $65,000 amid cooling bets on Federal Reserve rate increases. Open interest (OI) slipped back below 750K $BTC. However, annualized funding rates and 24-hour OI-adjusted CVD remain positive, indicating that the limited interest present in the market is leaning bullish.
$ETH OI slides: De-risking continues in $ETH futures, with open interest falling to 13.35 million tokens, the lowest level since May 3, and a significant drop from the late-May peak of 15.98 million tokens.
Activity picks up in $SOL futures: Renewed activity is appearing in $SOL futures, as open interest rebounds to 64.60 million tokens from a recent low of around 60 million. This points to fresh capital inflows, coinciding with the token’s price recovery from nearly $70 to over $76 and a break above the widely tracked Ichimoku cloud, signaling a potential short-term bullish trend reversal.
Monero leads OI growth: Privacy-focused coin Monero (XMR) has surged 5% over the past 24 hours, briefly topping $400 for the first time since June 12. The rally appears to have staying power, with futures open interest jumping 6% alongside the price gains. The 24-hour CVD is the most positive among major cryptocurrencies, indicating that buyers are acting more aggressively through market orders rather than passive limit orders. In addition, annualized funding rates stand at the highest level among majors at 28%, underscoring growing demand for upside exposure.
BVIV hits 2026 lows: Bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility index, BVIV, fell to a year-to-date low of 35.59% over the weekend. The drop shows expectations for market calm, although some traders warn that put options offering protection from price losses in $BTC are still trading at a premium to calls.
Calls dominate volume: The 24-hour volume ranking in options shows increased investor bias for bitcoin calls at strikes $68,000 and $70,000. Ether options show a similar profile.
Token talk
Pump.fun PUMP$0.002740 led the altcoin market with a 5.39% gain since midnight UTC, extending a 24-hour run that has pushed its market cap above $1.1 billion.
Ethena (ENA) rose 4.84% to $0.0907, continuing a steady recovery that has seen it gain ground in most sessions over the past two weeks. Still, it remains more than 90% below its all-time high.
NEAR protocol gained 3.79% as AI tokens broadly recovered, with FET adding 2.10% after weeks of underperformance against the wider market.
Lighter (LIT) slipped 0.94%, one of the only notable altcoins in the red as its slide following July’s 200%-plus rally continues to grind lower.
Woldcoin WLD$0.3398 posted a 13% gain over the past 24 hours but remains in a deep downtrend, down 91% from its record high one year ago.
CoinMarketCap’s “altcoin season” indicator is at 37/100, down significantly from last week’s peak of 51/100 as investors focus on bitcoin’s potential move higher.
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