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A Southern Accent Can Help or Hurt a Career, Depending on Where the Job Is



Accent, cadence, and vocabulary can quietly shape hiring and promotion decisions. Use three practical checks to separate comfort from proven ability.

The gut-check questions every leader needs to ask before building with AI



There’s an idea gaining traction in enterprise technology: companies can save millions by using AI to build their own software. Forget buying a platform like SAP, Workday, or HubSpot. Instead, CIOs and their teams are creating custom apps with Claude Code and other tools.

I get the appeal because I spent years in the CIO seat. Earlier in my career, the chairman of a beverage company I was working for asked my team to build a custom analytics dashboard. We had the talent. We had the resources. We figured, why not?

Four months later and setback after setback, we had to confront a harder question: Even if we could build it, should we? Every month we spent building it was time my team wasn’t spending on other priorities that could create more value for the company. So we killed the project and bought a solution from a software company. 

Fast-forward to today and I’m on the other side of the equation — I’m now a leader at a global software company that helps huge enterprises manage workflows for HR, customer service, finance, and more. I interact everyday with customers who are debating building their own software with AI or working with us.

They know I have a product to sell. They also turn to me because they trust my expertise and experience on the ground. My advice: there are times to leverage AI to build your own software, but there are also cases where leaning on outside expertise and buying software is a no-brainer.

Before taking the plunge, it’s worth asking a few questions to figure out whether building or buying software is right for you. Your company’s prospects, not to mention your own job as CIO, could be on the line. 

1. Is this your company’s core competency? 

At first glance, building instead of buying software might look like an easy call. You have all the engineering talent you need to crank out an app or platform, and the team is raring to go.

But is building software a smart move, or does it steal cycles from your core competency?

I see this with some of the most sophisticated engineering organizations in the world. One of our customers, a global technology company with hundreds of thousands of employees, has no shortage of people who know how to build stuff. Instead of wrestling with creating in-house software for billing and HR, however, they decided to keep their focus on innovation. 

For any business today, even high-tech players, it’s all about leaning into your expertise, not building something totally unrelated to your business.

 2. How much are you really saving? 

For CIOs looking to build software, the savings pitch usually starts with the recurring subscription they’ll cut. In some enterprises, that could mean millions of dollars a year. But this doesn’t account for what it costs to develop, run, and maintain the replacement.

For context: Depending on how complex their business is, we’ve seen that companies building their own LLM-based software solution will typically spend five to 10 times more than using our workflow automation platform. 

Initial development costs are only the tip of the iceberg. Maintenance is the real expense, as well as the ongoing cost of keeping it secure, current, and running as the business changes. 

I’ve seen this math play out firsthand. At a large financial services company, the CISO wanted to use an LLM to rewrite a core system. That process could easily take 18 to 24 months, all to save the equivalent of 0.5% of the company’s annual operating budget.

3. Have you factored in security and governance? 

Getting software to work properly is tough enough. For companies that choose to build it, security and governance is a whole other ballgame with massive risks.

Cybersecurity in the AI era has never been more complex, and the stakes have never been higher. Building something that works on day one isn’t a problem. The real test is defending it on day 1,000.

Even when there’s no ill intent, your own AI agents can go rogue, doing exponential damage before anyone notices. Roughly half of orgs have seen AI agents exceed their permissions. Take car rental management platform PocketOS, which got its production database wiped by a coding agent in nine seconds.

That’s why it’s critical that CIOs do an honest assessment of their team’s capabilities. Is your platform secure in the face of evolving threats? Is it auditable if regulators come knocking? Are you prepared to track permissions? Can you ensure your software complies with shifting regulations and requirements? 

4. What happens when your CIO leaves? 

There’s another question I’ve started asking in every build vs. buy conversation: What happens when your CIO leaves? 

The average tenure for CIOs is about 4.5 years. A custom platform typically takes two or more years to build and longer to mature. The person who designed it, who made the architectural decisions, who knows where every integration lives, may very well be gone before the system is actually running well.

A CIO I spoke with recently described a prior job where her predecessor had built a custom platform the entire organization depended on. When he left, so did the institutional knowledge. No documentation. No support team. No vendor to call. Just senior leaders staring at something they couldn’t explain and couldn’t afford to shut down.

5. Can you tap into proprietary data and institutional knowledge? 

All that said, building software rather than buying makes sense in the right contexts. 

A CDIO I know at one of the world’s biggest shipping and logistics companies took this approach. He’s building in-house with AI, but being very intentional about where he puts resources. He only greenlights projects that differentiate the business and tap into its “secret sauce” — harnessing decades of internal data and other institutional knowledge to optimize shipping routes.

And he also knows when to leverage AI by buying from a vendor. Putting AI-powered platforms to work on your existing workflows — like onboarding new employees or processing time-off requests — is a great place to start. These workflows might not be sexy, but they have clear guardrails and offer a direct path to ROI.  

AI has made it easier than ever to build. It hasn’t eliminated the need to choose where you should. I’ve sat on both sides of the table — as the CIO eager to build his own software, and now as a president at a company that sells software. The decision to build or buy isn’t always an easy one, but for CIOs today that choice may be more important than ever and is worth careful consideration. 

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

U.S. Bank Launches Two New Business Cards (U.S. Bank Business Essentials & U.S. Bank Business Essentials Plus), $1,000 Bonus & Up To 3.5% On All Purchases


U.S. Bank has launched two new business cards:

  • U.S. Bank Business EssentialsTM Visa® Card
  • U.S. Bank Business EssentialsTM Plus Visa Signature® Card

Both cards earn 2% cash back on all purchases and increased earn rates depending on your U.S. Bank business checking balance. 

U.S. Bank Business Essentials

  • No annual fee
  • $500 cash back sign up bonus after you spend $5,000 within the first 150 days
  • 0% APR on purchases for the first 12 months
  • Card earns 2% cashback on all purchases, 2.5% if you have $10,000 in qualifying balances (on your first $10,000 in spend each month)

U.S. Bank Business Essentials Plus

  • $295 annual fee
  • $1,000 cash back sign up bonus after you spend $15,000 within 150 days of account opening
  • Card earns at the following rates:
    • 5% cash back on your top spend category, up to $200,000 annually. Eligible categories are accounting & tax services, airlines, cell phone service providers, dining, entertainment, office supply stores, postal & shipping services, and utilities
    • 2% cashback on all purchases (up to 3.5% broken based on qualifying balances. Up to $200,000 in spend annually)
      • 2.5% if you have $15,000-$74,999 in qualifying balances
      • 3% if you have $75,000-$149,999 in qualifying balances
      • 3.5% if you have $150,000 in qualifying balances

Balance Requirements

The balance requirements must be in one of the following eligible accounts:

  • U.S. Bank Business Essentials®
  • U.S. Bank Gold Business Checking
  • Gold Business Checking with Interest
  • U.S. Bank Platinum Business Checking

All of these accounts earn 0% or close to from what I can tell.

Our Verdict

Interesting products, main issue is that you need to tie up funds and those funds will earn 0% APY while you activate the increased earn rate. If you spent the full $200,000 and earned 3.5% this is an extra $1,000 over the Robinhood gold card that earns a flat 3%. You also need to take into the $295 annual fee and the fact that $150,000 in a 5% account even for one month would earn $625. The sign up bonus on the Essentials Plus is good but again $295 annual fee so a lot of people prefer the Triple Cash with a $750 bonus (& $100 software credit) with no annual fee. The 5% on your top category could put it over the edge for some people and I’m sure there are already some businesses that hold that amount with U.S. Bank already for whatever reason that could benefit. Also could be useful for people completing U.S. Bank business checking bonuses. For a full list of new credit cards launched this year, click here. 

Hat tip to reader Tamis

 

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Student Loan Interest Deduction: 2026 Income Limits, Who Qualifies, And How To Claim It


Key Points

  • You can deduct up to $2,500 of student loan interest per year without itemizing. Most borrowers save $300 to $550 in federal tax.
  • For 2026, the deduction phases out between $85,000 and $100,000 of MAGI for single filers and $175,000 to $205,000 for joint filers. Married filing separately gets nothing.
  • Interest you actually paid on federal or private loans counts. Interest the government waived under RAP, or your employer paid tax-free, doesn’t.

Yes, you can deduct student loan interest. If you paid interest on a qualified student loan during the year, you’re legally obligated on the loan, nobody claims you as a dependent, and your income is under the limit, you can subtract up to $2,500 of that interest from your taxable income.

It’s an “above-the-line” adjustment, which means you take it on top of the standard deduction. You don’t have to itemize your tax return to claim it!

The deduction matters more in 2026 than it has in years. This is the first full year of interest for the roughly 7 million borrowers who sat in the SAVE forbearance at 0% until interest resumed, so a lot of people who had nothing to deduct during the pause will have a real number on their 2026 return.

Here’s who qualifies, what the 2026 limits are, and where it goes on your return.

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Who Can Claim The Student Loan Interest Deduction

Not everyone with student debt qualifies. You must meet these requirements, according to IRS Publication 970:

  • You paid interest on a qualified student loan during the tax year.
  • You’re legally obligated to pay that interest (co-signers qualify).
  • Your MAGI is below the phaseout thresholds.
  • You’re not claimed as a dependent on someone else’s return.

A qualified student loan is one you took out solely to pay qualified education expenses (tuition, fees, room and board, books, supplies, and transportation) for yourself, your spouse, or a dependent, while the student was enrolled at least half-time in a degree or credential program. Federal and private loans both qualify. A loan from a relative or from a qualified employer plan does not.

The married-filing-separately rule catches IDR borrowers who file separately to shrink a RAP or IBR payment. Filing separately kills this deduction along with several credits, so run both filing scenarios before you choose.

Student Loan Interest Deduction Income Limits For 2026

The deduction shrinks once your MAGI crosses the phaseout floor and disappears at the ceiling. The IRS set the 2026 figures in Rev. Proc. 2025-32.

Student Loan Interest Deduction Income Limits 2026

Tax Filing Status

Full Deduction

Phase Out

No Deduction

Single

$85,000

$85,000 to $100,000

Over $100,000

Married, Filing Joint

$175,000

$175,000 to $200,000

Over $200,000

Married, Filing Separate

No Deduction

No Deduction

No Deduction

Head of Household

$85,000

$85,000 to $100,000

Over $100,000

For this deduction, MAGI is your AGI figured before the student loan interest deduction itself, with a few exclusions (like the foreign earned income exclusion) added back. For most borrowers, MAGI and AGI are the same number.

Inside the phaseout band, the deduction drops proportionally. A single filer with $92,500 of MAGI in 2026 is halfway through the $85,000–$100,000 band, so the maximum deduction is cut in half to $1,250. The 1098-E article walks through the worksheet.

What Counts As Student Loan Interest

The IRS counts more than the interest line on your statement. Under Publication 970, deductible student loan interest includes:

  • Regular interest you paid during the year, required or voluntary.
  • Loan origination fees (unless they paid for services), spread over the life of the loan.
  • Capitalized interest — unpaid interest that was added to your principal. You deduct it as you pay it down.
  • Interest on refinanced or consolidated loans, as long as the new loan only refinanced qualified student loans. Refinance a student loan together with a car loan and none of it qualifies.
  • Interest on a private student loan or a revolving line of credit used solely for qualified expenses.

What doesn’t count: interest the Department of Education waived under RAP, interest paid with tax-free money from an employer repayment program, and any part of a loan that covered expenses already paid by a tax-free scholarship or a 529 distribution. The tax-deductible interest glossary page has the short version.

Can Parents Deduct Student Loan Interest?

It depends on whose name is on the loan.

Parent PLUS loans. The parent is the borrower, so the parent deducts the interest, subject to the parent’s own MAGI limit. The student can’t deduct interest on a Parent PLUS loan, even if the student is the one sending the payments.

A parent paying the student’s loan. If the loan is in the student’s name and the student isn’t claimed as a dependent, Publication 970 treats a payment made on the student’s behalf as a gift to the student, who is then treated as having paid the interest. The student deducts it and the parent doesn’t. If the student is still a dependent, nobody gets the deduction that year.

Co-signers. A co-signer is legally obligated, so a co-signed parent who makes the payments can deduct them, again within their own income limit. Only one person can deduct any given dollar of interest. Qualified education loan status follows the loan, not the payer.

RAP, SAVE, And The Interest You Actually Paid

The deduction is for interest you paid, which is a different number from the interest you were charged. Three 2026 situations trip people up.

Former SAVE borrowers. Interest was 0% during the SAVE forbearance until August 2025. 2026 is the first full calendar year it has accrued at your normal rate, so the interest line on your 2026 return will be larger than anything you’ve seen since 2023. If you’re still in a forbearance and paying nothing, you have nothing to deduct until you’re back in repayment. Here’s where the SAVE exit stands.

RAP borrowers. Under the Repayment Assistance Plan, any interest your full, on-time payment doesn’t cover is waived. Waived interest was never paid, so it isn’t deductible. Only the portion of your payment that actually went to interest is. The $50 principal match is principal, not interest. Run your payment through the RAP calculator to see how much of it is interest at all.

Employer help. Employers can pay up to $5,250 a year toward your student loans tax-free, and OBBBA made that permanent. You can’t also deduct interest that was paid with those tax-free dollars. Your own payments on top of the employer’s still count.

How To Claim The Deduction And How Much It Can Save You In Taxes

If you paid $600 or more in interest to one servicer during the year, that servicer sends you Form 1098-E by January 31, by mail or in your online account. If you have loans with more than one servicer, each one that received $600 or more sends its own form.

Under $600, you don’t get a form, but you can still deduct what you paid. Federal Student Aid’s guidance to servicers says borrowers can pull the exact interest figure from the servicer’s website or request a statement. Save the statement as your documentation. If your loans were transferred during the year, check both the old and new servicer, since each reports only what it collected.

Enter the total on Schedule 1 of Form 1040, in the “Adjustments to Income” section, then carry Schedule 1 to your 1040. You don’t attach the 1098-E. Every major tax software package asks for it in the education section and does the phaseout math for you.

Where To Claim Student Loan Interest Deduction On Form 1040 | Source: The College Investor

How Much The Deduction Actually Saves You

A deduction lowers the income you’re taxed on, not your tax bill directly. The savings equal the deduction times your marginal tax bracket.

Take a single borrower earning $50,000 in 2026 who paid $2,500 in interest. After the $16,100 standard deduction, taxable income is $33,900, which sits in the 12% bracket. The $2,500 deduction saves $300. A borrower in the 22% bracket (taxable income over $50,400 single, or $100,800 joint, in 2026) saves $550. Those brackets come from the IRS’s 2026 inflation adjustments.

Paid less than $2,500? You deduct what you paid. $1,200 of interest in the 12% bracket is worth $144.

Some taxpayers confuse the deduction with a credit. A credit cuts your bill dollar for dollar. The student loan interest deduction is worth less than the education tax credits available while you’re still in school, and it’s one of the few tax breaks that helps you after you graduate.

State Taxes

In states that start their return from your federal AGI, the deduction flows through automatically. California conforms to the federal rules, with one exception for military spouses in community-property states, per the Franchise Tax Board’s Schedule CA instructions. Check your own state’s adjustments schedule; the state income tax overview lists which states have no income tax at all.

Missed It? You Can Amend

If you paid interest in a prior year and didn’t claim it, file Form 1040-X. The IRS gives you three years from the date you filed the original return (or two years from when you paid the tax, whichever is later), and 1040-X can be filed electronically. Pull the prior-year 1098-E or a servicer statement before you file it.

Is The Deduction Worth Anything?

$300 to $550 a year is real money, and you should claim every dollar of it. It’s also not a reason to borrow. Anyone weighing how to pay for college still comes out ahead with scholarships, grants, and work over debt with a small tax break attached.

The deduction also disappears exactly when interest hurts most. A borrower earning over $100,000 with private loans gets no deduction and has no federal protections to lose. For that borrower, a lower rate is the only lever left.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I deduct student loan interest if I take the standard deduction?

Yes. It’s an adjustment to income on Schedule 1, so it stacks on top of the standard deduction.

Do private student loans qualify?

Yes, if the loan was used solely for qualified education expenses at an eligible school. Interest on a refinanced private loan counts too, as long as the refinance covered only student loans.

I paid less than $600. Can I still deduct it?

Yes. You won’t get a 1098-E, but your servicer’s site shows the interest paid, and you can request a statement.

Does interest waived under RAP count?

No. Only interest you paid is deductible. The RAP interest subsidy cancels interest before you pay it.

Can I claim it if I’m married filing separately?

No. That’s one of the tax costs of filing separately to lower an income-driven payment.

Did the One Big Beautiful Bill change the student loan interest deduction?

No. OBBBA left the $2,500 cap and the phaseout structure alone. It did make the $5,250 employer repayment exclusion permanent, and interest paid with that money can’t be deducted twice.

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The post Student Loan Interest Deduction: 2026 Income Limits, Who Qualifies, And How To Claim It appeared first on The College Investor.

OpenAI’s agents are still ransacking the web



Emily Forlini here. It finally happened: I had my first bout of existential AI dread last week. I managed to fend it off since July, when I helped break the story that OpenAI’s agents autonomously hacked Hugging Face. But it’s starting to sink in that things are getting worse, as Saturday Night Live pointed out with its excellent impersonation of Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. Worth a watch.

What started my mini spiral was an independent report from a company called Transluce. Its data found instances of rogue AI activity going back to November, earlier than OpenAI has publicly disclosed, and suggested the issues were still ongoing. After seeing it all laid out in the graph, I lost a little bit of sleep imagining what might happen if the technology gets even better, as those working in the industry expect it will continue to do at an increasingly fast pace. It didn’t help that just a few minutes before I saw the post, I filed another story about OpenAI’s agents hacking into the Australian government’s medicare site. 

Then, OpenAI admitted it had another issue this month, a fact the company buried in a technical report but that my editor, Jeremy Kahn, brought to light. An AI agent got out again, and while the incident was not severe, the company has since paused all training runs for a second time while it bolsters its defenses (against itself, as SNL quipped). This is the first rogue incident the company has disclosed since Hugging Face, after which it reportedly hardened its training environments so the issue wouldn’t happen again.

This is significant because it suggests OpenAI cannot easily control the technology it’s building, despite its best efforts to do so. Its agents are breaking out into the open web, where all of us spend our days—chatting with loved ones, storing financial data, viewing medical records, buying products, etc. No one wants an AI agent meddling with any of that, let alone our critical infrastructure or worse.

For those of us who aren’t in the throes of AI doom, it’s worth noting that pausing training is also a hit to OpenAI’s business. Its models are its currency. Any stop in training means slowing business momentum, which might not please investors but will likely please everyone else at this point. So kudos to OpenAI here—even if the federal government shows no interest in regulating AI, the company is, for now at least, showing some level of responsibility.

Emily Forlini
X:
@EmilyForlini
Email: emily.forlini@fortune.com

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VENTURE CAPITAL

– SIMa.ai, a San Jose, Calif.-based developer of AI chips and software for robots, vehicles, and other edge devices, raised $150 million in Series C funding. Fidelity Management & Research Company and Amplify led the round and were joined by Alter Venture Partners, Dell Technologies Capital, Maverick Capital, and others.

– Quartermaster, an Arlington, Va.-based developer of an AI-powered network that monitors activity at sea, raised $100 million in Series B funding. Insight Partners led the round and was joined by Overmatch Ventures.

– Outmarket, a San Francisco-based developer of AI software for insurance agencies and brokers, raised $34.5 million in Series B funding. SignalFire led the round and was joined by Fika Ventures, Permanent Capital Ventures, TTV Capital, and Dash Fund. 

– Modulate, a Somerville, Mass.-based developer of AI software that analyzes speech, including tone, emotion, and synthetic voices, raised $25 million in funding. Future Ventures led the round and was joined by Hyperplane and Lakestar. 

– erad, a Riyadh, Saudi Arabia-based lender to small and midsize businesses, raised $22 million in Series A funding. MEVP led the round and was joined by SVC, 500 Global, S60 Ventures, and others.

– IPercept, a Stockholm, Sweden-based developer of software that helps manufacturers predict CNC-machine breakdowns, raised $16.5 million in Series A funding. Isogon Ventures and 2150 led the round and were joined by existing investors Luminar Ventures, RunwayFBU, J12 Ventures, and AI.Fund.

– Rayon, a Paris, France-based developer of collaborative design software for interior designers, raised $11 million in Series A funding. Partech led the round and was joined by Northzone, Foundamental, and Seedcamp.

– HiringCafe, a San Francisco-based AI-powered job-search platform, raised $6.8 million in pre-seed funding. Spark Capital led the round and was joined by Nonfiction Capital, Silicon Gardens, and angel investors. 

– Dodge AI, a San Francisco-based developer of AI software for maintaining and upgrading ERP systems, raised $2.7 million in funding. Accel and Google Ventures led the round and were joined by Schema Ventures, New Build Ventures, Antler, and angel investors.

PRIVATE EQUITY

– Appdirect, backed by CDPQ, acquired Soul Machines, a San Francisco-based developer of AI avatars for customer and employee interactions. Financial terms were not disclosed. 

– Finalsite, a portfolio company of Veritas, acquired RevTrak, a Glastonbury, Conn.-based provider of online payment software for schools. Financial terms were not disclosed.

EXITS

– GTCR acquired Tactacam, a Billings, Mont.-based maker of cellular-connected trail and security cameras, from Bertram Capital and the company’s founders. Financial terms were not disclosed. 

FUNDS + FUNDS OF FUNDS

– Sofinnova Partners, a Paris, France-based venture capital firm, raised €82 million ($93.2 million) for its fourth Sofinnova MD fund focused on medtech companies.

Man Group: 5.5% yields risk cracking AI capex, US consumer


Man Group Plc Chief Market Strategist Kristina Hooper warned that surging long-end Treasury yields threaten to topple the two pillars propping up US economic growth: AI capital expenditures and consumer spending.

Processing Content

“Something has to give,” Hooper said Monday in a Bloomberg Television interview as the selloff in government bonds sent yields higher across the curve.

Yields are at multiyear highs, including 30-year Treasuries approaching 5.6% and the 10-year skyrocketing more than 100 basis points this year and topping 5.25% on Monday. “We could easily get to 5.5% before year end,” Hooper said.

The U.S. Treasury building in Washington.

Al Drago/Bloomberg

These elevated borrowing costs are potential trouble for the boom in artificial intelligence spending and for consumers’ pocketbooks, Hooper said. Costlier debt raises the threshold for generating returns on AI investment, and that hurdle was already “quite high,” Hooper said. Meanwhile, the yield on 10-year Treasury is “so closely correlated” with mortgage rates and consumer credit, she added. 

She rejected the thesis that rising yields simply reflect strong economic data, saying that inflation, fiscal sustainability concerns and the US deficit-to-GDP ratio are the real drivers behind the Treasury rout. And even if yields are rising for defensible reasons, she said, traders have never faced the current set of challenges.

“What is abnormal is how dramatically fast yields have gone up on the long end,” Hooper said. “Also what’s a historical anomaly is how high our government debt load is.” 

Her warning landed ahead of a week packed with key reports that may add evidence to a picture of a strengthening economy, which would keep pressure on Federal Reserve policymakers to follow up on this month’s interest rate hike. Economists expect Friday’s payrolls report to show that employers added about 90,000 workers in September and unemployment remained at 4.1%.

Hooper added a new metaphor to the discussion of the so-called K-shaped economy, so named because of the divergence between the upper and lower ends of the income spectrum. Her analogy: a “P-shaped” economy, based on the concentration of net worth at the top of the scale.

Stocks’ rise to records this year created a wealth effect helping buoy consumer spending, she said, which adds to the risk in an equity selloff.

“That could be quite problematic for consumer spending because so much of the consumer spending has been coming from that top part of the P,” she said.

(This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.)



Solana ETFs Draw $188 Million In Past Week As Bitwise Asset Management Accounts For Most Of The Inflows


US spot Solana exchange-traded funds (ETFs) took in about $188 million in net new money last week, the strongest weekly result since the products began trading. The official Solana account highlighted the figure on September 27, calling it the biggest week since launch.

All seven funds in the group recorded inflows rather than seeing demand pile into a single ticker.

Bitwise Asset Management again captured most of that capital.

Its BSOL product brought in roughly $128 million across the five sessions through September 25, 2026 or about 68 percent of the weekly total.

Grayscale’s GSOL followed with about $28 million. Fidelity’s FSOL added roughly $18 million.

The remaining $14 million was split among Morgan Stanley, VanEck, Franklin Templeton, and 21Shares.

More precise daily tallies from Farside Investors put Friday’s category-wide intake near $86.7 million, with BSOL alone taking $55.7 million that session.

Net inflows count cash that stays after redemptions.

They are not the same as trading volume among existing shareholders.

That distinction is why the week matters: new money entered the wrappers rather than simply rotating inside them.

Friday’s haul supplied nearly half the weekly total and set a daily high for the category.

Bitwise’s longer-term lead is larger still.

BSOL has absorbed about $1.2 billion of the group’s roughly $1.6 billion in cumulative net inflows, close to three-quarters of all capital raised since the October 2025 debut.

Last week’s 68 percent share was a bit below that historical concentration, because the other issuers together collected around $60 million.

The products let investors hold SOL through ordinary brokerage accounts and, in several cases, receive staking rewards without running a validator or wallet.

The Solana inflow came during a broader week for crypto funds.

Bitcoin ETFs took in about $2.4 billion, and ether products added roughly $690 million. SOL itself traded near $119, still about 60 percent below its prior peak near $293.

Price and fund flows have not always moved together, which is why the ETF numbers are being watched as a separate demand signal.

The same week, developers continued testing Alpenglow, an upgrade aimed at shrinking payment finality from about 12.8 seconds toward 150 milliseconds.

The work reached a second public test environment, though no mainnet date has been set.

Combined assets in the spot Solana ETFs recently approached $2 billion, with Bitwise still holding the dominant share. Whether last week’s record is a one-off or the start of wider issuer participation will depend on whether the other six funds keep attracting capital.

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Oil Just Jumped on Trump’s Iran Rejection — and TotalEnergies Is Already Cashing In


In what’s becoming a familiar development these days, the price of crude oil again floated higher on Monday. That followed President Trump’s flat rejection, over the weekend, of an Iranian proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the choke point through which a vast amount of the world’s oil is shipped. On Sunday, however, Trump seemed to backtrack, stating in an interview with Axios that American negotiators were expected to engage in talks with the Iranian side.

All else equal, higher prices mean higher revenue and profitability for oil companies, particularly the integrated majors like TotalEnergies (TTE -0.66%). On Sunday, the France-based company wasted no time deciding how to deploy a chunk of those potential gains. Investors weren’t necessarily pleased with this news, however.

Image source: Getty Images.

A major move from an integrated major

In an update rather grandly titled “strategy and outlook presentation 2026,” TotalEnergies said it was adding $1 billion to its fourth-quarter share repurchase program. This brings the total amount to a whopping $2.5 billion (per quarter, remember).

And that was just the first of several (hopefully) share price-boosting measures. The European energy giant added that stock buybacks would be $2 billion to $2.5 billion in the first quarter of next year. The company’s board of directors also set a dividend policy under which its payout would increase by more than 5% each year from now until 2030. It also confirmed its aim to deliver shareholder returns of at least 40% of free cash flow (FCF).

If that sounds expensive, that’s because it is. TotalEnergies is a confident company, though, not least because it has quite a solid idea of how it’ll fund all this. It’s estimating that oil and gas production will grow by 3% annually from 2026 to 2030; overall growth rises to 4% when factoring in the company’s electricity generation business.

That rate is expected to decline afterward, although not significantly. As a global operator, TotalEnergies has plays in numerous parts of the globe, and singled out projects in Africa (Namibia, Nigeria, Libya, and Mozambique) and the Asia-Pacific region (Malaysia and Papua New Guinea) as sources of mid- to long-term growth. That, plus its proven reserves life index, which tops 12 years, should result in a 2% to 3% annual improvement in production from 2030 to 2035.

Are the goals realistic?

Even for an integrated major operating in boom times, those projections and commitments are ambitious. There seems to be a desire on both sides of the current war to end the conflict and reopen the Strait, and if that’s done effectively, oil prices should start drifting down toward pre-war levels.

TotalEnergies’ new shareholder remuneration plans might be more of an effort to set the company apart from rival European majors. BP (BP +0.63%) suspended its share repurchase program in February, while Shell (SHEL +0.72%) cut its quarterly initiative by $500 million to $3 billion before suspending it (although it was eventually resumed). And by promising to keep the dividend growing at that healthy 5% rate, it can boost its current 4.4% dividend yield to top BP’s slightly higher 4.5%. TotalEnergies’ distribution, by the way, already yields significantly more than U.S.-based majors Chevron (CVX +0.94%), (with 3.4%), and ExxonMobil (XOM +1.20%) (2.5%).

TotalEnergies Se Stock Quote

Today’s Change

(-0.66%) $-0.60

Current Price

$90.34

On Monday, TotalEnergies’ share price closed down slightly, while those of the three aforementioned peers cautiously inched higher. That indicates general investor bullishness about big oil, but also a degree of skepticism about TotalEnergies’ vision for its future. Given how cyclical the energy business is (particularly with crude at the moment), the company might be binding itself to promises that are hard to keep if notable downturns occur — as they inevitably do. I’d be cautious with this stock now. 

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