Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited a group of Ukrainian military pilots training in Canada on September 12, 2026, ahead of their eventual transition to Western fighter jets including the F-16 and Sweden’s Gripen. Four L-39 training jets flown by Ukrainian cadets performed a flyover to greet him at the airfield. The visit took place at […]
Canada’s banking regulator has clarified that tokenized deposits are not legally different from traditional deposits, giving federally regulated financial institutions a clearer path to develop deposit products using blockchain and other digital technology. The Office of the Superintendent of Financial…
Canada is recruiting 64 researchers to universities across the country (source paywalled; alternative source), including 48 from U.S. institutions such as Harvard, Yale, and MIT. The hires are backed by more than $364 million in government funding and are part of a broader effort to attract researchers in fields such as AI, climate science, and medicine. The New York Times reports: While scientists often shy away from political discourse, some are saying the Trump administration's assault on science is behind their departure. "I used to live in the country that I thought was the most enthusiastic about the prospects for science improving the human condition, of any country in the world," said Phillip Zamore, the chair of RNA Therapeutics Institute at the University of Massachusetts. "And I woke up one day and that wasn't true anymore." He has been recruited to McGill University in Montreal, which has also hired five other researchers, and will join the medical faculty. "If scientists don't stand up for truth, no one will," Dr. Zamore said.
The Canada-bound brain drain from U.S. institutions began last year as the Trump administration put forward policies that targeted foreign students, academic freedom and funding for equity-related programs. Kevin Hall, a nutrition scientist who left the U.S. National Institutes of Health last year, accusing federal officials of censoring his research on ultraprocessed foods, has been hired at the University of Ottawa. "While certain countries are cutting research and turning their back on academic freedom, we're doubling down on science," Melanie Joly, Canada's industry minister, told reporters at the announcement, in Vancouver, of the new university hiring. She billed it as the world's "largest talent attraction" project. The European Union has made a similar push. "Years from now, we will look back at today's announcement, and we will be able to seize the lasting impact of our choices," Ms. Joly said.
Unpredictable decisions about funding prompted Seth Guikema, a professor in civil and environmental engineering, who has specialized in natural hazards modeling at the University of Michigan, to look elsewhere. His work focuses on how climate hazards inequitably affect communities, and that work has become harder to fund, he said. "Every country sets its priorities in terms of what is going to get funded, and I think Canada has done a very good job of supporting research in areas that really matter to society," said Dr. Guikema, who will start at Western University in London, Ontario in January.
Canada's cultural-content rules have become a flashpoint in its trade fight with the U.S., after American negotiators reportedly demanded that Ottawa drop requirements for streaming services to promote Canadian and French-language content. Canada refused, even as it has already backed away from some financial levies on streamers. "We were not prepared to compromise on our sovereignty, the protection of the French language, and our culture," Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a speech on Saturday after trade talks collapsed. CBC.ca reports: Ottawa has long required broadcasters to promote and support Canadian content (Cancon), all the way back to song quotas for AM radio stations. In 1991, the government brought in the Broadcasting Act. The law states that "the Canadian broadcasting system shall be effectively owned and controlled by Canadians" and that the Canadian broadcasting system should "serve to safeguard, enrich and strengthen the cultural, political, social and economic fabric of Canada." But decades later, the rising popularity in Canada of streaming platforms such as Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime and Spotify raised questions about Cancon and broadcasting rules. Video and audio streaming services were not, for example, required to support and promote Cancon, but their TV and radio counterparts were.
Looking to address the imbalance, the former Trudeau government brought forward a bill in 2022 to update the Broadcasting Act, called the Online Streaming Act. "Canadian broadcasters have invested in and introduced us to the incredible Canadian programs that so many of us love. We are updating our laws so online streamers have to contribute in a similar and equitable way," a 2022 government news release said. The legislation was controversial from the start, with the government and supporters saying it was a necessary evolution of Canada's media laws in the digital age, while opponents expressed concerns that it was overreach and an attempt to regulate the internet.
American streamers and digital media companies opposed the legislation fiercely. The bill passed with amendments and became law in April 2023, but the government delegated much of its interpretation -- including how much money streamers would have to contribute to Cancon -- to Canada's broadcast regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). But getting streaming companies to pay up has been a long and confusing saga. [...]. As for why the U.S. government is so invested in the issue? Mariane Bourcheix-Laporte, a postdoctoral fellow in the communication studies and media arts department at McMaster University in Hamilton, said it could be about power.
"The Americans have had, since after World War II, a very strong cultural policy of pushing out American content into the world," Bourcheix-Laporte, who has worked with the CRTC, said. "This has been a strategy -- a soft-power strategy -- for the American government, in parallel to their military strategies and political alliances strategies."
National Bank of Canada has disclosed holdings in US-listed crypto investment products, including shares tied to an XRP ETF and several Bitcoin ETF positions.
The disclosure came through a Form 13F filing covering holdings as of June 30, 2026. The bank reported 3,848 shares of Bitwise’s XRP ETF, valued at roughly $330,000, along with approximately $6.4 million in ProShares and Fidelity Bitcoin ETF exposure.
The distinction here is important.
This is ETF exposure, not direct custody of XRP or BTC. The bank is not being reported as holding physical tokens on-chain. It is reporting positions in listed investment products.
Still, the filing is notable because it shows regulated financial institutions continuing to use crypto wrappers for portfolio exposure.
For more details, visit the official Sec platform.
TL;DR
National Bank of Canada disclosed XRP and Bitcoin ETF holdings in a Form 13F.
The positions include Bitwise XRP ETF shares and Bitcoin ETF exposure.
The filing reflects ETF holdings, not direct XRP or BTC custody.
Why The Filing Matters
13F filings are useful because they show what large investment managers held at the end of a reporting period.
They are backward-looking and incomplete in some ways, but they still give the market a window into institutional positioning. When a major bank reports crypto ETF holdings, it adds another data point to the institutional adoption story.
The XRP exposure is especially interesting because Bitcoin ETF positions are now more common.
XRP-linked ETF exposure suggests institutions are at least testing broader crypto products beyond BTC, even if the dollar amount remains relatively small.
A $330,000 XRP ETF position is not enormous for a major bank. But it is visible, regulated exposure.
ETF Exposure Is Not The Same As Token Ownership
This cannot be overstated.
Holding shares of an ETF or trust is different from holding XRP or Bitcoin directly. The bank owns a security that tracks or references crypto exposure. It does not necessarily hold private keys, run wallets, or custody tokens.
That matters for interpretation.
Direct crypto custody would say something different about operational readiness and risk tolerance. ETF exposure says the institution is comfortable with listed crypto products inside a securities framework.
That is still meaningful, but it is a different kind of adoption.
Bitcoin Products Remain The Larger Position
The reported Bitcoin ETF exposure of around $6.4 million is much larger than the XRP ETF position.
That reflects the broader institutional hierarchy in crypto. Bitcoin remains the most accepted asset for traditional investors. It has the deepest ETF market, strongest macro narrative, and clearest institutional positioning.
XRP exposure is smaller and likely more exploratory.
That does not make it irrelevant. It simply shows that broader altcoin ETF adoption is still at an earlier stage.
What This Means For XRP
For XRP supporters, the filing gives a concrete institutional data point.
It shows that at least some regulated portfolios are willing to hold XRP-linked products. That may support the argument that XRP is moving further into traditional-market infrastructure.
But the size and structure matter.
This is not a major direct allocation to XRP. It is a relatively small ETF position inside a broader securities filing.
The clean read is that XRP-linked products are appearing in institutional portfolios, but still at modest scale.
The Bigger Institutional Trend
The broader story is the continued normalization of crypto exposure through wrappers.
Banks and asset managers do not need to custody tokens directly to participate in the market. They can use ETFs, trusts, futures, structured products, and other regulated instruments.
That makes crypto easier to fit into existing compliance systems.
National Bank of Canada’s filing is another example of that path.
Institutions may not all become on-chain users immediately. Many will start with products that look and settle like securities.
For Bitcoin, that trend is already established. For XRP and other assets, it is still developing.
This article is based on National Bank of Canada’s August 2026 Form 13F filing.
This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.
This report is based on information released by Sec. at Sec
China-linked UNK_MassTraction targets US and Canadian universities through Roundcube flaws, stealing sessions and opening access to research mail servers.
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