Authored by Ezra Reguerra via Cointelegraph,
Jack Dorsey's payments company Block seeks to establish a federally regulated trust bank to provide custody services for Bitcoin and stablecoins.
Block said Tuesday it had submitted an application to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to create Builders Bank & Trust, an uninsured national trust bank.
If approved, the bank would operate under OCC supervision and offer custody and related fiduciary services.
Block said the charter would give its custody operations a consistent national framework as the business expands.
The proposed bank would not accept deposits or make loans, separating it from a conventional commercial bank.
Lee Woolley, Block's digital asset strategy lead, would serve as Builders Bank's president and CEO.
Woolley said the proposed institution would draw on Block's digital asset operations and its experience with Square Financial Services, the company's existing industrial bank.
Block joins a growing list of financial technology and crypto companies pursuing national trust bank charters.
Ripple has received conditional approval for a similar charter, while Circle and BitGo have received final approval.
Kraken parent Payward and crypto infrastructure provider Zerohash have also submitted applications.
[ZH: We would imagine these firms are in a hurry to get these approved before the Midterms.]
Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 18:25A newly appointed Russian government official has exploded across social media after users seized on a press-conference photograph and began joking that Russian President Vladimir Putin would have a difficult time pushing a man of his size out of a window, according to the Daily Star.
🍖🍔🍩 “Russia and Armenia are like one big family — sometimes things go differently,” said Rossotrudnichestvo chief Igor Chaika
There’s an old saying: “In a big family, if you’re too slow, you miss out on dinner.” Chaika clearly wasn’t too slow — he seems to have eaten Armenia for dinner himself. Peter Griffin, is that you????!!!!
Igor Chaika, who now leads Rossotrudnichestvo, Russia's federal agency for foreign aid and cultural exchange, sparked widespread mockery and memes when images from a briefing on Moscow's strained relationship with Armenia began circulating online.
In the photos - many which were digitally altered - Chaika is seen standing behind a row of microphones representing state-linked outlets as he addresses reporters on the deteriorating ties between the two countries.
Social media compared the imposing official to Marvel's Kingpin, and one widely circulated post captured the tone of the moment by suggesting the Kremlin would struggle to remove this particular figure in the way that has become grimly familiar in Russian politics.
Didn't realize we were getting a comic accurate Fisk/Kingpin in Avengers: Doomsday
— Alex Hillman (@alexhillman) September 8, 2026Good luck to Putin managing to push this official out of a window.
— Mark Wallace (@wallaceme) September 8, 2026Russian officials have biologically evolved to be harder to push out of windows.
— Zoska (@TotallyNotZoska) September 8, 2026Uncanny...
— WarMonitor (@WarMonitor3) September 8, 2026https://x.com/europemaxxed/status/2097599894806581503?s=20
— @europemaxxed September 9, 2026https://x.com/pronouncedsimon/status/2097426283328156048?s=20
— @pronouncedsimon September 8, 2026Chaika, a prominent businessman and the son of former Prosecutor General Yury Chaika, was appointed to the post in April 2026. At the conference he dismissed rumors of a complete break with Armenia, describing the relationship as that of a large family while announcing agreements to expand Russia's cultural centers, known as Russian Houses, across the region.
Maybe a music career is also in the cards?
Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 18:00Authored by Sylvia Xu via The Epoch Times,
Twenty-nine health systems are dropping Medicare Advantage plans in 2026, citing prior authorization denials, reimbursement issues, and deal renegotiations.
A Medicare Advantage PPO card sits on top of a Medicare card, in this file photo. AP/Jenny KaneThe number of terminated contracts this year is down from 40 in 2025 and 32 in 2024, Becker's Hospital Review reported on Sept. 4.
Naples Comprehensive Health, one of America's top 50 hospitals, will go out of network with Centene's Wellcare and Health Care Service Corporation's HealthSpring Medicare Advantage plans, effective in 2027.
"This change allows us to ensure that the plans we partner with truly support quality care, reduce unnecessary administrative barriers, and align with our commitment to delivering the best possible experience for our patients," the hospital said in a statement.
The Epoch Times requested comments from Wellcare and HealthSpring but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
Lee Health in Fort Myers, Florida; Fairview Health Services in Minneapolis, University of Miami Health System; and CarolinaEast Medical Center in New Bern, North Carolina, are terminating contracts with the UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage plan at the end of 2026, according to corporate statements.
If unable to reach a new agreement, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital will be leaving UnitedHealthcare on Oct. 1, according to a hospital statement.
A UnitedHealthcare spokesperson told The Epoch Times, "We are actively negotiating with most of these providers to renew our network relationship," except for the University of Miami Health System.
"These discussions are similar to the thousands of provider contract negotiations we conduct each year, the vast majority of which result in renewed agreements that support continued access to quality, affordable care for the people we serve," the spokesperson said.
Lee Health wrote to its patients saying that a central concern "is the impact that UnitedHealthcare's authorization, review, and denial processes can have on timely access to medically necessary care."
UnitedHealth denied 17 percent of Medicare Advantage prior authorization requests in 2025, the highest rate compared to its competitors, according to KFF, a healthcare research group.
Roughly 60 percent of those denials were overturned upon appeal.
On average, insurers denied 12 percent of standard prior authorization requests for Medicare Advantage, 14 percent for traditional Medicare claims, and 18 percent for Obamacare, according to KFF.
Prior authorization requests were overturned on appeal more often in Medicare Advantage (67 percent) compared to Medicaid (47 percent) and Obamacare (43 percent).
Additionally, UnitedHealthcare owes Lee Health more than $100 million in disputed and underpaid claims, according to a hospital statement.
Fairview also pointed to care denials, payment issues, and frequent coverage changes as reasons to leave UnitedHealthcare plans in its public statement.
CarolinaEast Medical Center (New Bern, N.C.) did not provide reasons for leaving Medicare Advantage plans.
However, UnitedHealthcare will stop requiring prior authorization for more than 1,700 procedure codes, which is about 30 percent of the total for its commercial, Medicare Advantage, Medicaid, and Affordable Care Act plans, according to a September announcement from the company.
"We know the time you spend managing prior authorizations, paperwork, and reimbursements is time you'd rather spend with your patients," the company said in the memo to providers.
"Removing these prior authorization requirements is part of our effort to help reduce administrative work, remove barriers that can delay care and give you more time to focus on patient care," the memo reads.
UnitedHealth, Humana, and Aetna, the three largest Medicare Advantage carriers, reduced the number of counties they serve in 2026 due to low financial margins, according to analysis from ATI Advisory, a healthcare strategy group.
This marks a new phase in the Medicare Advantage market in which growth is driven less by geographical expansion and more by focusing on more lucrative markets, according to ATI.
Most counties offer a zero-dollar premium Medicare Advantage plan in 2026, according to ATI Advisory.
As of May, more than 50 percent of Medicare beneficiaries - about 36 million Americans - have enrolled in Medicare Advantage, according to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Medicare Advantage enrollment is concentrated among large carriers. UnitedHealthcare, Humana, and Aetna together account for nearly 60 percent of market share, according to KFF.
The Medicare Advantage market share held by UnitedHealthcare dropped to 26 percent in 2026, down from 29 percent in 2025, according to a June analysis from KFF.
Humana's market share increased to 20 percent in 2026, up from 17 percent.
Medicare Advantage plans account for 80 percent, 33 percent, and 12 percent of revenue for Humana, Aetna, and UnitedHealthcare, respectively.
"[Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services]' vision for Medicare Advantage and Part D is clear: a great choice for seniors and a smart deal for taxpayers," said Chris Klomp, director of Medicare and Chief Counselor of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
"The Rate Announcement improves payment accuracy and strengthens competition based on quality - not on coding practices - helping put the program on a more sustainable path for the long term."
Federal payments to Medicare Advantage plans would increase 2.48 percent in 2027, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. But the increase is still below insurers' expectations for 2027.
"All insurers are likely to cut back on benefits, but Humana will be cutting back the most," said Kevin Gade, chief operating officer at Bahl and Gaynor.
Members with higher medical needs might have to seek other plans, Gade said.
Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 17:40Update: Straight from the horse's mouth - it crashed because of "predatory snipers" or something, according to a post by Hunter on X.
As you may have seen, the LAPTOP memecoin saw a sharp swing in token price during its first hours of trading.
The headlines are all the same.
Token down 99%. Rug pull. Biden Crime Family. The list goes on.
This is far from the truth.
The reality is that available liquidity could not sustain the strong level of interest at launch. Technical issues coupled with predatory "snipers", who seek to beat liquidity providers to market, caused a spike in price, which has since stabilized to healthy levels.
The team's allocation is locked. Nobody on our side sold, and nobody could have. I, personally, have not made a single dollar.
I'm used to legacy news and social media trolls spinning realities to fit their own narrative.
The fully diluted valuation of the token is over $1 billion. And we're actively working on the best solutions to optimize liquidity and continue engaging my community.
We gave free tokens to those who lost on Trump's memecoin.
Somehow the media is painting that as a "failure".
This journey is far from over. We built this community for the long game, and that's exactly how we're playing it. I'm going to keep doing what I do best: ignoring the noise, and reclaiming the narrative.
Maybe he can finally get back to his lucrative art career?
* * *
Hunter Biden’s LAPTOP memecoin fell 99% in its first hour of trading on Wednesday, as the son of former US President Joe Biden officially entered the market for politically themed cryptocurrencies.
The token, which we previewed here, issued on Ethereum layer-2 network Base, traded below $2.00, after opening at $199.50, according to CoinGecko data.
It recorded more than $3 million in trading volume.
“The symbol they used to try to end me is now a symbol of resilience, redemption and recovery,” Biden said in an X post on Wednesday, responding to public backlash.
Biden also said he understood the cynicism around memecoins, called President Donald Trump’s token a “grift” and warned buyers not to expect him or anyone else to make LAPTOP more valuable.
The memecoin is promoted as an attempt to reclaim the “laptop narrative,” which centers on a MacBook that Biden reportedly left at a Delaware repair shop in 2019.
The New York Post published emails and other files purported to have come from the device before the 2020 presidential election. Trump allies used the material against Hunter Biden and his father, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden.
On Monday, Biden teased LAPTOP on X with a post showing the token’s ticker, accompanied by a montage of media coverage of the laptop.
As CoinTelegraph reports, the announcement drew criticism from the likes of digital investigator Stephen Findeisen, known as Coffeezilla, who called LAPTOP a “shitcoin” and urged his followers not to buy it.
X account “scupytrooples” told Biden there was “still time to walk this back.”
Base founder Jesse Pollak said in an X post that the project had contacted his team, but Base made a “conscious decision” not to help with the token’s design or promotion.
Biden did not respond to Cointelegraph’s query before publication.
The project’s disclosures say LAPTOP has no utility, lock founder tokens for six months and reserve 2% for wallets that lost money on TRUMP.
LAPTOP disclosures set 2% of token supply for TRUMP token losersBiden’s earlier criticism of the Trump family’s crypto ventures also gave traders a ready-made hypocrisy argument.
In an Aug. 21 post, Biden accused World Liberty Financial of using political influence, centralized controls and leverage to benefit its founders, while saying the crypto industry deserved better.
He has now launched a memecoin built around his own political identity, with founders allocated a chunk of the supply.
The project’s disclosures describe LAPTOP as a digital collectible with no utility, ownership rights, voting rights, yield or profit-sharing rights. The token has a fixed supply of 1 billion, with 350 million tokens circulating at launch.
Founders, including Biden, are allocated 300 million tokens, or 30% of the supply. Those tokens are locked for six months and then vested monthly over the following 24 months. Another 30% is tied to political, cultural and crypto predictions, with tokens burned when specified outcomes occur and released to charity if they do not.
The disclosures also outline airdrop figures, with the initial round representing 10% of the total supply. Of those, 2% is reserved for wallets that lost money on TRUMP and 8% for eligible subscribers to Biden’s “Where’s Hunter” Substack newsletter.
A separate 10% future airdrop is to be distributed at the foundation’s discretion. That means 20% is allocated to airdrops overall, while the specific TRUMP-loss allocation is capped at 2%.
Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 17:27