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ShadyPanda Takes its Time to Weaponize Legitimate Extensions

ShadyPanda spent seven years uploading trusted Chrome and Edge extensions, later weaponizing them for tracking, hijacking, and remote code execution. Learn how the campaign unfolded.
The post ShadyPanda Takes its Time to Weaponize Legitimate Extensions appeared first on Security Boulevard.
Anthropic signs $200M deal to bring its LLMs to Snowflake’s customers
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Lock In With Ripple: Why This Week Will Be A Game-Changer For XRP
XRP is now moving into one of its most decisive weeks in years, based on a perfect alignment of institutional developments, ETF expansion, and changing supply dynamics. The most important factor behind this trend is the concentration of Spot XRP exchange-traded funds now competing for liquidity in the United States.
Ripple’s growing institutional footprint is also feeding expectations that this week could represent the beginning of a new bullish phase in XRP’s long-term market direction, especially as exchange reserves continue to decline.
A Landmark Week For Spot XRP ETFs
The arrival of 21Shares’ US Spot XRP ETF has modified the ETF niche, because for the first time five major issuers are trading XRP-backed funds simultaneously. Bitwise, Grayscale, Franklin Templeton, Canary Capital, and now 21Shares have consolidated into a new institutional layer for XRP, and the combined demand is starting to reshape how investors are looking at XRP.
According to data from SoSoValue, total inflows into these funds have already surpassed $824 million, and it’s not even yet a full month of trading. The most interesting thing is that since launch, not a single session has recorded net outflows.
The rise in ETF demand is unfolding at the same moment that the supply of liquid XRP on exchanges continues to thin. Analysts monitoring these flows describe this as one of the most structurally significant developments in years because several Spot XRP ETFs are competing directly for circulating supply while being legally unable to source tokens from Ripple’s escrow.
A price-path sensitivity simulation run by Mohamed Bangura, which was shared by crypto analyst Chad Steingraber, adds another layer to the discussion of how Spot XRP ETFs are a game-changer for the cryptocurrency. His model assumes a baseline ETF demand of 74.5 million XRP per day, an available exchange supply of 2.7 billion XRP, and a periodic escrow addition of 300 million XRP every thirty days.
He built three scenarios using price elasticity values of 0.2, 0.5, and 1.0 over a 180-day window. All of these scenarios point to huge bullish price targets, with targets ranging from $6 to extreme spikes approaching $600, depending on elasticity.
Ripple’s New Regulatory Milestone Boosts XRP
Ripple has secured a major regulatory upgrade in Singapore, giving its local subsidiary approval to operate a fully licensed payments platform capable of handling fund collection, custody, token conversion, and payouts. This step strengthens Ripple’s global payments push and positions XRP for deeper integration into regulated financial channels.
At the same time, the XRP Ledger is showing a significant rise in on-chain activity. Recent data reveals a jump in AccountSet operations to levels not seen in years, along with a noticeable uptick in new wallets and overall transaction volume.
The combination of Ripple’s growing regulatory footprint and the XRP Ledger’s latest activity suggests that real-world usage and ecosystem growth are rising just as institutional demand through spot ETFs increases.

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Beep, beep, kids: even that nice lady who gives you such comfort might be hiding a terrible secret.

XRP Spot ETFs Behind The Scenes – Here’s What Institutions Aren’t Saying Publicly
Following the launch of the historic XRP Spot ETFs, the community has been buzzing with excitement, triggering notable success for the funds over the next few days. As the exchange funds continue to attract significant inflows, a crypto expert has outlined the development that is unfolding behind the initiative.
What’s Happening Behind The XRP Spot ETFs
The Spot XRP ETFs are seeing robust growth, but what is happening behind the scenes is quite interesting and demands attention. Pumpius, a crypto expert and investor, has uncovered a subtle play among institutions that is not being shared with the general crowd.
According to the expert, ETF fund managers are legally forbidden from purchasing XRP directly from payment firm Ripple or escrow. This is due to the court’s injunction that every single ETF must acquire the altcoin on the open market only, breaking the concept of shortcuts, backdoor deals, and wholesale buying.
Pumpius has declared this underlying trend at the institutional level to be the most bullish step for the altcoin. His reason hinges on the fact that Ripple will only release what is absolutely necessary from the monthly escrow holdings.
Furthermore, the payment firm will avoid causing taxable events this way by keeping the escrow untouched. Such a move would imply that Ripple is drip-feeding just enough liquidity to avoid dislocation while ETFs are actively absorbing circulating supply.
The expert considers this pattern the calm before a structural supply shock, and not a sign of stagnation. When the shift happens, it will be seen as a balancing act, a pressure build-up, and a loading phase.
In the meantime, fund managers are already in discussion with Ripple, which means timing coordination is currently ongoing. At the same time, the expert has highlighted that supply dynamics are now being designed in real time.
Once the early balance period concludes and ETF demand continues to rise while escrow is strictly regulated, XRP will not move at a slow pace. Instead, the expert predicts that the altcoin will experience substantial movement, breaking upside resistance levels with violence.
A High Demand For The Exchange Funds
Spot XRP ETFs have become a serious mode of investment in the landscape since their launch. Franklin Templeton recently stunned the market by introducing the Franklin XRP ETF on NYSE Arca and referring to the token as “fundamental to the global settlement system.”
Other major firms such as Bitwise, Grayscale, and Canary Capital have all rolled out their own ETFs, which attracted millions in inflows from their first day. With the robust adoption and interest in the funds, the message is clear that the demand for regulated XRP exposure is bigger than anticipated.
Despite the significant demand, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has yet to jump into the funds, stating that customer demand is still primarily centered on Bitcoin and Ethereum for now. Furthermore, they believe that regulatory clarity is still not entirely certain despite repeated victories over the US SEC.
However, if the company eventually launches its own fund, it would spur billions of capital and new institutional money. Considering its status in the finance sector, “a BlackRock ETF would be the ultimate stamp of approval.”

Anthropic highlights productivity gains from use of Claude
A report from Anthropic has highlighted the types of savings that it says could be achieved through the implementation of its AI, Claude, throughout an enterprise.
According to the report, Estimating AI productivity gains from Claude conversations, organizations that have implemented Claude can expect to see staggering productivity gains when implementing a series of tasks such as those required for curriculum development for teachers, invoice production, or financial analysis.
The company used Claude to evaluate 100,000 anonymized transcripts of interactions to estimate the productivity impact of its use. “Based on Claude’s estimates,” it says, “these tasks would take on average about 90 minutes to complete without AI assistance, and Claude speeds up individual tasks by about 80%.”
Based on Anthropic’s observations, the report indicates a number of places where advantages could be achieved through the use of AI, and some where it would not be of use. For example, it says, for software developers, AI speeds up the processes involved in software development, testing, documentation, and manipulating data. But the company does not currently see “meaningful” AI use in the coordination of system installation or the supervision of the work of other technologists or engineers. For teachers, it says, “We see that AI assists with lesson and activity planning, but not with sponsoring extracurricular clubs or enforcing rules in the classroom.”
Analysis has limits
Extrapolating its estimates, Anthropic suggests that current-generation AI models could increase US labor productivity growth by 1.8% annually over the next decade, roughly twice the improvement rate in recent years. But, it notes, “where AI makes less of a difference, these tasks might become bottlenecks, potentially acting as a constraint on growth.”
It also observes that its results are only based on Claude conversations, so don’t reflect the full spectrum of AI uses, and that, historically, the largest productivity gains in organizations have been achieved through restructuring business operations to incorporate new technologies.
In addition, Anthropic points out other possible sticking points in its findings. “Our analysis has limits. Most notably, we can’t account for additional time humans spend on tasks outside of their conversations with Claude, including validating the quality or accuracy of Claude’s work,” the report states.
And, it notes, “our approach doesn’t take into account the additional work people need to do to refine Claude’s outputs to a finished state, or whether they continue iterating on the work product across multiple sessions, both of which would result in smaller time savings.”
The report does have an element of Claude marking its own homework, and it’s easy to be cynical about its assumptions, especially given Claude’s instincts for self-preservation, demonstrated in an Anthropic report in May this year in which Claude resorted to blackmail when threatened with replacement.
A ‘nuanced’ report
However, Tarek Nseir, founder of recently-launched AI consultancy Valliance, said that the Anthropic report was quite nuanced. “They have done a pretty good job at self-declaring the issues,” he observed. “The numbers that they’re describing aren’t outperforming what we’ve been seeing. They’re obviously cherry-picking tasks, concentrating on long-form stuff, but it’s a well-structured, transparent report.”
But, Nseir said, while some of the basic assumptions are sound, Anthropic is underestimating the cumulative effect on a series of tasks. “When you get an inaccuracy in one task, but that is just one part of a chain, you’re going to see any errors compounded over time,” he noted, adding that, while Anthropic’s estimates on time savings for individual tasks are accurate, the aggregate savings that they’re talking about would be hard to achieve.
As for Claude’s propensity for blackmail, Nseir said, “we’re not seeing that sort of behavior in the field. Besides, genAI is improving all the time. The development curve and the safety improvements curve have been very sharp.”
For CIOs looking to implement AI throughout their organizations, regardless of whose technology is under consideration, Nseir had this advice: “I would recommend two approaches: A People First one, where you give employees the right sort of tools to improve their productivity, and a Value First, where you look at the business as a whole, and how the processes fit in.”
