Finance
Montana GOP, Busse file campaign finance complaints • Daily Montanan
The Montana GOP said the Democratic candidate for governor is illegally spending money on his wife’s communications company — but Democrat Ryan Busse, challenging the Republican incumbent, alleges Gov. Greg Gianforte improperly funneled $1 million to his campaign manager’s companies.
Both candidates deny the allegations in the respective complaints filed this month with the Commissioner of Political Practices.
Busse claims Gianforte paid campaign manager Jake Eaton and other staff affiliated with the campaign more than $1 million through Eaton’s companies. The payments are disclosed in financial reports, but the Busse campaign says they violate the law against “secret pass-through payments.”
Gianforte campaign spokesperson Anna Marian Block said in a statement Friday the campaign is in full compliance with the law.
“This complaint is nothing more than a desperate attempt to distract voters from the fact that Ryan Busse is trailing in the polls by 21%,” Block said.
Meanwhile, the Montana Republican Party alleges the Busse campaign allocated several thousand dollars to his wife’s communications company in violation of a law prohibiting surplus funds going to candidates for “personal benefit,” which includes family members.
In a response filed Friday, Busse’s campaign called the complaint “utterly meritless” and said contrary to the allegations, the communications work is being done by an experienced professional and legally must be compensated.
Busse: Gianforte isn’t disclosing payments to staff for campaign work
Eaton owns consulting firm The Political Company as well as political sign printing shop and marketing firm Ultra Graphics, both in Billings. The Busse campaign’s complaint, filed Friday, lists more than 25 payments from Gianforte’s campaigns to both companies between March and June of this year. The campaign says Gianforte should have made those payments to Eaton personally, instead of through his companies, for his consulting work.
Eaton noted in his email Friday political parties can submit expenditures for campaigns and noted the Montana Republican State Central Committee report is where the expenses for staff are listed, including his own. The committee’s report for the first quarter of the year notes The Political Company was paid three installments of $12,500, as well as salaries for staff listed in the complaint.
The complaint, authored by Busse staffer Emily Harris, said the Gianforte campaign has previously this election cycle tried to sidestep accountability for including false information about immigration in an ad. After taking the ad down, the campaign told Montana’s ABC/Fox affiliate the ad was done by an “outside contractor”and the campaign decided to remove it. Busse’s camp is claiming the ad was created by Eaton’s company, basing that off the time of the ad and when it was published.
Busse’s complaint also claims it is implausible Gianforte raised $1.2 million from when he officially became a candidate in January, but doesn’t point to concrete evidence Gianforte started raising money prior to becoming a candidate other than campaign contribution amounts being suspicious. Busse believes because the donations were all the same amount and at the maximum amount that could be donated by one person at a time, $2,240, it raises concern as it doesn’t match donation amounts from in person events which were around $100.
Harris wrote Gianforte started campaign activities earlier than is legally allowed as an internal poll came out days after he officially became a candidate, but also made the claim on “information and belief.”
The complaint also listed a number of staffers that claim through social media as well as in news reports to be affiliated with the campaign, but are not included in the expenditures for the campaign.
Harris also listed more than 20 expenditures from Gianforte’s campaign saying the descriptions were too vague and did not comply with the same statute referenced in the complaint against Busse for signs and media placement.
The Busse campaign also said money “passed through Eaton’s companies goes to other Republican-aligned vendors—payments Gianforte conceals from his reporting.” The complaint did not list which vendors, though.
GOP: Busse giving campaign funds to wife for communications work
The complaint from the state GOP, signed June 14, says Busse’s campaign paid Aspen Communications, owned by Sarah Swan Busse, a total of just more than $12,000 for communications and fundraising consulting, as well as car mileage. Sara Swan Busse is Ryan Busse’s wife.
The complaint also said candidate Busse receives a salary from Aspen Communications, which the campaign refutes as not affiliated with the election.
But because the salary would directly benefit Busse and his wife, the GOP alleges Busse is in violation of state law that prohibits surplus campaign funds from directly benefiting candidates or their family members.
The Busse campaign, in a response authored by campaign manager Aaron Murphy, said Sara Busse is an “independent experienced professional” and her work legally must be compensated fairly.
It listed her experience in the field working on western district democratic candidate Monica Tranel’s Congressional campaign during the 2022 election cycle.
The Busse camp also said the statute cited by the GOP regarding personal benefit from campaign funds isn’t relevant as it concerns how funds are dealt with after the campaign, not during. Murphy wrote the GOP likely meant to cite an administrative rule saying candidates cannot use campaign funds for personal use, but he said the campaign didn’t break that rule either.
“All expenditures and reimbursements to Sara Busse and Aspen Communications are directly connected to her fundraising and communications work for the campaign—they support the campaign and would not exist without it,” the response read.
“The campaign’s contract with Aspen Communications is not to compensate Ryan Busse. Ryan Busse receives no compensation from the campaign (excluding reimbursements for mileage, etc.),” the response read. “Ryan Busse’s occasional work for Aspen Communications, as listed on his personal disclosure, is entirely separate and distinct from the campaign.”
Murphy also said if hiring spouses was at issue, it would call into question the ethics of the state paying attorney Emily Jones, wife of Gianforte’s campaign manager Jake Eaton, for her work as an attorney with the state.
The GOP complaint also said Busse’s campaign was not thorough in its description of the services paid for with campaign funds, as is required in statute.
This included a $250,000 ad buy from media strategy company Left Hook with the description “statewide broadcast tv ad buy” and a nearly $7,800 purchase from progressive campaign sign producer Blue Deal with the description “signs.”
Montana Commissioner of Political Practices Chris Gallus said the timeline for determining whether his office will move forward with a formal investigation in the complaint against Busse is not known at this time. His office will send a letter Monday requesting Gianforte’s response to the complaint by Busse.
Editor’s Note: the headline of this story was amended to reflect the Montana GOP filing the campaign finance complaint against Ryan Busse.
Want unlimited access to top ideas and insights?
Banking has entered a new phase of transformation that has the potential to remake large swaths of the industry. For much of the past decade, innovation was often framed around modernization efforts such as upgrading legacy systems, improving digital channels, or experimenting with emerging technologies through pilots and limited deployments. Now, the institutions pulling ahead competitively are distinguished by their willingness to explore innovation early and their ability to operationalize it at scale and translate it into measurable business outcomes.
Across the industry, innovation is beginning to reshape the economics and competitive structure of financial services in more tangible ways. Revenue models are evolving. Operational costs are being reconfigured through the strategic integration of artificial intelligence, cloud computing and blockchain. That, in turn, is fundamentally changing how capital is allocated. Risk management is becoming more data driven, predictive and automated. Customer expectations around speed, personalization and accessibility continue to rise as the instant-everything culture takes hold.
What makes the current cycle particularly significant is that several major technology shifts are unfolding simultaneously and beginning to intersect. AI, real-time payments, digital assets, tokenization, cloud-native infrastructure, embedded finance, and programmable financial systems are increasingly reinforcing one another and revamping how financial institutions operate, deliver services and compete.
These factors compelled American Banker to launch The Most Innovative People in Finance, a new annual ranking that recognizes the top 50 individuals who are driving these massive waves of digital transformation—producing measurable results, shoring up their competitive positions, opening new markets, and, in some cases, redefining the industry.
Leading this year’s list is #1-ranked Vantage Bank CEO Jeff Sinnott for the launch of the U.S.’s first bank-issued stablecoin; followed in the top five spots by Custodia Bank CEO Caitlin Long (#2) for the debut of a tokenized deposit network for community banks; Goldman Sachs CIO Marco Argenti (#3) for developing and deploying the firm’s widespread internal use cases for agentic AI; TD Bank SVP and Chief AI Scientist Maksims Volkovs (#4) for the development of its predictive foundation AI model; and Anchorage Digital CEO Nathan McCauley (#5) for becoming the issuer of Tether’s U.S.-regulated stablecoin USA₮.
The methodology used to select the 50 individuals is based on quantitative and qualitative factors encompassing leadership, investment in technology innovation, and number, size and impact of digital transformation initiatives over a single year (2025) and three-year time horizon, including internal cost efficiency gains and/or new revenue generation, and, where applicable, impact on the industry. American Banker also considered the role that the individual played in driving digital transformation initiatives in 2025, percentage of technology budget allocated to new innovation projects, products and initiatives, specific funding amount allocated to digital transformation initiatives annually, acquisitions and partnerships initiated to advance the bank’s innovation, impact on creating an internal culture of innovation, and number of patents held in their name.
Why does recognition of outstanding leadership in innovation matter now more than ever?
Consider that AI sits at the center of much of the transformative change—with advanced forms of AI increasingly coordinating workflows, monitoring transactions in real time, supporting liquidity management, identifying anomalous behavior, and assisting with operational decision-making across multiple functions simultaneously.
At the same time, the movement and representation of value itself is changing, with stablecoins, tokenized deposits, blockchain-based settlement systems, and digital-asset infrastructure evolving from experimentation into broader commercial use cases.
As such, real-time payment networks, richer transaction data standards, embedded financial services, and intelligent payment routing are transforming payments into a central layer of customer engagement and commercial activity.
Underpinning many of these developments is a broader modernization of banking infrastructure. Cloud-native architecture, API-driven platforms, and modular technology environments are driving adaptability, data accessibility, ecosystem connectivity, and the ability to integrate intelligence directly into operational workflows.
This period of structural change is altering the competitive dynamics of the industry, requiring leadership that understands when to invest, where to modernize, which risks are worth taking and how to aggressively reposition their institutions for the future.
Photographer: Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg
© 2025 Bloomberg Finance LP
Crypto has always traded on a different clock. Bitcoin does not close for weekends, liquidity does not pause for holidays, and leverage does not wait for clearing desks to reopen on Monday morning. For years, that difference helped separate crypto-native venues from regulated financial infrastructure.
That separation is narrowing. CME Group said its regulated cryptocurrency futures and options will be available for 24-hour, seven-day trading beginning May 29, pending regulatory review, with trading continuing on CME Globex except for a weekly maintenance window. The move is more than an operational extension. It is a sign that traditional finance is being pulled toward the market structure crypto normalized first.
The harder question is not whether institutions can trade crypto around the clock. They already can, through offshore venues, prime brokers, market makers, and liquidity providers. The harder question is whether regulated finance’s clearing, custody, surveillance, privacy, and risk systems can operate in markets where leverage, information, and volatility never really switch off.
Crypto’s 24/7 derivatives era is not simply making digital assets look more institutional. It is forcing traditional finance to become more continuous.
Derivatives are becoming crypto’s institutional layer
The center of gravity in crypto markets has been moving away from simple spot trading for years. Spot markets still matter, especially for retail flows, exchange liquidity, and ETF-related demand. But derivatives are where much of the institutional market now expresses risk, hedges exposure, prices volatility, and manages leverage.
That shift is visible in the data. CCData’s January 2026 Exchange Review reported combined centralized exchange volumes of $5.26 trillion, while spot trading accounted for $1.27 trillion. The implication is clear: derivatives represented the majority of centralized exchange activity that month.
This matters because derivatives do not just reflect price discovery. In crypto, they increasingly shape it. Futures, perpetual swaps, and options influence liquidity, funding rates, volatility expectations, and institutional positioning. When derivatives become the dominant venue for market expression, trading hours become less a convenience issue and more a structural one.
That is why CME’s move is significant. Regulated access is no longer just about listing a bitcoin or ether contract. It is about matching the operating rhythm of the asset itself.
CME also said client demand for digital asset risk management helped drive a record $3 trillion in notional cryptocurrency futures and options volume in 2025. That is not a fringe market asking for extended access. It is a regulated derivatives marketplace responding to institutional demand for more continuous risk management.
Continuous trading still runs into legacy settlement
The tension is that continuous execution does not automatically mean continuous settlement. CME’s model extends trading access, but it still preserves familiar institutional mechanics. Weekend and holiday trades are assigned the next business day’s trade date, and clearing, settlement and regulatory reporting continue to flow through the next business day framework.
That is the bridge traditional finance is trying to build: crypto-speed execution on top of regulated market infrastructure. It is a practical compromise, but also a revealing one. Crypto markets solved for continuous trading first and institutional controls second. Traditional finance is trying to do the reverse.
There are good reasons for that. Regulated derivatives markets cannot simply discard reporting obligations, margin discipline, risk controls, and clearing protocols. Their value proposition is precisely that institutions can trade within a transparent, supervised framework.
But always-on markets compress the time available to react. A move that happens on a Sunday morning can affect collateral needs, counterparty exposures, hedge ratios, and liquidity conditions before traditional workflows fully resume. In that environment, operational readiness becomes part of market structure.
The next competitive edge may not be who lists the product first. It may be who can monitor risk, margin exposure, custody flows, and compliance exceptions in real time without weakening the controls institutions rely on.
Transparency becomes a risk surface
Crypto’s always-on design also introduces a second challenge: information moves continuously too. Public blockchains make settlement visible, auditable, and difficult to falsify. That can reduce certain intermediary risks. But the same transparency can expose flows that businesses would normally treat as confidential.
“It does both simultaneously,” said Natalie Newson, Senior Blockchain Investigator at CertiK, when asked whether public blockchain transparency reduces systemic risk or creates new attack surfaces. “Settlement finality is also publicly auditable,” she said, but “front-running and MEV are persistent issues in blockchain.”
That duality is central to the institutional adoption question. Public auditability is useful when markets need trust in settlement. It is less straightforward when market participants reveal treasury movements, collateral positioning, payroll flows, or supplier payments in real time.
Newson framed the business risk directly. “If your treasury wallet is known, and on-chain, it eventually becomes known, counterparties, suppliers, and competitors can watch your liquidity position in real time,” she said.
For trading firms, that visibility can affect execution. For corporations, it can expose working capital strategy. For institutions, it can turn settlement infrastructure into a source of market intelligence for competitors. In a 24/7 derivatives environment, information leakage does not wait for office hours either.
This is where the conversation moves beyond cybersecurity. The issue is not just hacks, exploits, or smart contract vulnerabilities. It is whether an always-on financial system can protect commercially sensitive behavior while preserving the auditability that makes blockchain infrastructure useful in the first place.
Privacy is becoming part of market infrastructure
The early crypto argument treated transparency as a feature. That was true for open monetary networks and early DeFi systems, where public verification helped establish trust. But what works for a speculative or experimental market does not automatically work for enterprise finance.
“Transparency becomes a structural constraint the moment a business tries to use blockchain for real operations,” said Varun Kabra, Chief Growth Officer of Concordium. “Payroll, supplier contracts, treasury flows, pricing structures, these are not marketing data points.”
That is the institutional bottleneck hiding inside the 24/7 trading conversation. It is not enough for markets to stay open. The systems around those markets need ways to prove identity, authorization, eligibility, and compliance without exposing more information than necessary.
Kabra’s broader point is that the next phase of adoption depends on combining privacy with accountability. “The next phase of adoption won’t come from arguing with regulators,” he said. “It will come from building systems where privacy and accountability coexist by design.”
That logic is already moving beyond financial markets. Concordium’s partnership with the Danish Ice Hockey Union includes a Verified Fan Programme using zero-knowledge proofs and an Agentic Commerce initiative around verified AI agents, showing how users or automated agents could prove access rights or authorization without disclosing unnecessary personal data.
The sports example is not the point. The infrastructure pattern is. As markets become more automated and more continuous, identity and selective disclosure become part of the same control stack as margining, custody, and surveillance.
Traditional finance is learning to operate on crypto’s clock
The obvious reading of CME’s 24/7 move is that crypto is becoming more institutional. That is true, but incomplete. The more interesting reading is that traditional finance is beginning to adopt pieces of crypto-native market structure because client demand, volatility, and liquidity have already moved in that direction.
This does not mean regulated finance will become decentralized. It will not. Institutions still need clearinghouses, custodians, reporting systems, market surveillance, and legal accountability. What changes is the cadence. Risk systems that were designed around market closes and business-day workflows will need to function in a market where exposure changes continuously.
That transition will not happen all at once. Execution hours can expand faster than settlement systems. Trading access can move faster than compliance architecture. Liquidity can move faster than privacy standards. The result is a hybrid market structure: crypto assets trading on a crypto clock, through increasingly regulated venues, with traditional finance rebuilding its control layer around a more continuous environment.
For investors, this means crypto derivatives are becoming more than a trading product. They are becoming the test case for how legacy market infrastructure adapts to always-on finance.
The next phase of institutional crypto adoption will not be defined only by which assets get listed or which venues gain market share. It will be defined by whether the financial system can manage risk, identity, privacy, and settlement at the speed crypto markets already demand.
RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) — Families are navigating the already stressful college planning process, and a new set of financial grades is prompting many to look more closely at the stability of the schools they are considering.
Forbes’ annual financial report card for private, nonprofit colleges and universities is putting a spotlight on how well schools can manage their finances. The rankings are based on each institution’s ability to cover immediate expenses with cash on hand — a measure that is increasingly resonating with parents.
In the Triangle, the grades vary widely. Duke University received an A+, while Meredith College earned a B-. Shaw University was rated C-, and Saint Augustine’s University received a D.
For families, those grades are becoming an important part of the decision-making process, alongside academic and campus life.
“This college experience is much more than the books and the tuition,” Wake Forest parent Meranda Van Ningen said.
Van Ningen said a school’s financial condition is now a key factor as she — and many other parents — evaluate long-term value and security.
“We had to really lean in and ask the questions, make sure that we were getting the answers we appreciated,” she said. “They want us. They want our money to come in and to pay for that next year.”
She said the financial grades offer insight into how well schools can navigate economic challenges.
“Show that they can handle this tough, tough economy, to be honest, and that they know how to roll with it because campuses have good years and bad years as well,” Van Ningen said.
Financial planners say that shift in focus is well-founded, especially as some colleges across the country face financial strain or closure.
“A lot of smaller colleges are closing throughout the country,” said Gray Pendleton, president of Pendleton Financial. “I think it’s important to look at the financial health of the school.”
Experts say the added scrutiny reflects the high stakes of higher education, often one of the largest investments a family will make. Along with reviewing financial grades, they encourage families to thoroughly research institutions before committing.
They also stress the importance of early financial preparation to manage rising costs.
“Even like, $10 to $100 a month,” Pendleton said. “The NC 529 savings plan is great. And that’s an aggressive, age based plan. That’s a good opportunity.”
As financial grades draw more attention, families are increasingly weighing not just where students will thrive academically, but also which schools are best positioned to remain financially secure over the long term.
Copyright © 2026 WTVD-TV. All Rights Reserved.
-
Detroit, MI3 minutes agoFrankie Valli cancels tour. Why Four Seasons won’t be back in Detroit
-
San Francisco, CA15 minutes agoLive From Microsoft Build 2026 San Francisco
-
Dallas, TX18 minutes agoDallas Cowboys Full OTA Schedule Ahead Of 2026 NFL Season
-
Miami, FL23 minutes agoThese Miami pizza spots rank among America’s best
-
Boston, MA30 minutes agoNew England’s most welcoming towns and best summer escapes
-
Denver, CO33 minutes agoA Writer Goes Down the Rabbit Hole at Denver’s First Microdosing Cafe
-
Seattle, WA38 minutes agoMan injured during stabbing attack in Seattle’s University District
-
San Diego, CA45 minutes agoMore Thoughts on ‘Yes on A’
