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Meet autistic Barbie: the newest Mattel doll launched in line intended to celebrate diversity

Published

3 hours ago

January 12, 2026

Mattel Inc. is introducing an autistic Barbie on Monday as the newest member of its line intended to celebrate diversity, joining a collection that already includes Barbies with Down syndrome, a blind Barbie, a Barbie and a Ken with vitiligo, and other models the toymaker added to make its fashion dolls more inclusive.

Mattel said it developed the autistic doll over more than 18 months in partnership with the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, a nonprofit organization that advocates for the rights and better media representation of people with autism. The goal: to create a Barbie that reflected some of the ways autistic people may experience and process the world around them, according to a Mattel news release.

That was a challenge because autism encompasses a broad range of behaviors and difficulties that vary widely in degree, and many of the traits associated with the disorder are not immediately visible, according to Noor Pervez, who is the Autistic Self Advocacy Network’s community engagement manager and worked closely with Mattel on the Barbie prototype.

Like many disabilities, “autism doesn’t look any one way,” Pervez said. “But we can try and show some of the ways that autism expresses itself.”

For example, the eyes of the new Barbie shift slightly to the side to represent how some people with autism sometimes avoid direct eye contact, he said. The doll also was given articulated elbows and wrists to acknowledge stimming, hand flapping and other gestures that some autistic people use to process sensory information or to express excitement, according to Mattel.

The development team debated whether to dress the doll in a tight or a loose-fitting outfit, Pervez said. Some autistic people wear loose clothes because they are sensitive to the feel of fabric seams, while others wear figure-hugging garments to give them a sense of where their bodies are, he said.

The team ended up choosing an A-line dress with short sleeves and a flowy skirt that provides less fabric-to-skin contact. The doll also wears flat shoes to promote stability and ease of movement, according to Mattel.

Each doll comes with a pink finger clip fidget spinner, noise-canceling headphones and a pink tablet modeled after the devices some autistic people who struggle to speak use to communicate.

The addition of the autistic doll to the Barbie Fashionistas line also became an occasion for Mattel to create a doll with facial features inspired by the company’s employees in India and mood boards reflecting a range of women with Indian backgrounds. Pervez said it was important to have the doll represent a segment of the autistic community that is generally underrepresented.

Mattel introduced its first doll with Down syndrome in 2023 and brought out a Barbie representing a person with Type 1 diabetes last summer. The Fashionistas also include a Barbie and a Ken with a prosthetic leg, and a Barbie with hearing aids, but the line also encompasses tall, petite and curvy body types and numerous hair types and skin colors.

“Barbie has always strived to reflect the world kids see and the possibilities they imagine, and we’re proud to introduce our first autistic Barbie as part of that ongoing work,” Jamie Cygielman, Mattel’s global head of dolls, said in a statement.

The doll was expected to be available at Mattel’s online shop and at Target stores starting Monday for a suggested retail price of $11.87. Walmart stores are expected to start carrying the new Barbie in March, Mattel said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last year that the estimated prevalence of autism among 8-year-old children in the U.S. was 1 in 31. The estimate from the CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network said Black, Hispanic, Asian and Pacific Islander children in the U.S. were more likely than white children to have a diagnosis, and the prevalence more than three times higher among boys than girls.

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Business

DeFi has earned a seat at the grown-ups table—now comes the hard part

Published

3 minutes ago

January 12, 2026

Jace Porter

One of the many remarkable features of crypto is how often upstarts appear out of nowhere and, in a year or less, become one of the industry’s top dogs. This happened in 2016 when Binance exploded on the scene, and in 2023 when Blur gobbled up the NFT market (RIP) from OpenSea. Now, the same thing is happening in DeFi where Hyperliquid—and its 11 or so employees—is doing more than $100 billion in trading volume while going toe-to-toe with long-established giants like Binance and Bybit.

It was only after reading this smart Hyperliquid profile, by Fortune Crypto’s Ben Weiss and Leo Schwartz, that I came to appreciate what a big deal the platform has become. This is in part thanks to its no-nonsense cofounder Jeff Yan, whose credentials include a Harvard degree and a gold in the International Physics Olympiad. But it is also due to Hyperliquid’s being a decentralized platform that is winning market share from centralized exchanges.

The market Hyperliquid is winning is admittedly an esoteric one, consisting of pro traders who leverage up to sling a popular derivative called “perps” (for perpetual futures). Most of us, including those well versed in crypto, will get rekt going anywhere near these things. But, though they are not mainstream, the sheer volume of money involved in perps trading means that sites that offer it can make out very well indeed. In Hyperliquid’s case, it is pulling in roughly $600 million of annual revenue, and its token is worth more than Uniswap’s cryptocurrency.

On top of this, Hyperliquid mostly walks the walk when it comes to decentralization. While some complain the project has too few validators—which can give rise to centralized control—it does have some decidedly DeFi elements like non-custodial wallets and an on-chain order book. Hyperliquid also lacks Know-Your-Customer policies.

This last part is reassuring for old-school Bitcoiners and crypto purists, who are wary of governments meddling in people’s personal finances. But the lack of KYC could also put CEO Yan in an uncomfortable position—especially given his influence over Hyperliquid’s validator network and the code that governs its smart contracts.

This tension between decentralized ideals and the influence of founders is playing out in other corners of DeFi, including with Aave and Ethereum. Bloomberg’s Muyao Shen recently picked up on these tensions:

“[DeFi projects] have been hailed by backers as democratized corporations, while critics suggest the real purpose is to make them difficult to regulate. The downside to decentralization in regards to actual control is apparent when legal disputes arise,” she wrote.

In coming years, Hyperliquid and other big DeFi players are going to be increasingly entwined with the world of mainstream finance. This means that legal disputes over issues like KYC and tokenholders’ right to profits are likely to become more common. Meanwhile, DeFi projects could find it harder to carry out big governance and policy decisions deep within obscure foundations or DAOs—which is how many of them prefer to operate.

While the DeFi sector is likely to encounter legal bumps in the coming years, that’s not a bad thing if it results in more transparency. At the same time, the rapid ascension of Hyperliquid is just the latest example that DeFi is here, and that the sector is only going to grow bigger and more influential.

Jeff John Roberts
jeff.roberts@fortune.com
@jeffjohnroberts

DECENTRALIZED NEWS

Lloyds used tokenized deposits to buy gilts, or British government bonds, last month, and other UK banks say they are exploring the use of blockchain for other transactions like mortgages—but the institutional adoption of crypto in Britain feels well behind that of the U.S. (FT)

World Liberty Financial has asked the OCC to grant it a national trust charter to issue the Trump-backed USD1 stablecoin. If it is approved, WLF would operate as a “skinny” bank with access to master accounts at the Fed. (WSJ)

Crypto infrastructure firm Fireblocks bought accounting platform TRES Finance for $130 million, a move it says will better allow traditional firms to integrate crypto. (Fortune)

The Tether-backed social media site Rumble launched a decentralized wallet that lets users tip content creators with Bitcoin or USDT, with MoonPay handling the payments. (CoinDesk)

The overall volume of blockchain-based criminal activity didn’t change much in 2025, says Chainalysis. The difference is that Russia, Iran and other nation states now account for much of the crime. (Fortune)

MAIN CHARACTER OF THE WEEK

Jerome Powell, chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Al Drago—Bloomberg/Getty Images

Fed Chair Jerome Powell issued a statement with implications not just for crypto, but for global finance. He said a new DOJ criminal investigation came in retaliation for the Fed’s interest rate decisions, and reflects a move by the White House to intimidate the central bank.

MEME O’ THE MOMENT

Nike quietly off-loaded its NFT shop RTFKT, which it acquired in 2021. The move is the latest signal that both blockchain and retail firms have moved on from crypto collectibles, but there still remain some believers.

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Molson Coors CEO: We’re doing our part to solve society’s ‘occasion problem’ – and we’re getting some unexpected help

Published

34 minutes ago

January 12, 2026

Jace Porter

Rahul Goyal is President and CEO of Molson Coors Beverage Company, having previously served as Chief Strategy Officer. Prior to becoming Chief Strategy Officer, Rahul served as Molson Coors’ Vice President of Strategy and Partnerships. He started in Golden, Colorado at Coors Brewing Company in 2001 and has held several global leadership roles such as Chief Information Officer for Molson Coors in the UK and Chief Financial Officer for Molson Coors in India. Prior to joining Molson Coors, Rahul worked as an engineer in India. He holds an engineering degree from Mysore University and an MBA in Business and IT from the University of Denver Daniels College of Business.

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Business

A cautionary Hollywood tale: the Ellisons’ lose-lose Paramount positioning

Published

1 hour ago

January 12, 2026

Jace Porter

A cautionary Hollywood tale: the Ellisons’ lose-lose Paramount positioning | Fortune

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld is Lester Crown Professor of Leadership Practice at the Yale School of Management and founder of the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute. A leadership and governance scholar, he created the world’s first school for incumbent CEOs and he has advised five U.S. presidents across political parties. His latest book, Trump’s Ten Commandments, will be published by Simon & Schuster in March 2026.
Stephen Henriques is a senior research fellow of the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute. He was a consultant at McKinsey & Company and a policy analyst for the governor of Connecticut.