🤑 Is Blockchain Privacy a Trade-off? Scaling Confidential Payments on Stellar

The biggest challenge for institutions moving to blockchain isn't efficiency — it's privacy. How do you leverage a public ledger without exposing client data or competitive strategies to the world? 🤔

In this episode Denelle Dixon and the Stellar Development Foundation’s Chief Product Officer, Tomer Weller, unpack the team’s strategy for configurable privacy.🔐⚙️

They explore why privacy and openness don’t have to be a trade-off and dive into the cutting-edge technology making private institutional payments a reality in 2026, including:

➠ Confidential Tokens vs. Privacy Pools: Understanding the different cryptographic models for securing balances and transactions.
➠ The Power of Zero-Knowledge (ZK): How ZK proofs allow for verifiable computation without revealing sensitive underlying data.
➠ A "Menu" of Compliance: How configurable privacy provides institutions with the administrative controls needed to satisfy regulators.
➠ Live Tools on Stellar: A look at the new building blocks and partnerships (like Nethermind and OpenZeppelin) that are already open-sourcing privacy solutions on the network.

📱 Watch the full video on YouTube

#Stellar

@QSIMedia

🤝 Google and Intel deepen AI infrastructure partnership

Intel Corporation and Google announced a multiyear collaboration to advance the next generation of AI and cloud infrastructure. Google Cloud will use Intel’s Xeon processors, including Intel’s latest Xeon 6 chips, for AI, cloud, and inference tasks. The companies will also expand the co-development of custom infrastructure processing units (IPUs), which help accelerate and manage data center tasks by offloading them from CPUs.

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✈️ Copa Airlines confirms Starlink Wi-Fi rollout starting this year

Copa Airlines has confirmed it will introduce high-speed in-flight Wi-Fi powered by Starlink — becoming the first airline in Latin America to adopt the low-Earth orbit satellite technology across its fleet.

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🇨🇳🇹🇼 Xi meets Taiwan opposition leader for first time in a decade

Xi called for cooperation and peace. Cheng, the first head of Taiwan’s Beijing-friendly Kuomintang to visit China in a decade, echoed the message, saying both sides should seek to prevent war and expressed hope that the Taiwan Strait separating the two governments won’t become a “chessboard for external interference.”

“The world today is far from tranquil, and peace is all the more precious. Compatriots on both sides of the strait are Chinese, one family, and the desire for peace, development, exchanges and cooperation is a shared aspiration,” — Xi told Kuomintang Chairperson Cheng Li-wun. 🤝

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⚡️🇧🇷🇺🇸 Brazil, US Team Up to Tackle Cross-Border Organized Crime Gangs

Brazil and the US have launched a joint initiative to combat transnational organized crime gangs that have ramped up the smuggling of weapons and illegal drugs across Latin America. The move is part of a bilateral collaboration dubbed Project MIT, which seeks to integrate intelligence and operations to intercept illegal shipments of arms and drugs.

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🤑 Transparent When You Want It, Private When You Need It

Proven at institutional scale, the Stellar network has processed over 21.5 billion operations since launch across 10 million+ active accounts. Quarterly RWA payment volume reached $5.4 billion. The kind of reliability that attracted Visa, PayPal, Franklin Templeton and MoneyGram to build on the network.

⚡🛡 Fast. Cost-efficient. Dependable. By bringing privacy as a configurable layer, Stellar gives institutions and developers what they need for the next wave of adoption: The ability to choose between transparency and privacy when the situation demands it.

Institutions need four things at once. Privacy from competitors, configurable compliance tools, deep liquidity, and openness. Stellar makes all four available, and let institutions and developers choose what they need for each use case.

Now, the question is how? 📚

Stellar provides the building blocks to construct custom privacy applications. X-Ray (Protocol 25), live on Mainnet since January 2026 introduced native support for zero-knowledge cryptography. This solves the developers' pain. They build with ease.

🧱 The Building Blocks:

1) BN254: X-ray didn't just add BN254 support. It embedded it as a native primitive. Stellar runs BN254 operations at the protocol level, which is convenient. Why? Faster verification, lower cost, and fewer security assumptions.

2) Poseidon and Poseidon2: Designed specifically for ZK, Poseidon uses math operations that align naturally with how proofs are computed. 10 to 100x more efficient than SHA-256 in this context.

New privacy applications deploy as smart contracts on Stellar, also the same infrastructure every other Stellar app uses. Privacy evolves at the speed of application development, not protocol upgrades. 🔐⚙️

🏆 The first platform to reach institutional critical mass establishes a position that competitors find increasingly difficult to displace - regardless of technical capabilities. Privacy isn't about superior technology. What matters is where the anonymity set and liquidity already reside.

Stellar already moves billions in payments. Now institutions and developers gain the ability to choose when to be public and when to be private - on a network that's already proven.

✅ Transparent when you want it. Private when you need it. Finally, Stellar has both.

#Stellar

@QSIMedia

🇫🇷 France to ditch Windows for Linux to reduce reliance on US tech

France plans to move some of its government computers currently running Windows to the open source operating system Linux. This move aims to reduce reliance on U.S. technology and regain control over its digital infrastructure. The switchover will begin with computers at the French government’s digital agency, DINUM.

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🇰🇷 South Korea introduces universal basic mobile data access

The nation’s Ministry of Science announced the plan to provide over seven million subscribers with unlimited downloads at just 400 kbps after their data allowances expire. South Korea’s dominant carriers, SK Telecom, KT, and LG Uplus, have agreed to the plan.

"We must respond with a level of innovation and contribution – a complete transformation – that the public can tangibly perceive," — said Minister for Science and ICT Bae Kyunghoon.

They’ve also resolved to introduce low-priced 5G plans that cost ₩20,000 or less ($13.50), and to increase data and calling allowances for senior citizens. The government also extracted promises to upgrade Wi-Fi services on subways and long-distance trains.

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🤖 Harvard’s Kreiman Seeks $100 Million to Build AI Memory Tech

A new AI lab spun out of Harvard University is in talks with investors to raise about $100 million to pursue a mission that sounds like science fiction: “a world where humans can remember everything.” Engramme, which launched out of stealth mode last month, is helmed by former Harvard Medical School professor Gabriel Kreiman, whose research has focused on the intersection of AI and neuroscience.

Kreiman has spent decades studying how the brain encodes, stores, and retrieves memories — work that includes single-neuron recordings, visual perception, and episodic memory formation. The startup is building “large memory models” to access data across a person’s digital life. These models connect to the full "memorome"— emails, conversations, documents, and digital life — and surface relevant memories automatically without user prompting and searching.

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❤️🇳🇱 Dutch Regulators Approve Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Software

RDW has issued a type approval for Tesla’s driver assistance system, FSD Supervised (Full Self Driving Supervised), a move that could help open the door to a future approval in the European Union at large. The regulator said drivers in the Netherlands will be able to use the system immediately.

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Hi 👋

🤑 We had an amazing time connecting with everyone at our last Q&A sessions — and we’re excited to invite you to the next Q&A + Meet & Greet Call! 🎉

During the Call we introduce our team, get to know you better, and answer your questions. This is a relaxed, interactive space built around real conversations and shared curiosity. 💬

📚 This next session will build on the topics you told us matter most — so come ready to share, ask, and explore.

QSI helps its members to become happier, more confident and vibrant, more knowledgeable about the world and its many lightning quick updates, and how to bring quantum solutions to the table🔣 which then translates into how our efforts and service will help change the world in the future. 🌎💫

If this resonates with you, don’t miss your chance to participate! ⤵️
🔘Monday, April 13 @ 9pm CST / 4am CET / 2pm NZST 🌐

❗️Beginner Reminder: Please make sure to complete the course and test before Q&A sessions → @QSITrainingBot

Your involvement matters. We’d love to see you there! ❤️

#Stellar

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🇯🇵 Japan moves to classify cryptocurrencies as financial products

Japan’s cabinet has approved a draft amendment that would classify cryptocurrencies as financial products, marking a shift in how the country regulates the sector. The proposal brings crypto assets under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, a framework used for stocks and other securities. If passed during the current parliament session, the law could take effect as early as fiscal 2027.

“The move will expand the supply of growth capital in response to changes in the financial and capital markets, ensuring market fairness, transparency, and the protection of investors,” — Minister for Financial Services Satsuki Katayama said.

Until now, Japan has treated crypto mainly as a payment tool under the Payment Services Act. That approach focused on custody, anti-money laundering checks and exchange registration. The new rules would ban insider trading and require issuers to publish annual disclosures.

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⚡️🇺🇸🇮🇷 US and Iran delegations in Pakistan for peace talks amid fragile ceasefire

Trilateral talks between the US and Iran are underway with Pakistan serving as a mediator. Vice President JD Vance is leading the American delegation, which includes U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

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