⏰ Tokenization and 24/7 markets are reshaping finance, making always-on banking a reality

The financial industry is moving toward a world where markets never close, payments settle in real time and investors expect access to their money around the clock, according to Morgan Stanley executives, who say tokenization is accelerating a shift away from traditional banking hours.

"The move to tokenized assets is about far more than cryptocurrencies. Instead, the focus is on rebuilding financial infrastructure for an always-on economy," — argued Betsy Graseck, Morgan Stanley's global head of banks and diversified finance research.

"I do phrase it as, look, this is the end of banker hours," — Graseck said. "Your batch processing mentality is going to be a thing of the past."

The bank recently began expanding its digital asset offerings with crypto trading on E*TRADE and new Bitcoin, Ether and Solana ETFs.

❗️Graseck said investor demand is no longer centered solely on bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. Institutions are now looking at tokenization because it can improve cash mobility, increase collateral efficiency and create new investment opportunities.

"If you do not modernize your rails to enable yourself to participate as flows shift to digital asset rails, you're not positioning yourself for growth," — she said.

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🇺🇸 The White House: America Is Building Cars Again

The auto industry is back! 🎉

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🤑 Aviva Investors launches first tokenized fund on XRPL

Ripple and Aviva Investors have launched the first tokenised fund on the XRP Ledger Wednesday, marking the first tokenized fund structure approved by the Central Bank of Ireland.

❗️The tokenised USD Liquidity Fund will be available on the XRP Ledger. Investors will benefit from the same investment objective, risk profile, liquidity characteristics and regulatory protections as the conventional fund, alongside enhanced operational features enabled by tokenisation.

The tokenised share class launch was also supported by Komainu, a regulated institutional digital asset custodian, alongside Licuido, a digital platform company that helps Asset Management companies to tokenise real world assets. 🤝

“We’re thrilled to be able to announce the launch of our first fund in the tokenisation space, with the addition of the new tokenised share class for our USD Liquidity Fund.

Innovation has always been central to Aviva Investors’ heritage, and we believe that tokenisation is a significant development within the investment industry," — said Mark Versey, CEO at Aviva Investors. 🚀

#Stellar

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⚡️🤖 Mark Zuckerberg predicts that billions of people will have personal AI agents in five years

“I think that it’s extremely unlikely if you look out five years from now, for example — whatever period of time you want — that you don’t have billions of people with a personal agent that understands your goals and that is just working on your behalf 24/7 to achieve your goals in whatever the domain is that you care about,” — Zuckerberg said on Wednesday’s quarterly earnings call with investors.

Zuckerberg added that he could see people using these agents to help them with their finances, health, interpersonal relationships, and household management.

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🤖 Sam Altman previews new AI model on Capitol Hill after cyber breach

OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman met Wednesday with senators to preview one of his company’s newest AI models, as lawmakers grapple with a recent autonomous AI-led cyber breach. Asked when or if OpenAI planned to release the model being previewed to senators, Altman said:

“Not sure. That’s part of what we’re here to talk about. We talked about our new model and you know what it’s going to take for America to remain competitive with AI.”

Altman declined to expand on what new capabilities the model may have.

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🤖 🇨🇳 China starts production of home-grown immersion DUV chipmaking tools

China has begun mass producing domestically developed immersion deep-ultraviolet (DUV) lithography machines, a technology crucial to advanced chipmaking. DUV is a key chipmaking tool long dominated by ASML.

Shanghai Aishengna Electronic Technology Group, a little-known ‌Chinese state-owned company, is leading the production effort after incorporating teams from top Chinese lithography startups.

The development represents a win for Beijing's nationwide semiconductor self-sufficiency initiative, one of President Xi Jinping's highest priorities, but will not pose an immediate commercial threat for Dutch supplier ASML.

#BRICS

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🇰🇷 South Korea FSC Pushes One Bill to Unite Stablecoin Rules

South Korea, the largest fiat-to-crypto market in the world, is moving closer to a unified stablecoin framework. The FSC said it is preparing a government backed Digital Asset Basic Act that would bring 10 separate crypto and stablecoin bills under one framework.

⬇️The South Korean FSC plans to prepare the unified Digital Asset Basic Act after consultations between the government and ruling party. The bill is expected to cover three key areas, including the digital asset industry, the market, and users.

⚪️For the industry, the bill could define digital asset businesses, set conduct rules and create a legal framework for stablecoin issuance and distribution.
⚪️For the market, the FSC wants clearer exchange entry requirements and disclosure rules covering digital asset issuance and distribution.
⚪️User protection will also be a major part of the framework. The proposal is expected to strengthen internal controls and IT stability at levels closer to those required of financial institutions.

The FSC said it wants to build a digital asset ecosystem where “innovation and stability are in balance.” 🚀

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🤖 Bitcoin's quantum plan assumes some algorithms break. AI just weakened one in 60 hours

AI heavyweight Anthropic said earlier this week that its Claude Mythos Preview model had discovered an attack that halves the effective key strength of HAWK, a proposed replacement for the digital signatures that protect online banking and web payments.

❗️The work took about 60 hours and roughly $100,000 in computing costs, against an algorithm that had survived two years and two rounds of expert human review.

Digital signature schemes such as HAWK prove that a message or data set came from whoever holds a particular digital key that points to that exact message. Bitcoin uses one every time a coin moves, and so does every website showing a padlock in the browser.

📌 The versions in use today are expected to fail to quantum computers, and HAWK is one of the candidates under review to replace them. It has not been publicly deployed anywhere.

‼️Nothing in the research affects bitcoin or ether currently, as both secure transactions with elliptic curve signatures, which neither attack had targeted. HAWK is not one of the schemes bitcoin would migrate to.

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🛰🇮🇶 Starlink's high-speed, low-latency internet is now available in Iraq!

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🇰🇷🕵🏼‍♂️ Fake staking site drains $8.5 million in XRP from dozens of investors promising easy yield

A fake Flare Network staking site robbed 71 investors of 3.4 million XRP worth roughly $8.5 million last year, Seoul police said. Two men were detained on aggravated fraud charges and a third alleged scammer is on the loose, according to South Korean news outlet Chosun.

❗️Authorities said investigations are ongoing as they believe the scam is much larger than they have been able to prove so far, adding that the scammers might have robbed up to $19 million worth of XRP, Chosun stated.

The Cyber Crime Investigation Unit at the Seoul Metropolitan Police said the scammers ran the fake investment site from Oct. 16 to Oct. 23 and tricked victims into believing that if they deposited “Ripple, you will receive a return of 1.5% to 1.8% every month,” Chosun said.

Police officials investigating the case said the alleged scammers created the fraudulent website using the name of a genuine blockchain project. They then disseminated false advertising through Naver blogs, online news articles, Wikipedia and YouTube.

📌 Flare Network, which has deep roots in the XRP ecosystem, debuted in early 2023 announcing it was driving the development of real-world applications. The network reported over $160 million in total value locked as of late March 2026, with more than 887,000 active addresses.

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💠 Tesla has built its 10 millionth electric vehicle. The milestone comes six years after the company built its one millionth vehicle! 🎉

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⚡️🏦 Global banks test tokenized money for cross-border payments in $1 million BIS pilot

Some of the world's biggest banks have completed real cross-border payments using tokenized money in a test led by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), another sign that tokenization is moving into the plumbing of global finance.

📌 Project Agorá, which brings together five central banks and 28 commercial lenders including JPMorgan, Citi, UBS, Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered, processed roughly $1 million (CHF 800,000) in real-value transactions across six currencies — the U.S. dollar, euro, British pound, Japanese yen, Swiss franc and South Korean won.

The pilot used tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits to settle corporate, interbank payments perand foreign exchange settlements. The payments settled in an average of about 80 seconds, even though the prototype was not directly integrated with banks' existing payment infrastructure, the BIS report said.

The project fits into a broader shift as stablecoins and tokenized assets gain traction across global finance. 🚀

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⚡️⚠️ Scam Artists Are Posing as IRS Agents to Drain Crypto Wallets

Scammers are impersonating the IRS to drain crypto accounts and steal identities, using official-looking letters to bypass digital defenses, the agency’s criminal investigation unit warned. Letters may direct taxpayers to register for a fake "Digital Asset Compliance Portal," the IRS said, adding that no such portal exists.

❗️The agency has also said to avoid scanning QR codes or taking calls from people seeking payment.

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🤑🏆 Denelle Dixon on why Stellar is ready to win

Now everyone is following, saying, ‘Payments, asset issuance — all those things that were considered boring for a long time are now cool.’ And we love to see that but I want to give us a bit of credit because this was built for that from the very, very beginning. Team. And that's what we stayed focused on.

And I think that shiny objects are super easy to follow and really everybody wants to reach out, but I always wanted the team to stay focused on the field and not in the stands. Because the field is where we are today.

When you chase shiny objects, you lose sight of the ultimate trophy. This is our time 🏒

#Stellar

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✈️ Australia's eSafety regulator sues Telegram over alleged failure to remove pro-terror content, seeks A$54.6 million penalty

Australia's online safety regulator has commenced civil penalty proceedings against Telegram in the Federal Court, alleging the messaging platform failed to detect and remove pro-terror material.

The eSafety Commissioner's action, filed this week after a year-long investigation, alleges Telegram breached systemic safety obligations under Australia's Online Safety Act by leaving publicly posted unlawful material accessible after being put on notice. A breach of Australia's codes and standards carries civil penalties of up to A$54.6 million.

❗️Australia's action came a day after Russia charged Pavel Durov with aiding terrorism and placed him on an international wanted list. Durov was added to Russia's financial monitoring agency, Rosfinmonitoring, list of terrorists and extremists today.

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⚡️🇺🇸 Trump Signs Order on Export Curbs to Retain Critical Minerals

President Donald Trump signed a measure Thursday that gives officials authority under the Defense Production Act to implement export restrictions on some industrial waste in a bid to retain critical minerals and rare elements contained in those products.

The United States holds substantial CMMs in finished goods like permanent magnets and lithium-ion batteries, yet simultaneously relies heavily on imports of certain CMMs from foreign sources, some of which are at risk of serious, sustained, and long-term supply chain disruptions.

Found in industrial waste materials, once finished items containing CMMs reach end-of-life, the CMMs within them can be reclaimed and recycled.

The move is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to shore up supplies of critical minerals, which are crucial to producing a range of cutting-edge technologies and products, and to reduce US dependence on China for those elements.

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