💸 Quantum won’t kill crypto — but it could accelerate Wall Street’s adoption of blockchain

Quantum computing is often portrayed as an existential threat to crypto, but Chris Perkins, Franklin Templeton’s Head of Crypto, argues that it could ultimately have the opposite effect.

Perkins argues that crypto may actually be better positioned for the transition to quantum-resistant security. Public blockchains operate in an environment where developers constantly identify vulnerabilities and upgrade their networks.

🛡 Ethereum, for example, has outlined plans to become quantum-ready, while new solutions are emerging to protect wallets, payments and other blockchain infrastructure.

The bigger challenge, he suggests, may lie with traditional finance. Modernizing legacy systems can take years because cryptographic security is embedded across software, hardware, certificates, vendors and interconnected financial networks. With governments pushing for critical infrastructure to become quantum-secure by around 2030, financial institutions face a relatively short window to prepare.

Perkins believes this could accelerate the adoption of blockchain and tokenization. If financial institutions already need to rebuild parts of their infrastructure for the post-quantum era, quantum-resistant blockchain networks could offer an alternative to simply upgrading legacy systems.

Rather than killing crypto, he argues, quantum computing could help push blockchain further into mainstream finance. 🚀

@QSIMedia

🖥 IonQ to Advance Quantum Supercomputing by Bringing First QPU to NVIDIA Accelerated Quantum Research Center

IonQ announced that it will be the first on-premise quantum computing deployment at the NVIDIA Accelerated Quantum Research Center (NVAQC). The NVAQC is designed to address the fundamental challenges of scaling quantum processors into a new class of accelerated quantum supercomputers.

Connecting IonQ’s full-stack quantum systems directly with NVIDIA AI infrastructure will help drive the new breakthroughs needed to turn qubits into useful, large-scale quantum supercomputers capable of solving the world's hardest problems.

As part of the partnership, an IonQ Superion 256 system will be installed at the NVAQC and directly linked with an NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 system via NVIDIA NVQLink, with workloads orchestrated by the open NVIDIA CUDA-Q platform. The joint research program will focus on hybrid software development and large-scale system prototyping, generating open results and a guide for future AI use cases and quantum-GPU co-design.

“We see this as the beginning of an exciting era of hybrid quantum-classical computing," — said Niccolo de Masi, IonQ Chairman and CEO.

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🇪🇺 EU to offer single-market access to candidate countries

The European Union will open its vast economy to countries waiting to join its ranks, provided they agree to stand with the bloc against hostile states and industrial rivals, according to a draft European Commission proposal.

Candidate countries — some of which have been waiting decades to become EU members — will be offered unprecedented "gradual integration" into the single market, including frictionless trade and access to research programs, while their applications are being worked on.

"The single market is the first priority for economic convergence," — reads a review of the "pre-enlargement" benefits to be offered to candidate countries.

As part of Adam's package of measures, Ukraine, Moldova, Albania and Montenegro will be offered "road maps" designed to speed up the process of joining in the coming years.

@QSIMedia

🤖 Robinhood unveils an AI that trades your money 24/7, and you carry all the risk

Robinhood is launching an AI tool that can trade on customers’ behalf, even when they’re away. But it’s not without risks, according to Robinhood’s own disclosures.

The online trading platform, which has more than 27 million funded accounts, announced Robinhood Agents on Tuesday at its HOOD Summit in Houston. The tool is built into the Robinhood app. It can research markets, build strategies and place trades for a customer at any hour.

❗️AI agents are different from chatbots. A chatbot answers questions. An agent takes action, in this case buying and selling on a customer's behalf within limits the customer sets. In other words, Robinhood is bringing automated trading, long the domain of hedge funds and quant firms, to everyday investors.

It's a big step up from Robinhood's May launch, which let tech-savvy users connect their own AI agents to their accounts. More than 150,000 customers have opened agentic trading accounts since, and these agents now tap Robinhood's tools almost 30 million times a day.

Now anyone can do it by selecting and approving an AI agent. 🚀

@QSIMedia

30 Sept 2026
SMEs turn from banks to fintechs for cross-border payments
Most small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) trading internationally are set to switch their current cross-border payment provider in the next two years, according to a Mastercard report.

The Money in Motion report, based on a survey of SMEs across 11 countries, suggests the market could look very different by 2028, as competition intensifies in a fast-growing sector.

⭐Trust (35%) and ⭐speed (34%) are the biggest considerations when selecting a cross-border payment provider, with cost and transparency close behind at 28% each. Among SMEs that have recently changed providers, two in three say faster transactions and more reliable settlements were the driving force. Once selected, trust remains the strongest anchor for loyalty.

“SMEs are rethinking what they need from cross-border payments. They are using more providers, comparing options more closely and becoming more willing to switch. For banks and fintechs, that creates a clear opportunity to win and keep their business by delivering the speed, trust and transparency SMEs now expect,” says Pratik Khowala, global head, transfer solutions, Mastercard.

Credits: Pen Panda @keanw1

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https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/48497/smes-turn-from-banks-to-fintechs-for-cross-border-payments

⚡️🤑 Tokenization is moving from issuance to utility.

Stellar gives institutions the controls they need to issue assets onchain and the infrastructure to put them to work across a growing financial ecosystem.

📱 Watch the full video on YouTube

#Stellar

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⚡️🇺🇸 Hegseth Picks Musk, Luckey, Gingrich for Warfare Research Unit

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivered a sweeping speech to junior officers and enlisted troops, announcing new military commands and projects, including one to be led by Elon Musk, Anduril Industries Inc. founder Palmer Luckey and former House speaker Newt Gingrich to research the future of warfare.

Musk, Luckey and Gingrich would lead an initiative called “Project Meridian” that was “focused on discovering, developing and fielding the weapons and systems that our children and our grandchildren will need in their lifetimes.”

@QSIMedia

🇦🇺Australia Scraps Card Surcharges, but Shoppers May Still Pay the Price

Australians will no longer be slugged with a separate card surcharge from Thursday, bringing an end to the extra 1 or 2% fee added at check-outs when tapping a debit or credit card.

In March, the RBA released its long-awaited review of merchant card payment costs and surcharging, recommending three changes to Australia’s payment network. These included removing surcharges which will be banned from October 1, with businesses now having to display the entire cost -including credit charges – as part of the sticker price.

To compensate for this the RBA says they are reducing interchange fees – which are paid by a business’ bank to the customer’s bank – will be lowered while the RBA promised to ensure increased transparency surrounding fees charged by card networks. But experts warn that while the ban eliminates hidden payment fees, it will simply lead to higher shelf prices everywhere.

@QSIMedia

🇺🇸 Paul Atkins: SEC Moves to Provide Clarity for Innovative Technologies

If you look back at the previous administration, basically there was just a closed door policy of not accepting these new innovative products.

And so we've changed that to provide clarity to the marketplace, to innovators and investors alike, starting out with a definition and a joint interpretative release with the CFTC to define what's the tokenized security versus what are other sorts of tokenized assets.

We're in the securities lane, obviously, and so we are focused. We have come out with a proposed rule that even though the Clarity Act failed in Congress to be enacted, you know, we are proceeding to provide clarity to the marketplace as far as how to raise money on chain.

And then secondly, with respect to trading of tokenized securities, we've come out with an innovation exemption, we're calling it.

So, think of a sandbox with a controlled type of environment where companies issue tokenized securities that represent the underlying rights and privileges of the security. So, it's trading the actual security on chain. And that's an important difference than what is being done offshore, which is more synthetic type of product.

So, we're trying to move things on-chain, which I think is an exciting prospect. And so, we're moving forward.

This represents more than a regulatory shift — it is a generational opportunity to advance American leadership in the digital finance revolution.

@QSIMedia

🔥 Open USD takes on Tether, Circle with a different stablecoin model that's 'building money'

Open Standard, a new stablecoin issuer backed by Coinbase, Mastercard, Stripe and Visa, has brought its dollar stablecoin to market with a model designed to spread more of the economics and ownership across the companies that distribute and use it, rather than concentrating them with a single issuer.

❗️Open USD (OUSD), after being initially unveiled in June, went live on Wednesday on Ethereum, Solana, Coinbase’s Base and Stripe-backed Tempo blockchains.

"We want to be the most useful stablecoin, the same way the U.S. dollar is useful," — Open Standard CEO Zach Abrams said. "Every other stablecoin is building a fund. We're building money." 💸

@QSIMedia

🤑 Soroban SDK v28 is now live. This release supports Protocol 28.

Version 28 of the Soroban Rust SDK has been released and contains a variety of build system changes, new behaviour to better support contract data migration, and new features. For most contracts this should be a seamless experience.

➡️ Spec Shaking v2
➡️ Contract Data Migration
➡️ Events Publish Sparsely
➡️ Executable References
➡️ Native Contracts Can Be Uploaded in Tests

❗️Spec Shaking v2 changes the way that specs are included, using one of the same principles that compilers use to determine if code should be included in the final binary: dead code elimination. The SDK now emits an entry for everything, and the build system in stellar-cli strips the entries the contract does not use.

A struct is represented on the ledger as a map keyed by field names. Before v28, that map had to match the struct exactly — every field of the struct had to be present as a key, and no other key could be present.

#Stellar

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🔠🔠🔠🔠🔠🔠🔠 🎇

🎆2️⃣ BIRTHDAYS ARE BETTER THAN1️⃣! 🥳🕯🎂

Stellar launched its “new” network on September 30, 2015, marking 🌌🌌 years of building a network designed to make money move faster and more freely.

But here’s the fun part: this isn’t actually Stellar’s first birthday. 🎉

The “old” Stellar network launched in 2014, with its native currency called “Stellars” and the ticker STR. As Stellar Foundation’s Head of Product Tomer Weller points out, today’s anniversary celebrates the beginning of the network as we know it today.

Since then, Stellar has continued bringing blockchain closer to the real world — from cross-border payments to tokenized assets. And recently, the network passed 22,000 RWA holders. 🚀

🌌🌌 years of innovation, two birthdays, and plenty more milestones ahead! 🎉

Here’s to the next chapter! 💫

#Stellar

@QSIMedia

⚡️🇺🇸 Illinois agrees to six-month delay of crypto tax as industry continues court battle

The surprise crypto tax sprung by Illinois earlier this year may not start on January 1 after Illinois agreed to postpone it for six months, according to the industry groups that negotiated the delay, which will still need sign-off from a judge.

The Digital Chamber and Illinois Blockchain Association reached that accord with state officials and it could take some of the pressure off the looming tax as crypto interests continue trying to kill the idea. The joint request for a delay is expected to be filed Thursday morning in the state circuit court in Sangamon County.

If approved, the sides can skip haggling over legal injunctions and focus on the next stage in the court dispute, the "disputed issues of law regarding the constitutionality and enforceability" of the state's Digital Asset Tax Act.

@QSIMedia

🛰 ICEYE and Nokia partner to launch secure and sovereign satellite communications for governments and defense customers

ICEYE, the European leader in sovereign intelligence from space, and Nokia announced a partnership to develop secure, sovereign and high-performance broadband low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite communications systems for governments, supporting missions from defense and border security to emergency services and disaster response.

Built on trusted European technology, the jointly developed satellite communications systems will give nations ownership and control of the satellites, ground segment and terminals. The first communications satellites are expected to be launched in 2028.

@QSIMedia

🇪🇺 ‘Absolute s–t’: EU’s Microsoft Teams alternative draws bad reviews from officials

The European Commission has rolled out Element Pro, a self-hosted alternative to Microsoft Teams, as a backup if U.S. technology becomes unavailable. Some officials have slammed the system, with one calling it “absolute shit” 😁 and another saying the U.S. would “instantly win the war” if access to American technology were cut off.

Element says the Commission is still testing the platform and that early technical and usability problems are expected.

@QSIMedia

🤑 Stellar is backing Minisend with $100k grant to keep building

Stablecoins move across multiple chains, but getting that liquidity into local payment rails can still mean dealing with bridges, gas, fragmented liquidity and P2P.

"We're building Minisend to connect those onchain flows to the local rails people already use across Africa," — Minisend said.

More chains. More rails. Simpler settlement. 🚀

#Stellar

@QSIMedia

🏆🇺🇸 Trump: "We have the best economy anywhere in the world. There’s no economy like this economy."

@QSIMedia