🚀 SpaceXAI President Michael Nicolls reveals Starlink aims to connect the Moon and Mars

“We will form an interplanetary mesh of connectivity”

Starlink is developing high-bandwidth lasers & a lunar satellite constellation to build a communications network beyond Earth. 🌎

@QSIMedia

🤖 Vitalik Buterin: “AI Will Become the New UI for Crypto”

Speaking at OKX’s “OKX NOW” 2026 Summit on October 6, Buterin argued that AI could become a primary interface for interacting with blockchains, while warning that the shift would relocate some risks rather than eliminate them.

💡He illustrated the idea with a personal example. Buterin said he recently updated his Ethereum Name Service (ENS) record without using a conventional interface, instead having a local AI agent write a script to perform the operation. The task took roughly five minutes.

The example suggests a different model for blockchain interaction: users describe what they want to accomplish, while an AI agent handles the technical steps required to execute the operation. Buterin indicated that these kinds of interactions could become increasingly normal as AI capabilities improve.

@QSIMedia

🇷🇺 Central Bank of Russia issues Sberbank, VTB, other players licenses to operate on cryptocurrency market

The Central Bank of Russia has added Sberbank and VTB to the digital depository register. VTB Bank has also been added to the register of organizations which can exchange cryptocurrency.

"We expect to open access to trading in digital currencies for a wide range of investors via VTB My Investments and directly via the bank's crypto exchange as early as November and December 2026 respectively," — VTB Deputy CEO Vitaly Sergeichuk said.

❗️VTB's broker has already carried out its first digital currency transactions for corporate clients, with settlement handled through a digital depository.

"A stablecoin transaction was concluded with the broker's corporate clients. Settlements were processed via digital accounts at a digital depository based on VTB's depository infrastructure. Blockchain access was facilitated through an upstream digital depository," — the bank said, quoting Olga Kim, head of VTB's depository.

Sberbank said on October 5 that it planned to launch its first crypto-currency products on December 1, 2026, though the date depends on the Central Bank's decision regarding the application and whether regulatory acts are ready.

@QSIMedia

⚡️🇺🇸 Trump admin to receive $100 million in compute credits for AI science initiative

National Compute, a new company that has pooled computing power from major tech companies, plans to donate $100 million worth of computing credits to the Trump administration to be used to advance scientific discovery.

The credits are expected to be announced Thursday at an event with White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios. They will support the administration’s Genesis mission, a government-wide push to use AI to accelerate scientific discovery.

@QSIMedia

🏳️‍🌈 Google Accused of Overcharging 20 Million Consumers in UK Class Action

Google was accused of overcharging Android app developers for over a decade, leading to inflated prices on the Play Store for about 20 million UK customers.

The US giant’s 30% levy for digital purchases violated competition law and consumers affected since 2015 could be in line for a £1.2 billion ($1.6 billion) payout, lawyers representing them said on Tuesday at the start of a class action case at the Competition Appeal Tribunal in London.

@QSIMedia

💸 Swift blockchain ledger requires key internal layers, Taurus co-founder warns

Swift’s new blockchain-based ledger may be ready for live payments, but banks still need their own digital-asset infrastructure before they can connect to it, according to Lamine Brahimi, co-founder and managing partner of custody and tokenization firm Taurus.

“If you want to connect today to the Swift ledger, you need 🌌 things,” — Brahimi said .

“You need your own permissioned ledger that interacts with that of Swift, you need wallet capabilities, and you also need tokenization and smart-contract capabilities to be able to integrate the Swift smart contracts.”

❗️This criteria means Swift’s ledger is a replacement for a bank’s internal systems. It is an orchestration layer designed to enable institutions to move tokenized deposits across borders around the clock, while final settlement continues through existing arrangements.

👉 The banks still need systems to hold and manage tokenized deposits, digital asset wallets and smart contracts used in the process.

Swift said in July that 17 banks were preparing live tokenized-deposit transactions, signalling its first move to modernize its bank messaging system which has dominated the traditional financial sector since the 1970s. It presently still dominates money movements of up to $1.5 quadrillion a year. 🚀

@QSIMedia

⚡️🤑 Paxos Crypto Brokerage Adds XRP Support for Institutions

The platform, trusted by PayPal, Venmo, Interactive Brokers, Charles Schwab, and Mercado Libre, now enables institutions to provide XRP services including deposits and withdrawals through compliant infrastructure.

#Stellar

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🤖 Hackers Use Chinese AI Tool to Hit South Korean Banks, Exposing New Risk

Hackers used a Chinese AI agent to attack South Korea’s biggest banks and steal the personal information of 68,000 people, marking one of the first such AI-powered intrusions into the global financial system.

Investigators in Seoul said the attacks, initially detected last week, hit at least seven South Korean financial firms and showed traces of a cybersecurity tool called Artex AI that was developed in China. The National Police Agency’s cyber terror unit said Tuesday it had opened a probe into the breach.

@QSIMedia

🔐Amazon Ring’s First Smart Lock Has a Clever Solution for Battery Anxiety

Amazon Inc.’s Ring brand unveiled its first smart lock, with an innovative feature that addresses the dreaded scenario of arriving home to a dead battery.

The Ring Smart Lock will be available in the first quarter of 2027. Ahead of that release, Ring is also rolling out its latest wave of smart video cameras, including four new 4K models and a pan-tilt camera that helps ensure customers don’t miss a crucial vantage point when reviewing footage.

@QSIMedia

🇰🇿 Tether tapped by Kazakhstan’s central bank to explore stablecoin and tokenization

Kazakhstan's central bank is teaming up with stablecoin giant Tether to explore issuing a digital token tied to the country's currency and putting RWAs on blockchain rails.

❗️The National Bank of Kazakhstan (NBK), Tether and the Alatau City Authority signed a MoU to study stablecoins, asset tokenization and DeFi.

👉 One focus will be a potential stablecoin pegged to the Kazakhstani tenge. The group plans to study how similar tokens work elsewhere, identify possible uses and prepare a proposal for a pilot. The agreement is exploratory and does not amount to a decision to issue the stablecoin.

👉 The partnership also puts tokenization on the agenda. Tokenization creates blockchain-based representations of assets, potentially allowing anything from bonds to real estate to be transferred, traded or used as collateral through digital networks.

The parties will identify which types of assets could be suitable and plan a pilot in Alatau, a city operating under a special legal regime designed in part to encourage financial technology.

@QSIMedia

💊 Nobel-Winning Technique Restores Some Vision In Patients With Genetic Form Of Blindness In Promising Early Trial

Led by scientists at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the Institute of Molecular Ophthalmology Basel in Switzerland, a new trial demonstrates that optogenetic therapy can be safely used in people with some types of blindness and is a promising approach to partially restoring their sight.

Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is the name given to a group of genetic conditions in which the retina — the light-sensitive part of the eye — is progressively damaged. Symptoms usually begin with a loss of night vision and progress from there, generally affecting both eyes.

The technique involves adding light-sensitive proteins to cells, and patients wear special goggles that produce pulses of amber light that the proteins react to. In the phase 1 trial, 10 patients received the treatment. 6 participants experienced clinically meaningful improvements in light sensitivity in the treated eye, suggesting the visual system can adapt to the new signals.

The treatment does not restore normal vision — participants could not read or recognize faces — but researchers say the results are an encouraging first step toward developing new treatments for people with otherwise untreatable forms of blindness.

“These results show that even in people with profound vision loss, the visual system retains a remarkable capacity to process new information,” — said Professor José-Alain Sahel.

@QSIMedia

🤑🤑 CFTC Chair Name-Drops 6 Cryptos as "Digital Commodities": Which Coins Are on the List

Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Michael Selig has highlighted Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, Stellar, Tezos and XRP as examples of digital commodities while outlining a potential federal framework for retail crypto trading.

The six assets, BTC, ETH, SOL, XLM, XTZ and XRP, appear in the SEC and CFTC's existing crypto taxonomy, which Selig referenced in his Oct. 5 remarks at the Fordham Law Blockchain Regulatory Symposium.

His comments reinforce an established agency interpretation rather than announce six new classifications.

#Stellar

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💸 Samsung Wallet to Bring Stablecoin Access to Eligible Galaxy Users in the US

Samsung Electronics America announced that stablecoin wallet functionality will launch in Samsung Wallet starting in the last week of October for eligible Galaxy users in the U.S., bringing eligible cross-border stablecoin transfers into the app they already use regularly.

❗️The feature will initially support USDC, a U.S. dollar-denominated stablecoin.

“Sending money abroad should feel as convenient as using the wallet already on your phone,” — said Woncheol Chai, EVP and Head of the Digital Wallet Team at the Mobile eXperience (MX) Business at Samsung Electronics.

“We’re bringing USDC transfers into Samsung Wallet so eligible Galaxy users can get started without installing another app or managing private keys themselves.”

@QSIMedia

🧑‍⚖️ McDonald’s Hit With Antitrust Suit Over AI-Assisted Menu Pricing

McDonald's has been hit by a class action suit over AI-powered menu price-fixing.

The class action suit says, "McDonald's has been sued in federal court in Chicago in ​a proposed nationwide class action alleging the fast-food company illegally ‌coordinates menu prices across its franchises and company-owned restaurants through an AI-powered pricing system."

At the heart of the suit is the use of algorithms to help set prices without undercutting sales. Allegedly, the system applied to both franchises and company-owned restaurants. If allowed, it could change retail considerably.

@QSIMedia