Snippings

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UK bank bosses will hold their first meeting to establish a national alternative to Visa and Mastercard, amid growing fears over Donald Trump’s ability to turn off US-owned payment systems.

The meeting, chaired by Barclays’ UK chief executive, Vim Maru, will take place this Thursday and bring together a group of City funders that will front the costs of a new payments company to keep the UK economy running if problems were to occur.

The City-funded, but government-backed, initiative has been under discussion for years. However, Trump’s recent threats against Nato allies over Greenland have amplified concerns that an over-reliance on US companies could put UK payments – and the wider economy – at risk.

From: UK bank bosses plan to set up Visa and Mastercard alternative amid Trump fears | Financial sector | The Guardian.

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Mastercard and Visa said they were committed to the UK and welcomed competition.

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In the retail payment space still dominated by Alipay and WeChatPay, the e-CNY is starting to crop up in cross-border payments. Laos has recorded its first cross-border e-CNY transactions from Chinese tourists, and China’s Yunnan Province — which borders Vietnam and Laos — has made cross-border digital yuan payments a key priority for 2026, including QR code payments at border crossings.

From: Red herring – by Jess Hoversen – Hegemoney.

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The Rundown: Apple is reportedly fast-tracking three camera-equipped AI wearables, according to Bloomberg — including smart glasses, a pendant, and new AirPods all designed to give Siri real-time visual awareness through the iPhone.
The details:
The glasses will feature dual cameras, Apple-designed frames, no display, and a production target of late this year ahead of a 2027 launch.
The pendant will act as an always-on camera and mic for your iPhone, internally dubbed the phone’s “eyes and ears”.
Camera-equipped AirPods could ship as early as this year, using low-res sensors to feed Siri visual context and building on live-translation features.
All three devices will tie into Apple’s revamped Siri, which is expected to get a chatbot-style interface in iOS 27 later this year, powered by Google’s Gemini.
Why it matters: AI wearables from Apple (that actually feature a working model) would immediately shake up the mainstream hardware landscape and vault the tech giant into the AI spotlight. But these devices depend on a Siri overhaul that we still need to see to actually trust after years of absolutely brutal delays and underdelivering.

From: Anthropic’s mid-tier Sonnet 4.6 model punches up at Opus.

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US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he “would not be surprised” if China is already looking into ways to challenge the US’ pre-eminence in digital assets, given Hong Kong’s efforts to develop the industry.

When testifying before the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday, Bessent said that there are “lots of rumours of Chinese digital assets” possibly being backed by something other than its currency yuan, such as gold, but that the US could not confirm such claims.

From: China could challenge US digital asset lead via Hong Kong, American Treasury chief warns | South China Morning Post.

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In other words, we are witnessing a monetary bifurcation. The US is building a financial system anchored in code and credit—Bitcoin and dollar-backed stablecoins. China is returning to metal—gold as the foundation for a dedollarized order.

From: The Great Bifurcation.

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a friend who was filming me for a documentary yesterday told me of a Canadian friend of his who was scammed out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by a deepfaked video of Mark Carney.

From: We URGENTLY need a federal law forbidding AI from impersonating humans.

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Early Warning pushed heavily for a new auth solution (ZelleID) 8 yrs ago (by my good friend Eric Woodward) only to have JPM smash it.

From: Keeping Up With Chaos: A Payments Stakeholder Reality Check | Noyes Payments Blog.

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Registration works similarly to minting an ERC-721 NFT. Agents sign transactions using a wallet, and each registration incurs gas fees.

The process generates an agent-registration.json file. This file includes the agent’s name and image, along with the service description and payment addresses. Contact endpoints allow users to communicate with agents.

From: ERC-8004 Mainnet Launch: What This Agent Protocol Actually Does | Live Bitcoin News.

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The Validation Registry manages cryptographic attestations of agent behavior. This element is currently under technical due diligence, and users cannot access it yet.

From: ERC-8004 Mainnet Launch: What This Agent Protocol Actually Does | Live Bitcoin News.

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This week, ERC-8004 officially launched on the Ethereum mainnet. The protocol allows independent agents to register verifiable identities. Developers can now build applications based on on-chain reputation.

From: ERC-8004 Mainnet Launch: What This Agent Protocol Actually Does | Live Bitcoin News.

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