Snippings

xxx

Machine Identity Security covers the lifecycle and governance of non-person entities, including issuance, rotation and decommissioning of credentials, approvals around high-risk entitlements, and policy enforcement for machine-to-machine communication. Agent Identity Security, a newer capability, is aimed at generative AI agents and autonomous software that can take actions on behalf of employees. SailPoint’s messaging stresses the need to anchor these agents in the same governance fabric as human users, so that access is least-privilege, actions are auditable and regulators can trace responsibility when an agent touches sensitive data or systems.

From: SailPoint’s “Navigator – Digital Identity Flex” Targets Machine and Agent Identities – ID Tech.

xxx

xxx

Other than being incredibly entertaining and slightly worrying for those concerned about AI gaining sentience, OpenClaw and Moltbook offer a glimpse of where AI is going.

From: Why OpenClaw FKA Clawdbot Matters — The Information.

Actually, that wasn’t the lesson I took away from my first look at what was going on over there. The lesson that I took away from (you will not be surprised to hear) is that without a working digital identity infrastructure, we can’t have nice things.

xxx

A new paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and Federal Reserve System colleagues, Using Digital Identity to Support Access to Payments , examines how digital identity systems could support access to payments.

From: The Promise of Digital Identities (IDs): Access and Crime Prevention – Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

xxx

xxx

While Stripe foresees Bridge’s tech “turbocharging cross-border commerce” and boosting payments volume, its contribution to Stripe’s bottom line is so far unclear. Margins in stablecoin transactions are typically wafer-thin due to the number of counterparties involved in each stablecoin transaction, according to market participants.

From: Stripe’s Stablecoin Startup Tangles With Sanctions and Scammers — The Information.

xxx

xxx

Visa isn’t waiting for markets to mature. They’re positioning in advance of agentic commerce going mainstream in 2027-2028, stablecoin regulatory clarity enabling institutional adoption in 2026, guest checkout extinction happening right now, and A2A and RTP reaching scale in developed markets over the next five years.

From: Visa’s 2026 Strategy: Evolving from Processing Transactions to Orchestrating Commerce.

xxx

xxx

Growing rabbits for food started in the Meiji Era to improve diet in rural parts of Japan. During wartime, production increased throughout the region to meet the growing needs for food and fur. Farmers improved the breed repeatedly to what it is today, a big rabbit with a white coat, which is easy to dye.

From: Will new year bring jump in demand for jumbo rabbits? | The Japan Agri News.

xxx

xxx

As for the GENIUS Act, having set the stage for another destructive experiment in free banking, like the one that ended in tears during the 19th century, it may well be remembered as the Reckless Idiot Act.

From: The Coming Crypto Apocalypse – Nouriel Roubini.

xxx

xxx

The next escalation in this process of manufacturing “reality” is now upon us, courtesy of AI. A recently published paper by a large group of scholars in the prestigious journal Science lays out the scenario. ChatGPT et al offer the prospect of manipulating beliefs and behaviours on “a population-wide level”. The combination of large language models (LLMs) and autonomous agents will enable what the researchers call “AI swarms” to reach “unprecedented scale and precision” . They will expand propaganda output without sacrificing credibility and inexpensively create “falsehoods that are rated as more human like than those written by humans”.

From: ‘AI swarms’ are mass-producing credible misinformation. D….

xxx

John Naughton summarised the situation very well indeed in a recent Observer column. As he wrote, much of what goes on in social media is real (by which he means genuine conversations between humans) but nobody really knows how much. This matters because the erosion of trust between what’s real and what’s manufactured is making democracies ungovernable.

xxx

There were some pockets of fintech innovation (lending to the underbanked, SMEs, and corporate credit cards), but banks managed to hold their ground in the segments they care about. Could disruption in lending finally come from agentic commerce? Credit card issuers built defensible moats through decades of investment in brand loyalty. An AI agent has no loyalty.

From: Signal: Can Fintechs Out-AI Banks?.

xxx