A library of snippets
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Prediction market site Polymarket reported shortly before the game started in Houston that someone with the username “BreakTheBank” bet just under $300,000 that Portugal wouldn’t win the game.
Odds of winning the bet were listed at 23% at the time but paid off when the score was 1-1 at the final whistle.
The bet returned $1,249,918.80, for a profit of more than $957,000.
From: Sports Bettor Wins $1 Million Betting Against Portugal In World Cup.
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The Draghi report highlighted the risks assoicated with Europe’s dependency on everything from cloud platforms to quantum computing. We already know that those risks are real. Two examples from the UK serve to make the point. When the UK attempted to force Apple to create a backdoor into its encrypted iCloud services, Apple responded by pulling its Advanced Data Protection feature from the UK a standoff that led to a diplomatic spat with the US (who accused the UK of breaching the spirit of the US-UK CLOUD Act agreement). As it happens, I think that Apple was right and the British government was wrong, so I was pleased with the climbdown, but you get the point. More seriously, the British government has just unveiled prototype long-range strike missiles designed for use by Ukraine’s military in its war against Russia by the end of this year. The development of these missiles began in 2024, after the US held up delivery of long-range missiles and withheld authorisation for them to be fired into Russian territory. A UK government official said that the British “Storm Shadow” missle’s use of US components such as guidance systems had “sometimes prevented their deployment“since late 2024.
What is the goal? A European tech ecosystem with its own cloud infrastructure (Gaia-X, EuroStack), AI models (Mistral AI, Aleph Alpha), secure chip production (SiPearl, Infineon), and a cybersecurity regime that does not depend on any US-made software.
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The Draghi report, among others, calls out the risk of strategic dependency in everything from cloud platforms to quantum computing. And those risks are already playing out. When the UK attempted to force Apple to create a backdoor into its encrypted iCloud services, Apple responded by pulling its Advanced Data Protection feature from the UK. That standoff triggered a diplomatic tangle with U.S. officials, who accused the UK of breaching the spirit of the US-UK CLOUD Act agreement. It was a preview of how sovereignty, surveillance and corporate power can collide (messily) and in public. And with the US CLOUD Act still looming (giving American authorities access to data held by US companies anywhere in the world) – the urgency is no longer abstract.
From: What Does Sovereign Tech Actually Mean For Europe? | Sovereign Magazine.
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While some countries, such as Germany and France, are creating apps they say will protect the country’s “digital sovereignty”, others – like the Netherlands and Italy – are developing systems that will rely on Apple and Google, even as the EU calls for greater strategic independence from Trump’s US.
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On 15 May 2025, Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), suddenly found himself locked out of his email account. Microsoft had denied him access. The reason: Khan had been sanctioned by President Trump via executive order after he issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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The European Commission has given member states until the end of the year to launch their own forms of digital identification. Some countries are developing apps that rely on Apple and Google, despite ever louder calls for autonomy from Trump’s US.
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Saudi Arabia has successfully completed its first end-to-end tokenised property deed transaction, a move described as a global first for a G20 nation in integrating national property law directly into digital settlement infrastructure.
The transaction was executed on droppRWA, a “sovereign-grade” infrastructure provider. The milestone represents a shift toward a “Registry-as-Truth” model, where the national registry and property laws are enforced directly within the settlement layer, rather than being reconciled post-facto.
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“Major international events put payment experiences in the spotlight,” Peter Galvin, chief marketing officer at NMI, told American Banker, noting NMI research found that nearly half of U.S. consumers who have traveled internationally in the past year say payments are faster or easier abroad, reflecting how accustomed travelers have become to contactless, mobile-first and tap-to-pay experiences in other markets.
From: How the World Cup showcases payment tech | American Banker.
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A thing (including a thing that is digital or electronic in nature) is not prevented from being the object of personal property rights merely because it is neither—
(a)a thing in possession, nor(b)a thing in action.
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Know-your-agent
AI agents make detection problems harder. When the party making a payment is software using the customer’s phone, internet address and login, it looks to the bank like the customer.Chris Ward (at center), head of enterprise payments at Truist, said he had recently built working agents in about ten minutes and that he doubted his own bank’s systems would flag the activity as anything but him.
Athinathan invoked the idea of “know-your-agent” identity checks, a counterpart to know-your-customer due diligence.
Banks need to confirm four things, she said: That it is the right human, that the right agent is acting on that human’s behalf, that the agent has permission to act, and that the customer actually meant for the agent to do what it did.
From: Banks aren’t ready for AI agents moving money, experts warn | American Banker.
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