Snippings

You are almost certainly familiar with the concept of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) and the link between an effective DPI and the wider economy. The World Bank identifies DPI’s core functions as digital identity, digital payments and data sharing. These essential features support more efficient public and private-sector applications to improve outcomes for citizens (across health, social welfare, financial services, business and beyond). Well, AIs will need DPI too. So what will it look like?

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) say that DPI has the potential to support the transformation of the economy and support inclusive growth. They highlight the particular example of India’s foundational DPI, the so-called “India Stack” , and show how it has been harnessed to foster innovation and competition, boost financial inclusion and improve government revenue collection. India’s DPI contains powerful lessons for other countries embarking on digital transformation, in particular a design approach that focuses on shared building blocks and supporting innovation across the ecosystem through APIs.

The future economy, however, is about Agents as much as it is about Businesses and Consumers (the ABCs, if you like) and these will need a DPI that satisifies their needs.

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The next frontier of AI includes autonomous agent systems, where LLMs not only respond to queries but proactively direct their own processes, orchestrate multiple tools, and execute complex tasks with minimal intervention.
This will mean for the first time, agents will be invited into the payment system and will transact and negotiate dynamically on behalf of individuals, businesses, and even with other AI agents — creating a radically different commercial landscape.

From: A-Commerce Evolution: Agentic Commerce as The New Frontier | by The Acrew Team | Mar, 2025 | Acrew Capital.

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Yet, despite significant investments in AI initiatives, many enterprises struggle to scale AI use beyond isolated pilot projects. A recent BCG study found that 74% of companies are currently struggling to scale AI adoption and achieve value. The root cause of this delivery challenge frequently lies not in the AI models themselves, but in the underlying data management approach and infrastructure that supports them. In practice, organizations face a complex collection of data-related obstacles that combine to impede AI adoption at scale.

From: Digital Economy Dispatch #225 — Is a Data Fabric Approach the Key to Scaling Enterprise AI?.

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A Gigachad (GIGA) investor got the Solana meme coin’s contract address tattooed on his chest. But once he posted the proof on Twitter, he discovered that the token address now permanently imprinted on his skin was actually wrong.

From: Man Gets Meme Coin Address Tattooed—But There’s a Typo – Decrypt.

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Six days after creating the TruthOrDare token (DARE) on Pump.fun, a Solana dev doused himself in isopropyl alcohol and had fireworks shot at him. He’s now being treated in a Miami trauma center for third degree burns to a large portion of his body.

From: Solana Dev Hospitalized With Third Degree Burns Trying to Pump Meme Coin – Decrypt.

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As Marisa Rama, Corporate Strategy at Stripe points out, US banks earn around 2% in interchange fees on credit card transactions, decreasing their motivation to invest in RTPs.

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In addition, there is a danger to the dollar from haphazard US use of sanctions.

From: Can the dollar remain king of currencies?.

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The incoming Carney government should move to co-sponsor a CB-style domestic credit card network along with the big banks (perhaps a simple upgrade to Interac will do?). All Canadian financial institutions that issue credit cards would be required to co-badge them so that Canadians can connect to this new network as well as Visa or MasterCard. Even if annexation never actually occurs, at least we’ve got a more robust card system in place to deal with outages arising from hacking or natural disasters.

From: Moneyness: Trump-proofing Canada means ditching MasterCard and Visa.

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Ulrich Bindseil is Director General of Market Infrastructure and Payments at the European Central Bank.

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Bringing multiple assets onto the same ledger can offer a slew of further benefits, including the elimination of Herstatt risk and a simplification of settlement, or removing delays based on limited or mismatched operating hours.

From: Public crypto networks as financial market infrastructures – OMFIF.

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At this time, the need to use tools for the remote identification and verification of clients has grown significantly. The largest public system for the remote identification of individuals in Ukraine is the NBU’s BankID system. It has been providing millions of people with uninterrupted access to important public and financial services since martial law was imposed

From: Payments in wartime: the story of the National Bank of Ukraine | European Payments Council.

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