Snippings

Drone warfare is turning the battlespace into a dense web of sensors, in which every aircraft, loitering munition, ground robot, jammer, and targeting cell produces operational data at scale. Smart battle networks and the emerging internet of battlefield things do not merely connect platforms; they generate, classify, transmit, and exploit combat information while under fire. In Ukraine, this data flow has become a warfighting resource in its own right, and is shaping how forces detect, decide, strike, adapt, and train the next generation of AI-enabled military systems.

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“It is wholly wrong that other sectors are knowingly profiting from fraud and scams due to loose controls around advertising, allowing criminals to prey on victims via their platforms,” Ruth Ray, managing director of economic crime at UK Finance, told reporters.

“We certainly are shocked,” she said, adding that fraudsters were using AI to develop more potent scams and recent regulatory changes had done little to tackle the problem. “I think it’s clear that we can’t continue to keep doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome.”

The number of financial fraud cases rose 11 per cent to a record high of almost 4.1mn last year. Ray said some frauds were not reported “so this really is the tip of the iceberg”.

From: UK consumer losses as a result of financial fraud hit 4-year high in 2025.

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UK financial fraud increased last year, driving losses to a four-year high despite recent reforms to tackle the problem by requiring refunds for consumers who are tricked into transferring money to criminals.

Rapid growth in investment scams, romance fraud and ecommerce hoaxes pushed up overall losses from UK financial frauds by 4 per cent last year to £1.28bn, according to data provided by banks and payment companies to trade body UK Finance.

The figures will intensify pressure from banks for the government to force tech groups to crack down on fraudulent activity on their social media sites and messaging platforms, which were the source of two-thirds of authorised UK financial fraud last year.

From: UK consumer losses as a result of financial fraud hit 4-year high in 2025.

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The BIS offers an alternative in the form of a “unified ledger” that integrates different forms of tokenised money in the same venue that could help harness the benefits of digital innovation while preserving trust in money.

Correspondent banking provides an example: the BIS-led Project Agorá prototype, a public-private partnership that brings together eight central banks and over 40 regulated institutions, showcases the potential to improve wholesale cross-border payments. It features a shared platform with a unifying ledger for tokenised commercial bank deposits and separate, jurisdiction-specific ledgers for tokenised central bank reserves.

“By integrating digital innovation such as tokenisation into the existing financial architecture, authorities can shape the future of money, the economy and the financial system in the public interest while preserving trust. Achieving this will require domestic and international coordination and cooperation,” says Pablo Hernández de Cos, BIS general manager.

From: BIS warns of stablecoin ‘structural flaws’.

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the problem that they (and others) wil be facing is that it won’t be you opening up Excel, it will be your unsentimental, unstinting and unwavering AI agent that that will step in to assess the optimal flights to book and the optimal cards to use to pay for it. What baffles me is which BA don’t just offer me A2A and tripe Avios and cut the cards out of the loop.

 

Talk about first world problems.

While cryptocurrency crime happens entirely online. Last year crime such as hacks ($3.4 billion stolen in 2025), scams ($17 billion) and ransomware ($820 million) brought in big bucks for criminals for sure, but so-called “wrench attacks” involving physical violence are on the way up. Violent attacks targeting crypto holders, including home invasions (now more than a third of cases), kidnappings and other “wrench attacks” are surging. Criminals are not idiots and they recognise the benefits of uncensorable electronic cash just as much as the rest of us do. Wealth in an instantly and irreversibly transferrable form is a dream come true.

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Cross-chain liquidity protocol Maya Protocol halted its MAYAChain network after a series of software bugs created a false balance in one of its liquidity pools, allowing an attacker to drain nearly $1.7 million in bitcoin
BTC
$71,910.72
, and other assets, and created a further fallout that caused roughly $11 million in total losses.

From: Maya Protocol exploit drains bitcoin and other assets as pool value drops by $11 million.

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Stripe is positioning its crypto-focused payments business to benefit from the AI boom. Stripe last year acquired Bridge, a startup that helps businesses convert funds into stablecoins, in a $1.1 billion deal. Bridge issues stablecoins and processes stablecoin payments. Stripe has also backed Tempo last year, a blockchain designed for stablecoin payments, and more recently became a founding member of the consortium behind new stablecoin Open USD, alongside Visa, Mastercard, Coinbase and others.

Stripe has promoted stablecoins as a way for AI agents to make small payments for services such as model access and computing, arguing stablecoins are better suited for real-time micropayments. That would include machine-to-machine payments, where software systems pay each other automatically. Stripe is working on enabling those payments for its AI gateway feature,

From: Stripe Minted $3.2 Billion in Cash in 2025, Setting Up Acquisition Hunt — The Information.

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The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network along with the federal banking agencies on Thursday proposed customer identification standards for stablecoin issuers, marking the first know-your-customer guidelines issued pursuant to the GENIUS Act. 
Under the proposal, permitted payment stablecoin issuers, or PPSIs, would be required to follow know-your-customer practices similar to those banks, broker-dealers and mutual funds already face.

From: Treasury, agencies propose KYC rule for stablecoin issuers | American Banker.

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S&P Global Ratings has published a detailed credit FAQ explaining how it incorporates blockchain-specific risks into its existing fixed-income fund rating methodologies, as tokenised money market funds surpass $15billion in assets under management globally. The agency currently rates three tokenised funds: the OpenEden TBILL Fund, the Janus Henderson Anemoy Treasury Fund, and the Delta Wellington Ultra Short Treasury On-Chain Fund.

The structural significance of S&P’s engagement is worth noting. When a major credit agency publishes a formal methodology for an asset class, it signals that institutional risk committees can begin to process it systematically, which is a prerequisite for allocation at scale. Tokenised money market funds remain a fraction of the overall US money market industry at roughly 0.30% of assets, but the combination of credible ratings infrastructure and incoming regulatory frameworks for stablecoins removes two of the principal barriers that have kept larger institutional allocators on the sidelines.

From: S&P Global Outlines Rating Framework for Tokenised Money Market Funds | The Fintech Times.

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