QSI Media - News, Analytics, World.

🇪🇺🇧🇷 The European Union and Brazil are signing a digital partnership The partnership will focus on cooperation in areas such as data, connectivity, cybersecurity, and the protection of minors. Brazil will now become the fifth country to cooperate with the ​European bloc on digital issues, joining Canada, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. #BRICS @QSIMedia

🇹🇿 Tanzania scientists develop gene-drive mosquito technology in major malaria breakthrough The innovative technology is designed to alter mosquito genetics in a way that prevents the development of malaria parasites within the insects. It operates through two primary mechanisms: the first reduces the population of malaria-carrying mosquitoes by affecting their reproductive capacity, while the second renders insects incapable of carrying or transmitting malaria parasites to humans. Transmission Zero Project Director at the Ifakara Health Institute (IHI), Mr Dickson Lwetoijera, said Tanzania has already commenced preliminary trials of the technology in island environments to assess its effectiveness before considering wider deployment across the country. @QSIMedia

🇦🇪 Sheikh Mohammed launches Dubai Longevity Authority to advance healthcare, life sciences Dubai has taken a major step toward strengthening its position in the global healthcare and life sciences landscape, with issuing Law No. (17) of 2026 to establish the Dubai Longevity Authority (DLA). It's designed to accelerate Dubai’s ambitions to become a leading global hub for regulated longevity, wellness and advanced healthcare offerings, while creating new pathways for investment and innovation across the sector.

“We firmly believe that every scientific breakthrough should deliver tangible benefits to people’s lives, and that serving humanity will always remain the ultimate purpose of every investment in science, knowledge and innovation,” — Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum said.

#BRICS @QSIMedia

🇪🇺🇰🇷 EU and South Korea deepen ties with digital pact to bolster trade The European Union and South Korea signed a digital trade agreement designed to make digital ​transactions easier and further cement economic ties between the ‌partners at their first summit in three years. The digital agreement is designed to ease cross-border data flows, recognise electronic contracts and electronic signatures and sets rules on consumer protection. It ​should also reduce costs for businesses, boosting services trade. The EU ​is South Korea's third-largest partner in goods trade, while Korea is the eighth-largest ‌partner ⁠for the EU. ❗️The agreement still needs to be ​approved by the European Parliament. @QSIMedia

⚡️SpaceX IPO makes Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX announced Thursday the price for its initial public offering of $135 per share. The step sets up a blockbuster IPO that ranks as the largest in history, at about $75 billion. @QSIMedia

🤑 Sovereign Debt Goes On-Chain: Leaders from Stellar, Surus, and M1X explore the genesis of USDM1, the potential for institutional adoption and financial inclusion. In March 2026, the Republic of the Marshall Islands became the first nation to issue sovereign debt natively on a public blockchain. USDM1 is a U.S. dollar-denominated sovereign bond, fully collateralized by U.S. treasuries, with on-chain settlement powered by Stellar. 📱 Watch the full video on YouTube #Stellar @QSIMedia

🤖 SK Hynix to triple wafer capacity by 2034 SK Hynix plans to triple wafer capacity by around 2034 to meet AI memory demand, Chairman Chey Tae-won said. Capacity is expected to double within 5 years, with four new fabs being built in Yongin, South Korea.

Chey said Japan is an “excellent candidate” for future wer, water, engineers, and chip-materials suppliers.

@QSIMedia

🔥 Visa says stablecoins are 'reshaping the back end' of commerce as it expands AI, tokenization efforts

"AI is transforming the front end of commerce. Stablecoins are reshaping the back end," — said Jack Forestell, the company's chief product and strategy officer. "Visa's role is to enable it to work securely, reliably and at global scale, for every participant in the ecosystem."

❗️On the tokenization front, Visa said it will build the technology layer for tokenized deposits, allowing banks to turn traditional deposits into programmable, always-on digital money while keeping funds on their balance sheets. 🤝 During the Visa Payments Forum in San Francisco, Visa said it has partnered with OpenAI to enable Visa payments within agentic commerce environments. The partnership will allow developers and merchants to accept Visa payments initiated by AI agents under user-defined controls, including spending limits, merchant restrictions, and approval requirements. Payments will use tokenized Visa credentials alongside real-time authorization and fraud monitoring. The integration is also expected to support developer-focused applications, including Codex-based workflows, and other automated and conversational commerce use cases. @QSIMedia

🛰 GCI Strengthens Network Resiliency Across Alaska with Starlink GCI, Alaska’s largest telecommunications company, announced it will leverage Starlink’s dedicated service with bonded gateways to strengthen its ability to deliver resilient, reliable connectivity to Bethel, Sitka, Kotzebue, and Dillingham. With its vast geography and challenging terrain, Alaska is home to some of the most remote and hardest‑to‑reach communities in North America.

“This agreement strengthens our ability to keep Alaskans connected when it matters most,” — said Billy Wailand, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at GCI.

@QSIMedia

⚡️🤑 Ripple and Bitso Expand Partnership to Advance Enterprise Stablecoin Settlement in Latin America Ripple today announced the expansion of its long-standing payments partnership with Bitso, Latin America's leading digital financial services company. 🎉 As part of the collaboration, Bitso’s regulated MXN-backed stablecoin, MXNB, will be issued on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) and integrated into Ripple’s evolving Payments on Decentralized Exchange (DEX) infrastructure. Together with RLUSD, MXNB will support more efficient liquidity and settlement flows for enterprise cross-border payments across the U.S.–Mexico corridor. ❗️MXNB will be integrated into XRPL’s Permissioned DEX, designed to support regulated financial activity by enabling verified counterparties to access onchain liquidity and settlement infrastructure in a more compliance-focused and operationally efficient environment.

“Ripple and Bitso have spent years building payment infrastructure that operates at real-world scale across Latin America,” — said Silvio Pegado, Ripple’s Managing Director of LATAM. “By bringing together RLUSD and MXNB on the XRPL Permissioned DEX, we're helping create regulated, onchain liquidity infrastructure purpose-built for enterprise cross-border payments. This is the next evolution of how value moves between dollars and pesos.” 🤝

Ripple and Bitso have partnered for years to support payment infrastructure across key LATAM corridors, including MXN and COP payout flows. The expansion into XRPL and Payments on DEX marks the next phase of the relationship, bringing localized stablecoin settlement infrastructure to one of the world’s most important remittance and cross-border payment markets. 🤪 #Stellar @QSIMedia

🤝 Anthropic taps TCS to scale its enterprise AI deployments Anthropic has partnered with Indian IT services giant Tata Consultancy Services in a bid to accelerate adoption of its AI models at enterprises. The partnership will see TCS creating a business unit focused on deploying Anthropic’s AI models to its customers. TCS will also gain early access to new model releases, which it says it will use to build expertise, and it will provide Anthropic’s Claude AI assistant to its employee base of more than 50,000 people. The companies said they would develop solutions for sectors like financial services, healthcare, telecommunications and aviation. #BRICS @QSIMedia

🇯🇵 Japan's parliament advances bill to classify cryptocurrencies as financial instruments Japan could soon treat cryptocurrencies like stocks and other financial investments, rather than just as a payment method. 🧑‍⚖️ The country's House of Representatives passed a bill that shifts crypto regulation from the Payment Services Act to the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act. The legislation is expected to take effect next year if approved by the House of Councillors.

Under the proposed framework, crypto assets would be classified as financial instruments, placing them under a regulatory regime similar to that governing stocks.

⤴️ The change would subject the crypto sector to stricter trading rules, while paving the way for more favorable tax treatment, potentially reducing the tax rate on crypto gains from a maximum of 55% to a flat 20%, in line with stocks and bonds. ❗️It also opens the door to new products like exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

"Crypto-ETFs would provide investors with easy-to-understand ways of investment," — the ruling Liberal Democratic Party said recently.

"Our framework intends to improve user protection while remaining mindful of promoting innovation, given that crypto assets are increasingly positioned as investment targets for both domestic and foreign investors," — the Financial Services Agency (FSA) said in the statement.

The FSA attributed the move to crypto quickly becoming a more mainstream investment asset in an announcement of the passage of the bill Thursday. Japan now has more than 14 million open crypto accounts, according to data cited by the FSA. 🚀 @QSIMedia

⚡️🇨🇳🇪🇺 China Vice Premier to Join Macron’s G7 Call on Trade Imbalances Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing will join a video call Thursday with Group of Seven countries to discuss trade imbalances, following a rare invite for China to take part in the multilateral discussion. Emmanuel Macron had previously considered inviting Chinese President Xi Jinping to the G7 summit in France this year. #BRICS @QSIMedia

⚡️🇭🇺 Hungary to Decriminalize Crypto Trading, Reversing Orban-Era Restrictions

Hungary plans to remove criminal penalties for cryptocurrency trading, reversing measures put in place under former leader Viktor Orban, government spokeswoman Anita Kobol said.

⤴️The outgoing rules required approved validation for crypto-to-fiat and crypto-to-crypto conversions and carried potential prison terms for violations — measures that prompted several digital-asset platforms, including Revolut, to suspend services in the country. Trading volumes for digital assets declined in the country following the implementation of the rules. The European Union opened an investigation into whether the restrictions complied with the bloc’s regulations. @QSIMedia

🤑🤑 XRP, XLM, and LINK Get Featured in Brand New Nasdaq CME Crypto Index, Alongside Bitcoin Major global derivatives exchange CME Group has officially announced the launch of trading in futures contracts on the new Nasdaq CME Crypto Index. ❗️The main feature of the new benchmark is the inclusion of XRP, Stellar (XLM), and Chainlink (LINK) in a single regulated basket alongside Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Cardano, and Bitcoin Cash. ⤴️This comprehensive approach is designed to give institutional investors easy access to a broader spectrum of crypto assets through one targeted product. The new contracts operate with cash settlement, referencing the Nasdaq CME Crypto Settlement Price Index. This structure enables funds to gain diversified exposure to the crypto market without directly buying or managing the underlying tokens.

📚 Cash-settled futures allow parties to exchange the difference in the underlying asset’s value in cash, rather than delivering the actual asset at contract expiry. For institutional investors, this simplifies storage and operational procedures.

"With trading now officially underway, our new Nasdaq CME Crypto Index futures represent a major milestone in the expansion of our regulated digital asset marketplace. These contracts give clients a cost-efficient tool to hedge their risk or directly pursue broad-based crypto opportunities," — said Giovanni Vicioso, Global Head of Cryptocurrency Products at CME Group.

Company officials say the move was driven by investor calls for clarity and rule-based frameworks. The futures contracts empower funds with robust tools to manage crypto risk within the familiar infrastructure of traditional finance. 🚀 #Stellar @QSIMedia

🤖 A modified Unitree G1 reached Chimborazo’s summit Pemba, a modified Unitree G1, completed the 16-hour summit push with help from the team behind it. The robot walked on its own during easier sections, while people carried it through steeper, more technical terrain.

"The first humanoid to climb to 20,000ft. Everest next," — said on X.

@QSIMedia

🔥 Lumendex Is Not What You Think It Is Most people think their account lives inside the app they use, but that's only part of the story. 🧩 Lumendex provides a practical way to interact with Stellar, while the account itself exists independently on the network. Logging into an app is only one layer of access.🔣True control comes from the keys that identify the account and determine who can control it. As financial infrastructure evolves, understanding the layers beneath the interface becomes increasingly important. 🧠 📱 Watch the video on YouTube, Rumble #Stellar @QSIMedia

⚡️🇨🇦 Meta, X to Face Moratorium on Users Under 16 With New Canada Bill Canadian Identity and Culture Minister Marc Miller introduced the Liberal government’s Safe Social Media Act that would ban social media for youth under 16 unless companies such as Meta Platforms Inc. and X Corp. meet a set of safety standards.

“We need basic protection in place, so every child in this country can be safe on platforms they use every day,” Miller said.

The bill would also impact AI chatbots, though they wouldn’t face a ban on youth users. Firms must mitigate the risk of the chatbot communicating harmful content and be transparent about their reporting thresholds in crisis situations. ❗️The bill will have to pass through Parliament before a ban comes into effect. @QSIMedia

🤑 Mastercard is expanding its settlement capabilities with additional intraday, weekend and holiday card settlement using regulated stablecoins. Programmable, always-on payments now on Stellar. 🤝

"Institutional adoption from companies like Mastercard prove what we've known for years: blockchain integration is an infrastructure upgrade, not a trend," — said Denelle Dixon, CEO of the Stellar Development Foundation.

#Stellar @QSIMedia

🚀 SpaceX aims to launch orbital AI computing tests by end of next year SpaceX executives say the company is aiming ​to launch initial demonstrations of space-based AI computing infrastructure by late 2027, ahead of the "as early as ‌2028" timeline for deployment disclosed in its IPO filing.

The company claims in its IPO documents that it is "the only company with a commercially viable path to building orbital ​AI compute at scale."

@QSIMedia