💫 NASA picks Eric Schmidt’s rocket company for Mars mission, setting up a race with SpaceX

NASA has selected Relativity Space—a rocket maker acquired by former Google executive chair Eric Schmidt last year— to build a spacecraft to house a suite of scientific instruments, launch it into space, and fly it to Mars.

Aeolus, as the mission is dubbed, will contain four instruments to measure and image Mars from orbit, providing what NASA expects to be the first daily, global view of dust, winds, and temperature in its atmosphere. The agency said that data will make it safer for landers and, someday, astronauts, to visit the surface of the Red Planet.

“Public-private partnerships like this are a force multiplier for science,” — said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. 🤝

@QSIMedia

⚡️Federal Reserve Board requests comment on proposal to require certain payment stablecoin issuers to maintain an effective customer identification program

The U.S. Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and other financial regulators are pushing a new stablecoin rule that treats issuers like other regulated financial firms when it comes to identifying their users, releasing their draft of the proposed rule on Thursday.

❗️These standards, according to the rule proposal, "must include reasonable procedures for:
🟠verifying the identity of any person seeking to open an account to the extent reasonable and practicable;
🟠maintaining records of the information used to verify a person’s identity, including name, address, and other identifying information;
🟠and determining whether the person appears on any lists of known or suspected terrorists or terrorist organizations provided to the financial institution by any government agency."

The Fed opened a 60-day public comment period alongside the other agencies in the joint effort, including the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., National Credit Union Administration and the Treasury Department's financial-crimes arm.

@QSIMedia

🇰🇷🇺🇸Lee Says Korea-US Ties ‘Eternal’ as Trump Invites Him to Golf

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said his country’s relationship with the US is “solid and eternal” after he spoke with President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit in France.

“As we parted ways after lunch, he said again that we definitely play golf together. I thought he was just saying it in passing, but it seems I will have to make preparations,” — Lee said in a post on X on Thursday alongside a photo with Trump. “The South Korea-US relationship is solid and eternal.” 🤝

@QSIMedia

https://x.com/xfinancebull/status/2067201086167941634?s=52

This is an excellent interview. I recommend everyone watches! Denelle Dixon is interviewing Sandy Kaul , the head of digital asset innovation at Franklin Templeton! Interestingly, she also sits on the board of the CFTC with regards to digital assets! As Emily and I have been saying for a long time, the CFTC will be the main oversight, regulatory body, not the SEC!

As they go through the interview, they cover so many things we have been saying are coming, and what benefits the people will see! Sandy states that the entire financial system will adopt Stellar technology! lol

A few topics of interest are how settlement of securities went from T +1 to 15 seconds on Stellar! How smart contracts can eliminate huge infrastructure and cost. How settlement costs on trades will go down to almost 0! She used the example of 50,000 transactions cost $75,000 in settlement costs under the traditional infrastructure. On Stellar it cost $1.13! Lololol

Those expenses, usually get taken out of the fund, so those savings actually go directly back to the people, which is awesome! As Emily and I discussed on our first couple of live streams together, when investing in funds, the fees are so astronomical overtime that the fund company keeps 66% of the profits and people don’t even know it!.

Now imagine that not only settlement fees drop, but also trading fee fees, management fees, custodial fees all drop astronomically! That would literally triple what an investor would get in returns! In fact, they would keep almost all of the money from the investment, reducing these companies simply to ones who facilitate transactions!

They talk about how easy it will be to transfer securities from one person to another without having to wait weeks, they talk about how they are able to update records second by second, which allowed them to pay interest on the fund intraday, which greatly benefits, the consumer!

Maybe you guys are not aware of it, but if you liquidate a money market in the middle of the day under the current system, you don’t get any interest at all for that day! Another way to screw people! But with Stellar, people get paid up to the minute they liquidate! That’s really significant!

They also illustrate how clueless the SEC was throughout this process and how little they know about blockchain! I would bet that almost everybody on QSI knows more than they do!

They talked about how people will have access to investments. Only the rich people or institutions were able to invest in. They talked about financial inclusivity. There’s so much good information here, but the main thing is they validate everything we’ve been saying for the last couple of years! The big changes are coming people! Get excited! lol 😂😂😂

🤝 Meta Strikes New AI Computing Deals With Data Center Firm Crusoe

Meta Platforms Inc. has secured new agreements to get AI computing power from data center developer Crusoe at two data centers, bolstering the infrastructure it needs to support an ambitious AI expansion. Those operations are located in Childress, Texas, and Warrenton, Missouri.

@QSIMedia

🤖 US quantum computer demonstrates 99.9975% fidelity, paves the way for a fault-tolerant future

Sandia National Laboratories and tech company Quantinuum published a paper in Nature reporting the performance of the company's 98-qubit commercial system, Helios, which debuted last year.

In operations that involved only one or two qubits, or quantum bits, the system demonstrated very high fidelity—99.9975% and 99.921%, respectively. The results establish Helios as the company's largest and most reliable quantum computer to date. 🏆

"As a national resource, we are committed to accelerating quantum computing technology in support of economic and national security," — Sandia senior manager Mike Descour said.

Sandia assesses emerging opportunities and threats stemming from quantum information science for the U.S. government. These areas include cryptography, pharmaceutical research, energy science, advanced sensing and communications, all of which are key to national security.

@QSIMedia

🧑‍⚖️ Bernie Sanders’ New AI Bill Would Pay Americans $1,000 a Year

Bernie Sanders is making the case that since modern AI systems were built using the intellectual and creative outputs of all of humanity, the revenues they generate should go directly to the people—not just to a small cohort of tech moguls.

📑 On Thursday, Senator Sanders—an Independent from Vermont—introduced a bill which, if passed, would create a sovereign wealth fund for the United States’ AI industry. The fund would be valued at roughly $7 trillion, a number derived from the current valuation of the country’s top AI labs, and would give the American public a 50% public stake in those companies.

⤴️As a result, taxpayers would receive an annual payment of $1,000 through the fund.

That amount “will probably go up as AI becomes more prosperous,” — Senator Sanders said. The fund could also eventually funnel “significant amounts of money … into social programs, making sure that all Americans have healthcare, education, decent housing, and other basic necessities of life.”

@QSIMedia

🤑 Cross-chain swaps on Stellar are live on Sushi.

XLM and USDC on Stellar are now available for cross-chain swap across 40+ chains, same Sushi experience.

#Stellar

@QSIMedia

❤️ Microsoft found malware that hijacks crypto wallets and spreads through USB sticks

The malware dubbed a “crypto clipper,” has been spreading via infected USB drives to target Windows users’ crypto wallets since February, according to Microsoft.

❗️Once installed through a malicious .lnk shortcut file, the worm known as Trojan:Win32/CryptoBandits monitors the clipboard for seed phrases, private keys and recipient addresses, exfiltrates data over the Tor network, and can silently swap in attacker-controlled wallet addresses. The malware propagates by replacing documents on clean USB drives with identically named shortcuts.

Microsoft recommends disabling AutoRun for removable media, blocking .lnk file execution on USB drives via group policy and restricting script hosts such as wscript.exe and cscript.exe. Microsoft Defender customers can also run hunting queries to check for related activity, including connections to a local Tor proxy on port 9050.

@QSIMedia

🇮🇳🛰 Ambani’s Jio Weighs India Satellite Network to Rival Starlink

Jio Platforms, controlled by Billionaire Mukesh Ambani, is considering launching a low-Earth-orbit satellite network in India to strengthen its nation’s communications infrastructure, Managing Director Akash Ambani said at Reliance Industries’ shareholder meeting.

It is also partnering to lease capacity from global providers so that “we can accelerate service availability while building our own long-term sovereign capability,” he said.

#BRICS

@QSIMedia

🤑 Trust comes down to one thing: your track record.

Dan Doney, Managing Director and Digital Assets CTO of The DTCC, breaks down why the Stellar network's receipts holds up. ☝️

#Stellar

@QSIMedia

🇪🇬 Scatec Says Egypt Solar Project Can Save $400 Million Over LNG

Scatec ASA’s Obelisk solar and battery storage project in Egypt can save the country as much as $400 million a year in liquefied natural gas imports, according to CEO Terje Pilskog.

The Norwegian developer’s roughly $600 million project is expected to become Africa’s largest hybrid solar and battery installation when completed in the middle of this year. The 1.1-gigawatt solar and 200 megawatt-hour storage facility will supply the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company.

#BRICS

@QSIMedia

⚡️🇺🇸 Trump Unveils Refitted Qatar-Donated Jet to Be New Air Force One

President Donald Trump on Friday displayed the Boeing Co. 747-8 that will serve as the new US presidential jet, proclaiming the gifted plane from the Qatari government “virtually double the size” of the previous model.

“This is considered the world’s most luxurious plane,” Trump said in front of the aircraft, inside a hangar at Joint Base Andrews. “When it was built, it was built at a level that will probably never be seen again.”

@QSIMedia

🔥 Archax launches $GOVY – the first 24/7, perpetual T-Bill token aligned with HQLA Level 1 principles

Archax, the UK/EU regulated digital asset platform, announced the launch of $GOVY, a tokenised, perpetual US Treasury Bill (T-Bill) product, designed to align with high-quality liquid assets (HQLA) principles. $GOVY gives investors direct, legally-enforceable exposure to auto-rolling, short-dated US government securities with embedded on-chain settlement, custody and delivery rights - and with no active management required by the investor.

➡️ The Archax $GOVY token represents ownership of continuously rolling, short-dated T-Bills, removing the operational complexity typically associated with managing maturing T-Bill positions. The product then combines the capabilities of blockchain-based smart contracts - instant settlement, 24/7 availability ⏰ - with the expectations of traditional institutional clients, such as legal enforceability, collateral eligibility, regulated custody. Crucially, without using a fund or SPV structure.

“$GOVY brings together the safety and familiarity of US T-Bills with the operational advantages of tokenisation,” said Graham Rodford, CEO and co-founder of Archax. “Professional and institutional investors can now access government yield in a structure that is fully regulated, legally robust and operationally simple - without the friction of traditional settlement cycles, SPVs or fund wrappers.”

📚 How $GOVY Works:

Investors can subscribe through an Archax brokerage account, or from whitelisted wallets using eligible stablecoins. Archax purchases and tokenises the corresponding T-Bills, which are held 1:1 in regulated custody. As each T-Bill matures, it is automatically replaced within the $GOVY token by the next equivalent short-dated instrument, providing perpetual, continuously rolling exposure. Investors can redeem $GOVY for stablecoins or take delivery of the underlying T-Bill at any time. Importantly, investors retain legal ownership of their specific underlying T-Bills throughout.

❗️$GOVY will initially be available to non-US investors and will be issued on Ethereum, Hedera and Stellar, with support for other blockchains to follow. Transferability is restricted to whitelisted wallets, ensuring compliance with regulatory and investor eligibility requirements. The underlying assets consist of short-dated US T-Bills held 1:1 against the issued tokens.

The launch of GOVY tokens marks another milestone in Archax’s mission to build regulated infrastructure for the tokenisation, custody, trading and distribution of both cryptoassets and real-world assets. 🚀

#Stellar

@QSIMedia