🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia quits China-led cross-border currency platform

Saudi Arabia has pulled out of a China-led digital currency platform aimed at facilitating cross-border payments outside the US dollar. Riyadh joined the mBridge project in 2024 with China, Hong Kong, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates and the Bank for International Settlements, but the Saudi Central Bank said that it completed its participation in May 2025.

The mBridge platform uses blockchain technology that allows central banks to make transactions directly via digital currencies, which could reduce transaction costs and the dollar’s intermediary role. The Saudi Central Bank said it was involved as part of a planned research programme and it was no longer a participating member after completing its proof of concept.

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⚡️🇺🇸🇨🇳 Treasury Secretary Bessent meets with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng ahead of the Trump-Xi summit

"In New York City, Vice Premier He Lifeng and I are continuing our discussions on the U.S.-China economic and trade relationship ahead of President Donald J. Trump’s historic summit with President Xi in Washington.

These talks help lay the groundwork for President Trump to advance America’s economic interests and deliver results for the American people," — Bessent said.

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🧬 Researchers create DNA computer that performs 100-bit calculations without electricity

A team of researchers at Maynooth University, Ireland, has created a “first-of-its-kind” DNA molecular computer that uses DNA strands to perform complex mathematical operations without electricity.

Detailed in the journal Nature, the system — called a Scaffolded DNA Computer (SDC) — is one of the most complex and fastest molecular computers, and “points to new possibilities for long-term data storage, energy-efficient computation and, in time, molecular systems that could operate inside cells for applications such as disease detection,” according to the researchers.

The researchers designed the computer via a technique known as DNA origami. Using specialized software, they mapped out a long primary DNA strand and hundreds of shorter, custom-synthesized “staple” strands. They then added the physical DNA strands to a test tube containing a drop of water and salt. When they heated and then cooled the mixture, the strands self-assembled into a highly organized, microscopic computing grid, with the long strand acting as a structural scaffold.

The system successfully executed 10 different molecular programs, including complex 100-bit calculations. 🚀

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⚡️🇺🇸 Trump to Meet NYC Mayor Mamdani in New York City on Monday

President Donald Trump and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani will meet in the mayor’s residence Monday. The meeting will focus on issues affecting New York City and its residents, Mamdani’s press office said in a statement Sunday.

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🔥 Coinbase, Robinhood, Circle could be early winners of SEC's tokenized-stock push, analysts say

The SEC’s tokenized-stock experiment may be narrow for now, but analysts are already pointing to Coinbase, Robinhood and Circle as potential beneficiaries if more U.S. securities move onchain.

❗️The SEC’s five-year innovation exemption creates a path for tokenized U.S. stocks to trade through automated market makers on public blockchains. To qualify, the tokens must preserve shareholder rights such as dividends and voting, while venues face limits on trading volume and the number of stocks they can offer.

🔜 Goldman Sachs said Coinbase could benefit across several parts of its business.

Coinbase also has an institutional custody business and Coinbase Tokenize, which provides infrastructure for other firms putting assets onchain, the Goldman report added.

Analysts at Citizens similarly highlighted Coinbase’s reach across custody, tokenized assets, stablecoins and its Ethereum-based blockchain Base.

🔜 Robinhood could also benefit, even though its current offshore stock tokens do not fit the SEC framework.

Those products provide price exposure to U.S. shares through a derivative without conveying the full ownership rights required under the exemption. Goldman analysts said Robinhood would need additional product development to offer a compliant version in the U.S.

❗️Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev already signaled this week that more shareholder features, including share redemptions and voting rights, will be added to the stock tokens.

🏆 Stablecoins could be another winner

More tokenized securities trading could also bring more demand for tokenized cash. Goldman and Citizens reports both pointed to Circle as an indirect beneficiary, with USDC potentially used for settlement, collateral and other activity around onchain markets.

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🤖 ChatGPT-6 Astra cracks 108-year-old unsolved WWI German code for the first time

Now 108 years after its transmission, an encrypted World War I German radio message has apparently been deciphered for the first time. The decoded and translated message relays information about the movements of an English cruiser and an Allied squadron near the Crimean Peninsula.

Prinz, the developer who reckons they successfully decoded this covert WWI communication, used GPT-Astra to solve the cipher. Prinz picked the code from a relatively famous list of 50 unsolved ciphers maintained by the German science blogging portal Scienceblogs.de.

Astra solved the cipher using the word “TRUPPENVERSCHIEBUNG” as the key. This resulted in the decoded message: “EIN ENGLISCHER KREUZER EINLIEG X SEWASTOPOL X S4STEN X EIN GESCHWADER DER X ALLIIERTEN FOLGT 26STEN X.”

Translated into English, we can at last understand that the radio message was the following alert: “AN ENGLISH CRUISER ARRIVED AT SEVASTOPOL ON THE ?4TH AN ALLIED SQUADRON FOLLOWS ON THE 26TH."

GPT-Astra hypothesizes that previous attempts to decipher this German message failed because code sleuths made an incorrect assumption. Before this decoding feat, it was thought that the keyword “TRUPPENVERSCHIEBUNG” was used only as a key starting December 9, 1918. Remember, this message was transmitted on November 29 of that year.

This codebreaking feat is a cool result and a good example of Astra’s flexible problem-solving capabilities.

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⚡️🇺🇦🇺🇸 Ukraine’s Zelenskyy Will Meet Trump During UN Events in New York

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he’ll meet President Donald Trump during the UN General Assembly week in New York.

“I just spoke with President Trump. An important conversation, and we got through a lot. We agreed to meet in New York, and this meeting could change a lot. There is diplomatic momentum,” — Zelenskyy said.

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⚡️🇺🇸 Trump posted on Truth Social

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🇷🇺 Russia’s Finance Ministry and Central Bank Work on Framework for a Russian Stablecoin

The Russian Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Russia have officially commenced joint work to design the operational mechanism and regulatory boundaries for a Russian stablecoin.

The initiative, confirmed by Deputy Finance Minister Ivan Chebekov, marks a shift toward structuring a specific framework for crypto-assets pegged to stable underlying values like the ruble.

“It is too early to talk about a specific model or a finalized draft bill. However, we are working on the issue together with the Bank of Russia: how such a stablecoin would operate, what types of transactions would be permitted, and so on,” — he noted.

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🤖 New solar panel tech could trap heat for 1,000 times longer to beat a long-standing limit in energy production

There's a long-standing physics theory that suggests solar panels will only ever be able to convert a maximum of 33% of the sunlight that comes their way, but a team from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands has detailed a way to harvest extra energy from 'hot' electrons that could push through this limit.

Solar panels work by using the photons from sunshine to jump-start electrons. With the most energetic photons, the result is super-charged, so-called hot electrons, that have the potential to generate significantly more electricity — but the problem is they cool down too quickly and lose the energy as heat before it can be captured.

This new research builds on previous studies reporting a promising new tin-based solar panel material. The material has demonstrated it can keep the heat from hot electrons trapped for around 1,000 times longer — but there have been competing ideas about the mechanism making that possible.

Understanding the material's key properties will help scientists build on the potential of the material and potentially scale it up into something that's viable commercially.

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🇺🇸 Nobel economists throw support behind California billionaire tax

A ballot initiative that would impose a wealth tax on California's billionaires could be the start of a global trend, according to six Nobel Prize-winning economists. In a letter, they endorsed the state's Proposition 40, which calls for residents worth more than $1 billion to pay a one-time tax equivalent to 5% of their assets.

"California is the right place to take this historic step," — they wrote. "The explosive growth of the state's billionaires over the past few decades has made it one of the most unequal places in America."

❗️The economists estimated that California's 250 billionaires are collectively worth $2.3 trillion, and the state income taxes they paid amounted to only 1.6% of their $1.4 trillion wealth gain from 2019 to 2025.

While billionaires have "made important contributions," the letter added, they have also been "amply rewarded" and have used loopholes to avoid taxes on capital returns, allowing their wealth to compound further.

Supporters point to the AI boom and say California's ultra-rich would still be among the world's wealthiest. The union pushing Prop 40, the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, has said the wealth tax could raise $100 billion in revenue and help offset federal cuts to health spending.

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🚀 Elon Musk posted the video

“This is the future we shall bring into being,” — Musk said.

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⚡️🇨🇳🇺🇸China Confirms Xi’s First Trip to US in Nearly Three Years

China said President Xi Jinping will travel to the US to meet Donald Trump, a visit that comes with a one-year trade truce winding down. Xi will make a state visit on Sept. 23-25 at the US president’s invitation, according to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun.

The Chinese leader will have an “in-depth exchange of views” with Trump “on major issues concerning bilateral ties and world peace and development” as both countries look to work jointly to “properly manage differences,” Guo said.

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