💰 Visa Direct Launches Stablecoin-Powered Money Movement as Pilots Move to Production

Visa announced the next phase of its stablecoin strategy as Visa Direct stablecoin capabilities advance from pilot stage to commercial deployment. The milestone marks an important step in bringing stablecoin-enabled money movement into real-world commercial operations.

👉 As part of this next phase, Visa is working with Inyo Global, a payments infrastructure provider serving money transmitters, fintechs, banks and payment businesses, to bring Visa Direct's stablecoin-enabled prefunding to market.

👉 Inyo has integrated the capability into its platform, giving the businesses it serves the option to prefund cross-border payouts through Visa Direct with USDC in near real time, rather than relying solely on traditional funding windows.

Through a single connection, Inyo's platform lets businesses onboard users, manage fraud and compliance, accept payments and send domestic and international payouts across more than 180 countries, powered by Visa Direct.

"The next chapter for stablecoins is adoption," — said Vira Platonova, Global Head of Visa Direct. 🚀

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🤖 Introducing Hugo: the first human companion robot

What if robots could connect with people? 🤔 Dynamic Creatures, a robotics company that designs and builds interactive character robots for entertainment and hospitality brands, is unveiling its first living character robot, intended to create a new interactive experience for theme parks, resorts, casinos, and retailers.

Unlike conventional animatronics, Hugo is built to move freely among guests. Hugo runs on the first Vision-Language-Expression (VLE) model. He links what he sees and hears to movement, expression, and gesture. He notices you, reads the room, and reacts in real time.

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💸 Stablecoin issuer Circle to push into 40 new markets, CEO says

Stablecoin issuer Circle is making a major push to enter about 40 emerging and developing countries around the world as blockchain adoption is expected to scale up significantly, the company's CEO and ​chairman Jeremy Allaire said.

"We're kind of going through an inflection point...a transition right now, ‌and that transition is essentially moving from the early adopter phase of blockchain technology into the mainstream scaling phase," — said Allaire.

Markers in regions like Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East are seeing rising ​organic demand for stablecoins and digital utility from individual and businesses wanting to part ⁠of an internet-based economic system, Allaire said.

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🤖 Linus Torvalds posts his first AI-assisted patch to the Linux kernel, synthetic test clocks 23x performance leap

After a few revisions of his position on AI-assisted contributions to the Linux kernel, Linus Torvalds has posted his own first LLM-assisted patch. The development branch purports to fix an old issue with massive cache contention when many CPUs are reading the same file — a scenario potentially encountered when using shared libraries, databases, and web servers.

Several developers had already made attempts over the years at fixing the issue, all with varied results, none quite ideal as an all-encompassing solution. Torvalds posted his own draft for solving the problem in early 2024, and has used it on his own laptop since that time. However, he recently took the plunge and decided to "try to actually solve this thing using an LLM."

He's now posted his solution in a development branch, and claims that he's seen a 23x performance improvement in a dedicated synthetic benchmark, though he notes that actual real-world impact will be far less significant, as "no real load" will witness those figures. If we had to guess, this improvement would benefit server workloads far more than desktop machines.

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💊 USC scientists discover how to create a never-ending supply of cancer-fighting cells

Scientists at the University of Southern California (USC) have discovered a way to produce a potentially renewable supply of cancer-fighting immune cells, opening a promising new direction for cancer treatment.

By working with immature cells that can develop into powerful immune defenders, the researchers have created a system capable of generating large numbers of genetically engineered cells that recognize tumors and help activate the body's natural defenses.

🐁 In experiments involving mice, the engineered cells established themselves in bone marrow, produced new immune cells, and slowed the progression of both blood cancers and solid tumors.

The breakthrough, described in a study published in Cell, could help overcome some of the biggest obstacles facing cancer immunotherapy, including the difficulty of manufacturing enough immune cells and keeping them active in the body.

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🤑 Quantum Alliance forms amid warnings 6.4 million bitcoin face future quantum threat

Who gets Satoshi Nakamoto’s 1.1 million bitcoin, and, for that matter, millions more that are at risk if quantum computers become powerful enough to break the security protecting it, has been a topic of intense debate for quite some time.

Christopher Smith, CEO of quantum-resistant layer-1 blockchain Quantus, believes whoever develops that technology first could take those tokens worth billions, potentially with government backing.

“The most likely scenario is that whoever gets the first CRQC (Cryptographically Relevant Quantum Computer) will take them, probably with the blessing of whichever national government,” — Smith said. “Hopefully it’s a government that likes bitcoin.”

The security researcher and protocol engineer’s warning comes as nine crypto companies unveiled the Quantum Alliance on Thursday to develop common security standards for bitcoin, Ethereum and other blockchain networks.

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🇺🇸🏆The White House: "America IS dominating the frontiers of science & technology."

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🤑 Evernorth taps Ripple, Kraken, Coinbase and BitGo to put $648 million XRP treasury to work

Evernorth plans to start deploying its XRP treasury holdings through "institutional strategies" in the fourth quarter, naming Ripple and crypto exchanges Kraken, Coinbase and BitGo as its first partners.

❗️The company holds 473 million XRP, worth roughly $648 million at current prices. The announcement comes after Evernorth began trading on the Nasdaq under XRPN after a deSPAC merger with Armada Acquisition Corp. II.

"We're putting our treasury to work," — founder and CEO Asheesh Birla said. "We are beginning with some of the strongest institutional counterparties in the industry."

Evernorth aims to put its XRP holdings to work to generate earnings and increase its holdings per share rather than just pursue outright accumulation. The announcement did not specify how much XRP would be deployed.

The company also plans to expand into lending and onchain DeFi strategies on the XRP Ledger as those features become available. 🚀

#Stellar

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🧠 Scientists discover how deep sleep builds muscle, burns fat, and boosts the brain

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have uncovered how the brain controls the release of growth hormone during deep, non-REM sleep. This hormone plays a key role in muscle development, bone strength, and fat metabolism. It is especially important for teenagers, whose bodies are still growing.

Published in Cell, the study reveals a two-way connection: deep sleep stimulates growth hormone release, while growth hormone sends signals back to the brain that influence wakefulness. Understanding this feedback loop could pave the way for new treatments for sleep disorders, metabolic diseases such as diabetes, and neurological conditions including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

The takeaway? Quality sleep is essential for both physical and brain health. 😴

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🤖 Anthropic’s Claude Cuts Quantum Circuit Gates 17x and Solves 25-Year Crypto Mystery

An Anthropic AI model has cracked one of cryptography’s longest-running whodunits, tracing numbers the NSA handed to the U.S. government in the late 1990s, which were long suspected of hiding a backdoor, to an ordinary random-number program fed with timestamps from 1997 and 1998.

It took the model just about half an hour to come up with a solution — one that cryptographers had been chasing to answer for 25 years. 🤯

❗️On October 16, Anthropic published two pieces of research exploring how its Claude model could help investigate cryptographic problems.

👉 One focused on designing more efficient quantum circuits, including for mathematical operations relevant to the quantum threat to elliptic-curve cryptography.

👉 The other investigated the origins of parameters used in standardized elliptic curves, a question that has attracted scrutiny since the NSA supplied the original values without a public explanation.

Together, the studies show how AI can assist with quantum-circuit optimization and cryptographic research.

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🤖 AI lab offers free plumbing and HVAC repairs across three cities to train AI robots

An AI lab that specializes in gathering real-world data wants to partner with homeowners to record how skilled laborers do their jobs to train AI robots. HUMXN will subsidize plumbing, electrical, HVAC, air-duct cleaning, and carpet cleaning, allowing people who need these services to get them for free in exchange for letting someone in with “wearable capture technology” work inside their home.

“Robots need to understand how skilled people interact with the physical world. Home-service technicians perform millions of highly technical tasks every day.

We are creating a way for homeowners and service companies to benefit financially from the value of that expertise,” HUMXN founder Thomas Unise said.

The company is launching its program in three cities — Minneapolis, Chicago, and Miami.

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🇺🇸🇷🇺 Trump Signs Order Exempting Russia From Sanctions Law

President Trump signed an executive order exempting Russia from a new sanctions measure that Congress passed last month. The sanctions were intended to target Russian officials, oligarchs and financial institutions, and were part of a law that was named after Senator Lindsey Graham.

“I am hereby waiving the application of such sanctions, restrictions and duties provided for in the Graham Act,” — Mr. Trump said in the order.

“I have submitted to the Congress a certification that the issuance of such a waiver at this time is in the national interests of the U.S.”

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🇺🇸🇲🇽 US Gives Green Light for New Routes from Mexico City Airports

The US will allow Mexican airlines to offer new flights into the country from Mexico City’s two biggest airports, lifting restrictions that had blocked additional routes.

The move ends constraints the US imposed a year ago on local carriers operating from the Mexican capital’s major international hub, the Benito Juárez airport (AICM), as well as the four-year-old Felipe Ángeles (AIFA) hub, clearing the way for local airlines to add flights from the two facilities to destinations in the US.

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🇪🇺 ECB’s Lagarde Pushes Digital Euro and Tokenized Settlement at IMF

European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde reaffirmed that the ECB is “preparing to complement cash with its digital equivalent” — a CBDC, or electronic money issued by a central bank. Unlike commercial bank deposits or privately issued stablecoins, a digital euro would represent central bank money.

“Adopting the Regulation on the establishment of the digital euro by the end of 2026 is key,” — she said, adding that the Eurosystem plans to run a 12-month internal pilot in the second half of 2027.

The ECB’s approach is to make central bank money available for tokenized financial markets, rather than rely exclusively on private settlement assets.

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