In a landmark move for the diamond and digital asset industries, Billiton Diamond and leading tokenization provider Ctrl Alt, today announced a collaboration that has tokenized over AED 1 billion ($280m) of certified polished diamonds held in the UAE.
The move positions Billiton at the forefront of diamond investment innovation and Ctrl Alt as a leader in commodities tokenization. The tokenized assets will be secured through Ripple’s enterprise-grade custody technology.
Through this collaboration, Billiton will launch a new tokenized diamond platform that embeds real-time inventory management and certification data on the blockchain, allowing stakeholders to verify the origin, grading, and ownership history of each polished stone before any transaction. These novel operations will be subject to regulatory approval by the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) prior to launch.
“The potential of tokenization relies on enterprise-grade trust and security. As Billiton Diamond and Ctrl Alt move $280 million in diamond inventory onto the XRPL, our custody technology provides the rigorous security required to manage these assets at scale, proving that high-value physical assets can be moved on-chain with absolute confidence. Alongside Billiton Diamond and Ctrl Alt, we are proud to set a new precedent for commodities trading in the digital age," - said Reece Merrick, Managing Director, Middle East & Africa, at Ripple.
#Stellar #BRICS
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As Adobe ramps up its investments in AI, the company has decided to shut down its 2D animation software, Adobe Animate. On Monday, Adobe issued an update to the company’s support site and sent emails to existing customers announcing Adobe Animate will be discontinued on March 1, 2026.
Enterprise customers can continue to receive technical support through March 1, 2029, to ease the transition. Other customers will have support through March of next year, the company said.
“Animate has been a product that has existed for over 25 years and has served its purpose well for creating, nurturing, and developing the animation ecosystem. As technologies evolve, new platforms and paradigms emerge that better serve the needs of the users. Acknowledging this change, we are planning to discontinue supporting Animate,” - Adobe explained its decision to discontinue the program in an FAQ.
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🇺🇸🇷🇺 A World Without Nuclear Arms Control Begins This Week
The end of the agreement this week eliminates the final legally binding constraints on deployed nuclear weapons held by the United States and Russia, the world’s two largest nuclear powers, with little prospect of new negotiations to replace it.
The first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), signed in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed, introduced meaningful caps on strategic nuclear weapons and established verification regimes that shaped future agreements. New START, signed in 2010 and extended in 2021, limited each side to 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads, a level still sufficient to devastate much of the planet.
Putin has suggested that both sides could voluntarily continue observing the treaty’s limits after its expiration. Trump has described the proposal as a “good idea” but has expressed preference for a new agreement that would also include China. While the US and Russia together control 86 per cent of the world’s nuclear weapons, China has rapidly expanded its arsenal, doubling its stockpile in recent years.
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The end of the agreement this week eliminates the final legally binding constraints on deployed nuclear weapons held by the United States and Russia, the world’s two largest nuclear powers, with little prospect of new negotiations to replace it.
The first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), signed in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed, introduced meaningful caps on strategic nuclear weapons and established verification regimes that shaped future agreements. New START, signed in 2010 and extended in 2021, limited each side to 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads, a level still sufficient to devastate much of the planet.
Putin has suggested that both sides could voluntarily continue observing the treaty’s limits after its expiration. Trump has described the proposal as a “good idea” but has expressed preference for a new agreement that would also include China. While the US and Russia together control 86 per cent of the world’s nuclear weapons, China has rapidly expanded its arsenal, doubling its stockpile in recent years.
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An F-35C stealth fighter jet which took off from the USS Abraham Lincoln warship shot down the Iranian Shahed-139 drone "in self-defence" to protect the aircraft carrier and its personnel, US Central Command spokesman Capt Tim Hawkins said. The ship was approximately 500 miles from the Iranian coast when the drone approached it with "unclear intent". No US equipment was damaged and no service members were harmed.
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Versan Aljarrah, founder of Black Swan Capitalist, argued that Bitcoin has been driven by mechanisms designed to amplify price movements and that its real-world usage extends into areas that most market participants do not fully understand or acknowledge. Aljarrah contrasted Bitcoin with the ongoing development efforts behind the networks associated with Ripple and Stellar. He asserted that these ecosystems have concentrated on building functional infrastructure rather than relying on speculative appeal.
Versan Aljarrah described both networks as systems engineered for durability and institutional relevance. Their design priorities align with existing financial systems while also enabling new forms of digital settlement, positioning them for long-term adoption rather than short-term market cycles.
#Stellar
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The House on Tuesday passed a massive funding package to end the brief government shutdown that began Saturday, clearing the bill for President Donald Trump to sign it into law. The vote was 217-214. Trump has said he will sign it "immediately."
The legislation will ensure full-year funding for the federal government through the end of September, with the lone exception of the Department of Homeland Security, which is put on a two-week leash.
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🇪🇸🇬🇷 Social media groups face Europe backlash as Spain, Greece weigh teen bans
Spain and Greece on Tuesday proposed bans on social media use by teenagers, marking a hardening of attitudes by European nations against technology platforms they say are designed to be addictive and which can expose children to harmful content.
Spain wants to prohibit social media for those aged under 16, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Tuesday. Greece is close to announcing a similar ban for children under 15, a senior government source said. They join a host of countries such as Britain and France considering tougher stances on social media, after Australia in December became the first country in the world to prohibit access to such platforms for children under 16.
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Spain and Greece on Tuesday proposed bans on social media use by teenagers, marking a hardening of attitudes by European nations against technology platforms they say are designed to be addictive and which can expose children to harmful content.
Spain wants to prohibit social media for those aged under 16, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Tuesday. Greece is close to announcing a similar ban for children under 15, a senior government source said. They join a host of countries such as Britain and France considering tougher stances on social media, after Australia in December became the first country in the world to prohibit access to such platforms for children under 16.
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Palantir Technologies (PLTR.O), opens new tab CEO Alex Karp defended the firm's surveillance technology as it reported a big jump in sales on Monday. The data analytics company said revenue derived from the U.S. government spiked 66% in the fourth quarter from the year-ago period to $570 million. Total sales of $1.41 billion exceeded analysts' estimates and the firm anticipates a big jump in sales, in part due to government contracts in 2026.
The company won a contract last year with ICE to develop surveillance systems for immigration enforcement. Karp said the company's tech ensures that the "state and its agents can see only what ought to be seen, and functional audit logs, to ensnare both external and internal threats".
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Electric-vehicle maker Tesla has introduced a new all-wheel drive variant of its bestselling Model Y SUV in the United States, priced at $41,990, according to the company’s website on Monday.
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🇺🇸🇦🇪Trump family crypto firm sold major stake to UAE investment firm
An investment firm tied to the United Arab Emirates acquired nearly half of the Trump family’s cryptocurrency company, a $500 million stake, four days before Trump’s second inauguration.
The deal, signed by the president’s son Eric Trump, gave the Emirati-backed firm a 49%, the Trump-linked crypto venture co-founded by family members of the president and Steve Witkoff, his top envoy to the Middle East.
David Wachsman, a spokesperson for World Liberty Financial, confirmed the investment, stressing that neither Trump nor Witkoff was involved in the transaction and have had no involvement in World Liberty Financial since taking office.
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An investment firm tied to the United Arab Emirates acquired nearly half of the Trump family’s cryptocurrency company, a $500 million stake, four days before Trump’s second inauguration.
The deal, signed by the president’s son Eric Trump, gave the Emirati-backed firm a 49%, the Trump-linked crypto venture co-founded by family members of the president and Steve Witkoff, his top envoy to the Middle East.
“President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public – which is why they overwhelmingly re-elected him to this office, despite years of lies and false accusations against him and his businesses from the fake news media. President Trump’s assets are in a trust managed by his children. There are no conflicts of interest,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement Sunday.
David Wachsman, a spokesperson for World Liberty Financial, confirmed the investment, stressing that neither Trump nor Witkoff was involved in the transaction and have had no involvement in World Liberty Financial since taking office.
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Speaking at Cisco Systems Inc.’s AI conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company might invest in or subsidize pharmaceutical firms that use its AI technology for drug discovery, potentially taking royalties from successful discoveries.
"This is not something we’re doing now, but I think the frontier of scientific discovery with AI will require so much capital that maybe we think of ourselves as an investor in some of those cases," Altman said.
OpenAI and competitors like Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Anthropic have been increasingly focusing on scientific and healthcare applications for their AI technologies. These applications range from guiding research on new drugs to reviewing personal medical data.
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🇺🇸 Donald Trump: "If we don't do crypto, China will."
Donald Trump says he’s been one of crypto’s biggest supporters- not just for markets, but for U.S. competitiveness. His argument is simple: if the U.S. doesn’t lead in crypto, China will — just like AI.🧐
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Donald Trump says he’s been one of crypto’s biggest supporters- not just for markets, but for U.S. competitiveness. His argument is simple: if the U.S. doesn’t lead in crypto, China will — just like AI.
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Analyst All In Crypto walks through a 2025 report from OMFIF — an independent think tank focused on central banking, sovereign funds and public investing — that spotlights Hedera Hashgraph, Stellar and the XRP Ledger as potential infrastructure for the future financial system. OMFIF’s $43 Trillion Network Looks At These Public Chains.
Stellar is open and decentralized but offers many of the practical benefits of private chains, and should be assessed instead on features like settlement finality, governance and interoperability, according to the director from the Stellar Development Foundation.
Ripple’s section highlights the XRP Ledger’s 13-year operational history “without any major outages or security failures” and its public-permissionless design. A Ripple representative pushes back on regulatory worries about public chains, pointing to curated validator sets, deterministic settlement (no probabilistic rollbacks) and the benefits of open participation for liquidity and developer ecosystems.
“Ripple + Stellar aren’t here to replace the system. They’re here to upgrade it from the inside. And once you see that… you can’t unsee it🔥 ,” - Stern Drew posted in X.
#Stellar
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The House passed, and President Trump signed into law, a bill funding almost all of government. It puts DHS on stopgap funding.
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Western Digital on Tuesday announced plans to extend its energy-assisted perpendicular magnetic recording (ePMR) technology to 60TB, thus producing ePMR-based hard drives along with its heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) for several years down the road to guarantee steady availability of high-capacity drives.
The company intends to release its 40TB UltraSMR hard drive in the second half of this year, with its HAMR-based counterpart following in 2027. By 2029, Western Digital plans to offer 100TB HAMR-based HDDs.
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The EU is ready to sign a memorandum of understanding with the US to develop a "Strategic Partnership Roadmap" within three months. This partnership would focus on finding alternative sources for critical minerals, which are essential components in modern technologies, without depending on China.
The proposal outlines several strategies to decrease this dependence, including exploring joint critical-mineral projects and price support mechanisms. It also suggests methods to protect both markets from external mineral oversupply and other forms of market manipulation, while building secure supply chains between the US and EU.
The EU’s proposal comes as the Trump administration is pushing to establish global agreements on critical minerals this week.
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Less than 24 hours after announcing the move, Adobe Creative Cloud Senior Director for Design Marketing & Community Mike Chambers admitted in a Reddit post that the company failed to "meet standards" and "caused a lot of confusion and angst within the community." Animate will continue to be available for both new and existing users.
That was a close one
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The United States has canceled nuclear talks with Iran that were scheduled for Friday after Tehran refused to accept Washington’s conditions on the location and format of the meeting, two senior U.S. officials told on Wednesday.
A senior official described the standoff bluntly: "We told them it is this or nothing, and they said, "Ok, then nothing."
"If they are willing to go back to the agreed format, we are ready to meet this week or next week," the official said.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has made clear that Washington will only consider negotiations meaningful if they include both Iran’s nuclear program and its ballistic missile development, which the U.S. views as a critical regional threat. Rubio also signaled a willingness to engage quickly if Iran agrees to the original format and scope, emphasizing that the U.S. wants to reach a substantive deal without delay.
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Elon Musk just became the first person ever worth $800 billion or more after his rocket maker SpaceX acquired his artificial intelligence and social media company xAI. Forbes estimates that the deal, which values the combined company at $1.25 trillion, boosted Musk’s fortune by $84 billion, to a record $852 billion.
That makes SpaceX Musk’s most valuable asset by far. He also owns a 12% stake in Tesla worth $178 billion and Tesla stock options worth another $124 billion.
Our congratulations!
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Secretary of War Pete Hegseth commissioned an acquisition strategy to swiftly outfit our combat units with lethal drones. The War Department today announced the 25 vendors invited to compete in Phase I of the Drone Dominance Program (DDP), an acquisition reform effort designed to rapidly field low cost, unmanned one way attack drones at scale as part of strengthening America's Arsenal of Freedom.
The Phase I evaluation—the Gauntlet—will begin 18 February at Fort Benning, where military operators will fly and evaluate vendor systems. The Gauntlet will conclude in early March, when approximately $150 million in prototype delivery orders will be placed, with deliveries beginning shortly thereafter and continuing over the following five months. By 2027, the Department will be fielding hundreds of thousands of weaponized, one way attack drones ready for combat.
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Deutsche Telekom AG and Nvidia Corp. opened a €1 billion ($1.2 billion) data center in Munich on Wednesday, marking a significant step for Germany’s digital infrastructure. Finance Minister and Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil attended the opening ceremony for what is considered one of Europe’s largest facilities for technology capable of powering complex AI systems.
German software giant SAP SE is providing platforms and applications for the new facility. The involvement of major corporations and high-level government support demonstrates Germany’s commitment to developing an AI ecosystem that can compete with the US and China.
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