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“Last month’s AWS outage did more than interrupt chats and scramble payment systems. It reignited a political argument that has been simmering for years: whether cloud platforms have become too essential to be left in private hands.”

In the U.K., calls for digital sovereignty resurfaced almost immediately. Across Europe, people again questioned their dependence on U.S. providers. Even for companies that weren’t directly affected, the incident felt uncomfortably close.

In The Infrastructure We Forgot We Built, I pointed out that private infrastructure now performs public functions. The question isn’t whether these systems are critical—demonstrably, they are—it’s what happens when everything is critical. Governments continue to expand their definitions of “critical infrastructure,” extending the term to encompass finance, cloud, data, and communications. Each new addition feels justified, but the result is an ever-growing list that no one can fully protect.

Declaring something “critical” once meant ensuring its safety. Now it often means claiming jurisdiction. It creates an uncomfortable paradox: the more we classify, the more we appear to protect, and the less effective we become at coordinating a response when the next outage arrives.

Let’s poke at some interesting ramifications of classifying a service as critical.

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The American model: expanding scope, dispersing responsibility

Nowhere is this inflation more visible than in the United States, where “critical infrastructure” has evolved from a short list of sixteen sectors, including energy, water, transportation, and communications, to a sprawling catalog of national functions. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) calls them National Critical Functions: over fifty interconnected capabilities that “enable the nation to function.” It’s an attempt to capture the web of dependencies that tie one system to another, but the list is so long that prioritization becomes impossible.

At the same time, National Security Memorandum 22 (NSM-22) shifted much of the responsibility for protecting those functions away from federal oversight. Under NSM-22, agencies and private operators were expected to manage their own resilience planning. In theory, decentralization builds flexibility; in practice, it creates a policy map with thousands of overlapping boundaries. The government defines criticality broadly, but control over what that means in practice is increasingly diffuse.

As of 2025, the current U.S. administration is reviewing NSM-22 and several other cybersecurity and infrastructure policies in an effort to clarify lines of responsibility and modernize federal strategy. According to Inside Government Contracts, this review could lead to significant revisions in how critical infrastructure is defined and governed, though the direction remains uncertain.

What’s unlikely to change is the underlying trend: expansion without coordination. The more functions labeled critical, the thinner the resources spread to defend them. If everyone is responsible, no one really is.

The European model: bureaucracy as resilience

Europe has taken almost the opposite approach. Where the U.S. delegates, the European Union codifies. The NIS2 Directive and the Critical Entities Resilience (CER) Directive bring a remarkable range of organizations, such as cloud providers, postal services, and wastewater plants, under the umbrella of “essential” or “important” entities. Each must demonstrate compliance with a thick stack of risk-management, incident-reporting, and supply-chain-security obligations.

It’s tempting to see this as overreach, but there’s a strange effectiveness to it. A friend recently observed that bureaucracy can be a form of resilience: it forces repeatable, auditable behavior, even when it slows everything down. Under NIS2, an outage may still occur, but the process for recovery is at least predictable. Europe’s system may be cumbersome, but it institutionalizes the habit of preparedness.

If the U.S. model risks diffusion, the European one risks inertia. Both confuse activity with assurance. To put it another way, expanding oversight doesn’t guarantee protection; it guarantees paperwork. Protection might just be a happy accident.

Interdependence cuts both ways

Underlying both approaches is the same dilemma: interdependence magnifies both stability and fragility. The OECD warns about “systemic risk” in its 2025 Governments at a Glance report. Similarly, the WEF describes this characteristic as “interconnected risk” in their Global Risks Report 2024. In both cases, they are talking about how a disturbance in one sector can ripple instantly into others, turning what should be a local failure into a global one.

But interdependence also enables the efficiencies that modern economies depend on. The same cloud architectures that expose organizations to shared risk also deliver shared recovery. If an AWS region goes down, another can often pick up the load within minutes. That doesn’t make the system invulnerable; it makes it tightly coupled, which is both a feature and a flaw.

That is the paradox of microservice design: locally resilient, globally fragile. The further we distribute responsibility, the more brittle the whole becomes. Managing that trade-off is less about eliminating interdependence than about deciding which dependencies are worth keeping.

Coordination in a fragmented world

The Carnegie Endowment’s recent report on global cybersecurity clearly frames the problem: the challenge is no longer whether to protect critical systems, but how to coordinate that protection across borders. The Internet made infrastructure transnational; regulation still stops at the border.

That tension was at the center of my earlier series, The End of the Global Internet. Fragmentation, through data-localization mandates, competing technical standards, and geopolitical distrust, is shrinking the space for cooperation. The systems that most need collective protection are emerging at the moment when collective action is least feasible.

That was made more than clear during the October 2025 AWS outage.

In the U.K., it reignited arguments about tech sovereignty, with commentators and MPs warning that reliance on U.S. providers left the country strategically exposed. In Brussels, the outage reinforced calls to accelerate the European Cloud Federation and “limit reliance on American hyperscalers.”

Tech.eu put it bluntly: “A global AWS outage exposes fragile digital foundations.” They are not wrong.

A technical event at this scale offers impressive political ammunition. The debate becomes about more than just uptime. It’s also about who controls the tools a society can’t seem to function without.

Labeling platforms as critical infrastructure amplifies that instinct. Once something is “critical,” every government wants jurisdiction. Every region seeks its own version. The intent is to strengthen sovereignty, but the result is a more fragmented Internet. Protection turns into partition.

Openness vs. control: lessons from digital public infrastructure

This tension between openness and control shows up again in global discussions around Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI). A recent G20 policy brief argues that while DPI and Critical Information Infrastructure (CII) both serve public purposes, they arise from opposite design instincts. DPI emphasizes inclusion, interoperability, and openness; CII emphasizes security, restriction, and control.

Some systems are designated critical only after they become indispensable. India’s Aadhaar identity platform is a great example. The Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) was declared a Protected System under the country’s CII rules in 2015—five years after Aadhaar’s rollout—adding compliance obligations to what began as open, widely used public infrastructure. Those regulations were and are necessary, but it’s reasonable to ask whether a system managing such sensitive data should ever have operated without that protection in the first place.

The challenge isn’t simply timing. Too early can stifle innovation; too late can amplify harm. The real question is how societies decide when openness must yield to oversight, and whether that transition preserves the trust that made the system valuable in the first place.

The politics of protection

Critical infrastructure has always been political. As the Brookings Institution observed more than a decade ago, infrastructure investment—and, by extension, classification—has always reflected political will as much as technical necessity. The same logic applies online. Designating something “critical” can attract funding, exemptions, or strategic leverage. In a digital economy where perception drives policy, criticality itself becomes a form of currency.

The temptation to leverage the classification of “critical” is understandable: declaring something critical signals seriousness. But it also invites lobbying, nationalization, and regulatory capture. In the analog era, the line between public good and private gain was already blurry; the digital era simply made it blur faster and more broadly.

Criticality has become a negotiation, and as with all negotiations, outcomes depend less on evidence than on who has the microphone.

The discipline of selective resilience

If the first post in this series leaned toward recognizing new kinds of critical infrastructure, this one argues for restraint in doing so. Declaring everything critical doesn’t make societies safer; it makes prioritization impossible. Resilience requires hierarchy, specifically knowing what must endure, what can fail safely, and how systems recover in between.

That’s an uncomfortable truth for both policymakers and providers. (I would say I’m glad I don’t have that job, but I kind of do as a voting member of society) Safety sounds equitable; prioritization sounds elitist. But in practice, resilience demands choice. It asks us to acknowledge that some dependencies matter more than others, and to build systems that tolerate loss rather than pretending loss is preventable.

The more we classify, the more we appear to protect, and the less effective we become at coordinating when the next outage arrives. The task ahead isn’t expanding the list. It’s learning to live with a smaller one.

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Transcript

[00:00:30]
Welcome back. Last month’s AWS outage did more than just interrupt chats and scramble payment systems — it ignited a long-simmering argument about whether cloud platforms have become too essential to be left entirely in private hands.

In the UK, calls for digital sovereignty resurfaced almost immediately. Across Europe, governments and enterprises once again questioned their dependence on U.S. providers. And even for organizations that weren’t directly affected, the outage felt uncomfortably close. The internet wobbled — and everybody noticed.

Defining What’s “Critical”

In my post last week, The Infrastructure We Forgot We Built, I argued that private infrastructure now performs public functions.
That’s the heart of the question here — not whether these systems are critical infrastructure (they are), but what happens when everything becomes critical?

When every failure becomes a matter of national concern, the language of protection starts collapsing under its own weight.

So, what do we actually mean when we say critical infrastructure? The phrase sounds straightforward, but it isn’t. Every jurisdiction defines it differently. Broadly speaking, critical infrastructure refers to assets, systems, and services essential for society and the economy — things whose disruption would cause harm to public safety, economic stability, or national security.

That definition works for power grids and water systems, but it gets complicated when we start talking about DNS, payments, or authentication services — the digital glue holding everything together.

Today, critical is no longer just about physical survival. It’s about functional continuity and keeping society running.

When Everything Is Critical, Nothing Is

Each country’s list of what’s critical keeps getting longer — and fuzzier. Declaring something critical once meant ensuring its safety. Now, it feels more like staking a claim to control.

That’s the paradox. The more we classify, the more we appear to protect — but the less effective we become when the next outage hits.

This tension is especially visible in the United States. Critical infrastructure once referred to 16 sectors — energy, water, transportation, communications — things you could point to in the real world.

Today, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recognizes more than 50 “national critical functions.” These include both government and private-sector operations so vital that their disruption could debilitate the nation.

It’s a noble definition — but a recipe for paralysis. Because if everything is critical, then nothing truly is.

Expansion Without Coherence

The National Security Memorandum 22 (NSM 22) was intended to modernize how those functions are managed. In theory, it decentralizes responsibility, allowing agencies and private operators to tailor protections to their own risk environments.

In practice, it’s become a policy map full of overlapping boundaries — blurry accountability, scattered resources, and fragmented oversight.

It’s a patchwork: agencies, regulators, and corporate partners each hold a piece of the responsibility, but no one has the full picture.

While the U.S. administration is reviewing these policies, the underlying trend remains: we keep expanding the definition of “critical” without improving coordination.

The result?

Expansion without coherence Protection without prioritization A system too diffused to defend

It’s the digital version of the bystander effect: if everyone is responsible, no one truly is.

Bureaucracy as Resilience

Let’s shift to the European model, which takes almost the opposite approach. Where the U.S. delegates, the EU codifies — through the NIS 2 Directive and the Critical Entities Resilience Directive.

These cover a wide range of organizations — from cloud providers to waste-water plants — all classified as “essential” or “important.” Each must prove compliance with risk management, incident reporting, and supply-chain security requirements.

It’s easy to dismiss that as bureaucratic overreach — and in part, it is.
But it’s also effective in its own way. Bureaucracy, for all its flaws, enforces repeatable, auditable behavior even as it slows things down.

Under NIS 2, an outage may still occur, but the recovery process is predictable. You may not like the paperwork, but you’ll have it — and sometimes, that’s half the battle.

Still, the EU’s model has limits. If the U.S. risks diffusion, the EU risks inertia. Both can be mistaken for resilience, but neither guarantees protection. What bureaucracy guarantees is documentation, not defense.

Interdependence and Fragility

Both systems face the same dilemma: interdependence.
It magnifies both stability and fragility. A local failure can ripple across sectors and become a global event — yet shared infrastructure also provides recovery pathways.

When an AWS region fails, another often takes over. That’s designed resilience, but it isn’t limitless. As we’ve seen, microservice architecture provides local stability but global fragility. The more distributed a system becomes, the harder it is to understand its failure points.

When everything depends on everything else, “critical infrastructure” starts to lose meaning.

The goal isn’t to eliminate dependencies — that’s impossible — but to decide which ones we can live with.

The Coordination Gap

Coordination, or the lack of it, is the real challenge.
A recent Carnegie Endowment report put it plainly: the issue isn’t whether to protect critical systems, but how to coordinate that protection across borders.

The internet made infrastructure transnational.
Regulation, however, still stops at the border. The wider that gap grows, the more fragile the entire system becomes.

We’re trying to protect a global network at a time when global cooperation is at a low point.

During the October AWS outage, responses were swift — and revealing:

In the UK, debates about tech sovereignty resurfaced. In Brussels, attention turned to reducing dependence on U.S. hyperscalers. Across tech journalism, the consensus was clear: a global AWS outage exposes fragile digital foundations.

And they’re right. But this technical failure has become political ammunition. The debate has shifted from uptime to control — who controls the tools we can’t function without?

From Protection to Fragmentation

Once something is labeled critical, every government wants jurisdiction.
Every region wants its own version. The intent is protection; the result is fragmentation.

This same tension shows up in debates about Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) versus Critical Information Infrastructure (CII).

DPI emphasizes inclusion, interoperability, and openness. CII emphasizes security, restriction, and control.

Both serve public goals — they just stem from different design instincts.

For example, India’s Aadhaar identity system began as an open platform for inclusion. Five years later, it was reclassified as protected critical infrastructure. That shift was probably necessary, but it raises an uncomfortable question:

Should systems managing that level of personal data ever have operated without such protections?

Move too early, and you stifle innovation.
Move too late, and you amplify harm.

Timing, Trust, and Trade-Offs

The challenge is timing — and trust.
How do we decide when openness must yield to oversight, and how do we maintain public confidence when that shift happens?

Declaring something critical is never neutral. It’s a political act.
In the digital economy, criticality itself becomes a kind of currency — attracting investment, lobbying, and influence.

If a nation declares a platform critical, is it for resilience or for leverage?
Realistically, it’s both.

Selective Resilience

If The Infrastructure We Forgot We Built was about recognizing new kinds of critical systems, this reflection argues for restraint.

Declaring everything critical doesn’t make us safer — it makes prioritization impossible.
Resilience requires hierarchy: knowing what must endure, what can fail safely, and how recovery happens in between.

That’s uncomfortable for policymakers. Safety sounds equitable; prioritization sounds elitist.
But resilience demands choice. It asks us to build systems that tolerate failure rather than pretending it won’t happen.

The more we classify, the more we appear to protect — and the less control we have when it matters most.

Maybe the real task isn’t expanding the list of critical infrastructure, but learning to live with a smaller one.
Because protection is ultimately about trade-offs:

Between autonomy and interdependence Between openness and control Between trust and necessity

The harder we try to protect everything, the more fragile we make the whole.

[00:13:33]
That’s it for this week’s episode of The Digital Identity Digest.

[00:13:38]
If this helped make things clearer — or at least more interesting — share it with a friend or colleague.
Connect with me on LinkedIn @hlflanagan, and if you enjoyed the show, please subscribe and leave a rating on your favorite podcast platform.

You can also read the full post at sphericalcowconsulting.com.
Stay curious, stay engaged, and let’s keep these conversations going.

The post The Paradox of Protection appeared first on Spherical Cow Consulting.

The world’s most dangerous criminal organizations don’t look like what you’d expect – they resemble Fortune 500 companies. They are sophisticated, disciplined and scaled to the point of industrialization. In this part of our fraud series, we examine the inner workings of the world’s most pervasive crime: social engineering fraud. We go inside the compounds and their corporate-style departments to reveal the organized machinery that makes them so hard to dismantle. 

Romance scams. Spear phishing. Authorized Push Payment fraud (APP fraud). These social engineering atttacks are no longer marginal threats. For banks and financial institutions, they represent one of the fastest-growing forms of fraud – costing billions each year and eroding customer trust and institutional reputation. 

In our first article of our fraud series, we revealed who is behind this global enterprise worth over $1 trillion and looked inside their vast complexes around the world, housing hundreds to thousands of trafficked workers. Now, we turn our focus towards how scam compounds operate; how they replicate corporate structure, scale with technology, deploy Fraud-as-a-Service (FaaS) and drive threats that risk not just money, but reputation and trust. 

Fraud Inc.: Departments like real companies 

Step inside a scam compound and what you’ll find looks less like a criminal hideout and more like a corporate headquarters. Inside, these operations function as fully fledged business ecosystems.  

It all begins with procurement, the recruitment process that fuels the enterprise. Recruiters post fake job ads on social media and employment platforms, offering high salaries and promising conditions. Many who apply are students, retirees, or people in vulnerable economic situations. Few realize they’re being drawn into a human trafficking network. Once they arrive at what they believe is their new workplace, they find themselves trapped within guarded compounds and forced into labour – trained and deployed to defraud victims around the world. 

From there, new arrivals enter structured training academies that mirror legitimate corporate onboarding. They are given scripts, coached on tone and persuasion, and taught to impersonate trusted individuals or institutions. They learn how to overcome objections, create urgency, and craft convincing messages and emails – all the hallmarks of professional sales training, repurposed for deception. 

Once trained, recruits join the call centres, the heart of the operation. Floor after floor of desks are filled with “sales teams” executing scams around the clock. Performance is tracked obsessively: conversion rates, value per victim, number of successful interactions, and response times to leads. High performers are rewarded. Those who fall behind face severe punishment. 

Underpinning it all are the operations and IT teams, ensuring the smooth running of the criminal enterprise. Infrastructure is maintained, systems monitored, and data managed. Meanwhile, payroll and accounting functions handle the proceeds, laundering the fraudulently obtained funds and reinvesting them to expand and sustain the operation further. 

But perhaps most sophisticated is the R&D unit: its sole purpose is to stay one step ahead of banks’ fraud prevention measures. These teams constantly evolve and fine-tune new attack methods to bypass the latest defenses. They test social engineering workflows, refine bypasses for two-factor authentication and explore how to exploit gaps in identity verification. Increasingly, they use AI tools to deepen deception with deepfake voice impersonations, synthetic IDs or AI-generated phishing platforms. 

On paper, you would not be able to distinguish the internal structure from that of a legitimate company. 

Scaling fraud with AI & FaaS 

No single compound has to reinvent the wheel – and increasingly, these large criminal enterprises are even franchising out their operations. Through fraud-as-a-Service (FaaS) models, they sell or lease “pluggable fraud kits” on the dark web. Those contain identity-spoofing services, exploit packages, script libraries, all available with a few clicks, making it easier for individuals to deploy sophisticated APP scams or impersonation attacks without any previous technical or scam background. It’s a franchise model for cybercrime. 

Using software and AI to streamline scams 

Scammers must reach the high call volume KPIs required everyday and to do so, they must rely on Voice-over-IP (VoIP) services. VoIP allows them to make international calls cheaply via the internet while spoofing caller IDs with UK or EU country codes to appear more credible. These tools also provide a steady supply of fresh phone numbers when agents’ numbers get blacklisted as spam. 

Scammers also use software stacks that mirror legitimate corporate tools. CRM-style dashboards track leads and capture victim information like investment experience, call history and personal details. Stolen identity databases enable highly personalised attacks, and increasingly, AI chatbots automate message personalisation and generate deepfakes. Tools like ChatGPT are actively deployed inside compounds to craft convincing investor narratives and sustain prolonged, trust-building conversations with victims. 

Why banks must look beyond the transaction 

Fraud losses are exploding. In 2024, consumers in the U.S. lost over $12.5 billion to scams, with investment and imposter scams alone making up most of it. In Norway, losses from social engineering rose 21% between 2021 and 2022, reaching NOK 290.3 million ($25-30 million USD) as more users were manipulated into authorizing payments – a trend that has also been noted by European banks, which saw digital payment fraud rise by 43% in 2024 compared to 2023, with social engineering tactics increasing by 156% and phishing by 77%.  

These operations hurt banks in far more ways than immediate financial loss. Each successful scam erodes trust – from customers, regulators and the public. When customers believe their bank can’t protect them, they may flee to competitors or lose faith. Regulatory scrutiny and fines also increase, especially as social engineering becomes the fraud vector regulators are watching most closely. 

The human toll and what can be done 

It is apparent that fraud is shifting from solely technical compromises to manipulations of human trust, but not only of those deceived to send money. Many scammers are recruited under false pretenses, trafficked or working under duress – a grim reality upon which these industrial fraud machines are built.  

Tools to fight (social engineering) fraud 

Social engineering scams are among the most challenging threats banks face today. Unlike traditional fraud like forged documents, these scams manipulate genuine customers into authorizing payments or sharing sensitive information – often without realizing they’re being deceived. This is especially true in cases like APP fraud, where the victim is tricked into sending money themselves, and because the transaction appears legitimate and is initiated by the account holder, detecting these scams demands a new level of vigilance and smarter technology. 

To combat this, banks need tools that go beyond standard identity checks. Solutions must be able to spot subtle signs of coercion and manipulation in real time. Video-based verification solutions are purpose-built for this and are the only verification method capable of detecting social engineering attempts through dynamic, human-led interactions and social-engineering–style questioning that reveal behavioral inconsistencies or signs of distress that may indicate a customer is being manipulated by a scammer. 

With social engineering, the focus shifts from verifying identity to understanding intent. That’s where platforms like the IDnow Trust Platform comes in. By integrating behavioral biometrics, such as erratic transaction histories, geographical inconsistencies and device switching, it flags suspicious patterns and enables real-time risk assessment throughout the entire customer lifecycle, not just at onboarding. 

In addition, end‑user education is a critical pillar: in the UK, where APP fraud has been huge, banks are now required to reimburse victims up to £85,000. With prevention efforts now in place, case volumes have fallen by 15 %.  

Together, these capabilities transform fraud prevention from reactive patching to proactive defense. 

Social engineering has always existed but in today’s digital, hyperconnected world, it has evolved into a global trade. What once were isolated scams have become industrialized operations running 24/7, powered by automation and scale. Fraud factories exploit the weakest link in the chain – human vulnerability – making them harder to detect and the biggest threat to banks today. For financial institutions, the challenge is no longer about patching single points of failure, it’s about dismantling entire production lines of deception. Understanding what happens inside these operations is now the first line of defense in a war that criminals are currently winning. 

Interested in more stories like this one? Check out: The true face of fraud #1: The masterminds behind the $1 trillion crime industry to explore who is behind the fastest-growing schemes today, where are the hubs of so-called scam compounds and what financial organizations must understand about their opponent. The rise of social media fraud: How one man almost lost it all to learn about romance fraud to investment scams and the multitude of ways that fraudsters use social media to target victims.

By

Nikita Rybová
Customer & Product Marketing Manager at IDnow
Connect with Nikita on LinkedIn

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The post Herond Browser – The Complete Web3 Integrated Browser appeared first on Herond Blog.

The post Herond Browser – The Complete Web3 Integrated Browser appeared first on Herond Blog.

The world of decentralized finance (DeFi) is evolving, and Herond Browser is at the forefront. We’re excited to announce a major step in our mission to create a secure and integrated Web3 experience: the integration of the Uniswap Trading API.

This allows Herond users to directly trade cryptocurrencies on Uniswap, the world’s leading decentralized exchange, without ever leaving our browser.

What is Uniswap?

Uniswap is the largest and most well-known decentralized exchange (DEX). Unlike centralized exchanges (CEXs) like Coinbase or Binance, Uniswap is a protocol built on the Ethereum blockchain that allows users to swap cryptocurrencies directly with each other without the need for a middleman.

How Uniswap Works?

Instead of using a traditional order book that matches buyers and sellers, Uniswap uses an Automated Market Maker (AMM) model. This system relies on liquidity pools, which are smart contracts containing reserves of two different tokens.

Liquidity Providers (LPs)

Users who own crypto can deposit a pair of tokens (e.g., ETH and DAI) into a liquidity pool. In return, they receive a portion of the trading fees generated from that pool. This provides the necessary assets for traders to use.

Traders

When a user wants to trade, for example, ETH for DAI, they don’t trade with another person. Instead, they interact with the smart contract of the liquidity pool. The protocol automatically executes the trade and adjusts the price of the tokens based on the ratio of assets in the pool.

Key Features of Uniswap

Decentralized and Trustless

Uniswap operates on smart contracts, meaning there is no central authority controlling your funds. You always maintain full custody of your assets in your personal wallet.

Permissionless

Anyone can use Uniswap to trade tokens or provide liquidity. There are no sign-ups, KYC (Know Your Customer) requirements, or geographic restrictions.

Massive Liquidity

As the largest DEX, Uniswap offers deep liquidity for a wide variety of tokens. Making it easy to swap even less common or newly launched cryptocurrencies.

UNI Governance Token

Uniswap has its own native token, UNI. Holders of UNI can participate in the governance of the protocol, voting on key decisions that shape its future development.

Why Choose Herond Browser for integration?

Choosing the right browser is crucial for a smooth and secure Web3 experience. And Herond’s integration with the Uniswap API offers several key advantages.

Seamless and Secure Web3 Experience

Herond Browser isn’t just a standard browser; it’s a “Web 2.5” solution that bridges the gap between the traditional web and the decentralized future. The built-in Herond Wallet is a multi-chain, non-custodial wallet that allows you to manage digital assets directly within the browser, without the need for a separate extension. This native integration reduces the risks associated with third-party software and creates a unified, user-friendly environment. By integrating the Uniswap API directly, Herond makes swapping tokens a core function of the browser itself, streamlining the entire process.

Enhanced Privacy and Security

Herond prioritizes user safety and privacy. With the included Herond Shield, the browser automatically blocks ads, trackers, and malicious sites, which helps protect you from phishing attempts and malware. This is especially important in the DeFi space, where scams are common. The browser also employs advanced security technologies like Multi-Party Computation (MPC) and a Social Login feature to help protect your assets and simplify the login process without compromising security.

Speed and Performance

Herond’s focus on privacy also contributes to its speed. By blocking intrusive ads and trackers that run in the background, the browser uses less RAM and bandwidth. This results in faster page load times, which can be a critical advantage when interacting with decentralized applications and executing time-sensitive transactions on platforms like Uniswap.

Why are we collaborating?

The collaboration between Herond Browser and Uniswap is a strategic move that benefits both platforms and, most importantly, the end user. This partnership leverages the strengths of each to create a more integrated and user-friendly experience for interacting with decentralized finance (DeFi).

Integrating the Uniswap Trading API is a crucial milestone for Herond, strengthening its position as a secure Web3 browser while opening direct access to the fast-growing world of decentralized finance (DeFi). With this powerful integration, Herond users can trade cryptocurrencies directly on Uniswap, one of the leading decentralized exchanges, without needing to leave the browser or rely on third-party tools.

This seamless trading experience makes Herond more than just a browser. It becomes a trusted gateway to DeFi, offering users a smooth, native interface that combines security, privacy, and efficiency. By eliminating the need for external wallet extensions or risky third-party websites. Herond not only simplifies the DeFi onboarding process but also reduces common threats such as phishing attacks and malicious links.

For users, this means faster, safer, and more reliable management of digital assets. For the broader ecosystem, it demonstrates how Herond Browser’s integration of the Uniswap Trading API lowers barriers to DeFi adoption and empowers more people to participate confidently in the blockchain economy. With this integration, Herond takes another step toward building a comprehensive, user-first Web3 platform that connects browsing, trading, and digital asset management in one secure environment.

About Uniswap Labs

Uniswap Labs builds products for users to safely and securely access DeFi, including an API, https://app.uniswap.org/ and https://wallet.uniswap.org/, which collectively serve millions of users. Uniswap Labs also contributes to the development of the Uniswap Protocol, a peer-to-peer system for swapping digital assets that has processed over $3 Trillion at all-time volume. To stay up-to-date on all things Uniswap Labs, follow us on https://x.com/Uniswap or https://www.linkedin.com/company/uniswaporg/.

About Herond Browser

Herond Browser is a Web3-focused browser designed to prioritize user privacy, security, and a seamless experience for interacting with decentralized applications (dApps). It positions itself as a next-generation browser that bridges the gap between the traditional internet (Web2) and the decentralized web (Web3).

The Herond x Uniswap integration unlocks on-chain reward campaigns that directly benefit users. With transparent, real-time incentives like tokens or NFTs for actions such as trading or providing liquidity, we empower the community to engage, earn, and grow with us.

Download Herond, trade with Herond Wallet & Uniswap, then grab huge rewards at our upcoming event!

The post Herond Browser Integrates Uniswap Trading API appeared first on Herond Blog.

The post Herond Browser Integrates Uniswap Trading API appeared first on Herond Blog.

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Are you tired of feeling like the product? The current state of the web is broken: it’s overwhelmed by intrusive ads, plagued by data exploitation, and crippled by unnecessary complexity. This pervasive privacy invasion proves the internet needs to be fundamentally reimagined. Introducing Herond’s revolutionary vision. We’ve built a browser on a foundation of respect, believing every user deserves an online experience that is safer, faster, and entirely their own. This defines what “user-centric” truly means: you are the owner, the controller, and the priority. Stop being the product, and start enjoying the internet you deserve.

User-centric Problem: Today’s Broken Internet Privacy Crisis Data harvesting by big tech Major corporations track virtually every click, search, and purchase you make, building comprehensive digital profiles used not just for targeted advertising but also for behavioral prediction and manipulation. Third-party tracking epidemic Hidden trackers, cookies, and fingerprinting scripts follow users across independent websites, creating a massive surveillance network that operates constantly without explicit, informed consent. Lack of user control over personal information Users have zero true ownership. Once data is shared, it’s treated as a free resource for companies to monetize, making it virtually impossible to truly delete or restrict its future use. Fragmented Experience Multiple apps for basic tasks Interacting with crypto and Web3 requires constant switching between browser extensions, separate external wallet apps, and various security tools, leading to friction, security risks, and frustrating errors. Web2 vs Web3 divide The current environment lacks native integration, making decentralized applications (Dapps), DeFi, and NFTs feel like complex, separate add-ons, which severely hinders mainstream adoption and ease of use. Complex tools that require technical expertise Core security necessities, such as managing traditional seed phrases or configuring advanced decentralized applications, often require specialized knowledge, alienating the average, everyday user. Hidden Costs “Free” services that sell your data Services that appear free often operate on a data-for-access model, where your personal information becomes the real currency and the primary profit engine for large corporations. Subscriptions for basic privacy features Users are increasingly forced to pay premium fees (for VPNs, ad-free versions, or advanced blockers) just to regain basic privacy and browsing performance that should be standard and freely available. Performance sacrificed for advertising Heavy ad scripts and intrusive trackers significantly slow down page loading times. This consumes excessive mobile data, and drain device battery life, costing the user valuable time and money directly. Herond’s Vision: Putting Users First

Herond is not just a browser; it’s a declaration of independence for the user. We are building a Web 3.0 experience defined by two non-negotiable standards: User Ownership and Seamless Efficiency.

Core Principle: You Own Your Internet Your data belongs to you Herond fundamentally shifts the data ownership model, providing tools like Herond Shield to prevent unauthorized tracking, ensuring that every piece of personal information remains under the user’s explicit control. Your choices matter The browser prioritizes transparency and gives users real-time control over their digital environment. Allowing them to decide what content loads and what data is shared, rather than being dictated by complex default settings. Your privacy is non-negotiable Privacy is treated as a default setting and an inherent right. Herond minimizes the data collected and stored by the browser itself. Setting a new standard where user anonymity is guaranteed, not offered as an expensive upgrade. User-centric – The Three Pillars Privacy by design, not by choice Security features, such as integrated ad-blocking and tracker prevention, are built into the browser’s core architecture from day one, meaning users are protected automatically without having to install external tools. Seamless integration across Web2 and Web3 By incorporating tools like the Herond Wallet directly into the browser, Herond eliminates the fragmented experience, making it easy to jump from a traditional news site to a DeFi application without switching context or extensions. Simplicity without compromise Herond delivers the power of advanced Web3 functionality – such as keyless asset management and optimized token swapping, in an intuitive, user-friendly interface, ensuring even beginners can access complex decentralized services securely and effortlessly. How Herond Delivers on the Vision Privacy First Architecture Built-in Ad and Tracker Blocking (Herond Shield) Unlike extensions that can be bypassed, protection is hard-coded into the browser’s foundation. Actively blocking invasive ads, malicious scripts, and third-party trackers before they even load. Zero Data Collection Policy: Herond operates with minimal data logging. We do not store, track, or analyze your browsing history, search queries, or personal usage patterns on our servers. No Surveillance, No Profiling, No Selling Data We guarantee that your information is never used to build a commercial profile or sold to advertisers, ensuring your digital presence remains private and free from algorithmic manipulation. All-in-One Gateway Traditional Browsing + Web3 Access in One Place Herond seamlessly bridges Web2 and Web3. You can read the news, watch videos, and manage your decentralized finances (DeFi) all within the same application window. Native dApp Integration Decentralized Applications (dApps) function flawlessly without the need for cumbersome browser extensions, vastly improving speed and reducing the security risks associated with third-party add-ons. Crypto Wallet Management Without Complexity (Herond Wallet) The integrated Keyless Wallet removes the complexity of traditional seed phrases, allowing users to send, receive, and swap tokens easily, directly within the browser, with industry-leading security. Speed & Performance Up to 2.3x Faster than Competitors By blocking resource-heavy ads and trackers from loading, Herond dramatically reduces bandwidth consumption and processing load, leading to significantly faster page loading speeds. Ad-Free by Default The default setting eliminates visual clutter and performance overhead caused by advertising scripts, providing a cleaner, more focused reading and browsing experience. Optimized for Modern Web Demands The browser is engineered to handle today’s complex, high-data web environments efficiently, ensuring smooth performance even when running intensive decentralized applications. Intuitive Design Vertical Workspace Organization Herond utilizes a streamlined vertical layout that prioritizes content visibility and simplifies navigation, making full use of modern screen space. One-Tap Features, Zero Configuration Essential security and crypto functions are accessible instantly, such as the Hide Balance feature or token swapping – eliminating the need to dig through deep settings menus. Made for Humans, Not Tech Experts The interface is designed with clarity and simplicity in mind, ensuring that the power of Web3 is accessible to everyone, regardless of their technical background. Conclusion: The Future Is User-Centric

The leap from a fragmented, surveillance-heavy Web2 to the decentralized future requires a new browser built on respect, control, and efficiency. Herond fulfills the original promise of the internet: a space where the user is sovereign.

We’ve solved the fundamental flaws of the old web: eliminating the Privacy Crisis with zero-data architecture, ending the Fragmented Experience by unifying Web2 and Web3 access, and removing Hidden Costs with built-in speed and security. With the integrated Herond Wallet and Shield, we’ve proven that advanced power can be simple.

The future of browsing is user-centric, and Herond is your definitive gateway. Claim your digital freedom and experience the web the way it was meant to be.

About Herond

Herond Browser is a cutting-edge Web 3.0 browser designed to prioritize user privacy and security. By blocking intrusive ads, harmful trackers, and profiling cookies, Herond creates a safer and faster browsing experience while minimizing data consumption.

To enhance user control over their digital presence, Herond offers two essential tools:

Herond Shield: A robust adblocker and privacy protection suite. Herond Wallet: A secure, multi-chain, non-custodial social wallet.

As a pioneering Web 2.5 solution, Herond is paving the way for mass Web 3.0 adoption by providing a seamless transition for users while upholding the core principles of decentralization and user ownership.

Have any questions or suggestions? Contact us:

On Telegram https://t.me/herond_browser DM our official X @HerondBrowser Technical support topic on https://community.herond.org

The post Herond’s new vision for a user-centric Internet appeared first on Herond Blog.

The post Herond’s new vision for a user-centric Internet appeared first on Herond Blog.

Are you forced to trade web speed for personal privacy? Stop accepting a sluggish, ad-ridden browser that silently exploits your data. Herond Browser offers the complete solution: redefining the online experience by unifying an inseparable triple threat: Absolute Security, Superior Speed, and Default Privacy. Herond is more than just a Web 3.0 browser; it is your ultimate shield. Discover how Herond combines these three pillars to create the safe, fast, and user-centric browsing environment you deserve.

Absolute Security – The Shield Against Web3 Risks A. Keyless Architecture and Asset Security Herond Keyless Wallet: Introducing integrated wallet technology that eliminates the need for traditional seed phrases. This removes the single biggest security vulnerability for most users. Multi-Factor Security: Applies modern authentication methods to ensure only the owner can access the wallet, providing protection even if the device is stolen. Safe & Easy Recovery: Replaces complex seed phrases with a simple Backup Code, allowing for quick recovery while maintaining maximum encrypted security. B. Defending Against Online Threats Integrated Anti-Phishing: Automatically alerts and blocks access to fraudulent (scam/phishing) websites designed to steal wallet information, protecting assets at the browser level. Malware Protection: Prevents malicious scripts and files from downloading or running within the browser environment. Eliminating Extension Vulnerabilities: Since Herond Wallet is a native feature, it bypasses the security risks and vulnerabilities commonly found in third-party wallet extensions. Default Privacy – The End of the Surveillance Crisis A. Herond Shield – The Ultimate Blocking Tool Deeply Integrated Ad-Blocking and Tracker Prevention: Features for Ad-Blocking and Tracker Blocking are hard-coded into the core, not added as a separate extension. Profile Tracking Elimination: Actively strips away profiling cookies and sophisticated fingerprinting scripts that track you across the web. B. Zero Data Collection Policy Commitment to Privacy: Guaranteed No surveillance, no data selling, and no user profiling. Your data remains your own. Privacy by Design: Privacy is the default setting (Privacy by design), ensuring protection is always on and is not a premium feature you have to pay for. Superior Speed – Frictionless Browsing A. Accelerating Page Load Times Core Blocking Mechanism: Speed is dramatically improved because Herond Shield directly eliminates resource-heavy ads and tracking scripts before they are processed. Reduced Data Load: Decreases the amount of data needed to load a page by 50% or more, resulting in near-instant rendering, which is crucial for mobile users. Performance Metrics: Tests show Herond can load pages 2-3 times faster than competitors without integrated blocking features. B. Performance Optimization Conserving Device Resources: By reducing unnecessary script loading, Herond helps lower CPU and RAM consumption, significantly extending battery life and reducing device heat. Web3 Optimization: The browser infrastructure is fine-tuned to smoothly run demanding dApps, DeFi applications, and blockchain games without lag. Seamless Experience: Eliminates latency and waiting times, ensuring a continuous, uninterrupted browsing flow. The Synergy – Herond Browser is the All-in-One Gateway A. All-in-One Experience The Web2 and Web3 Bridge: Herond is the first browser to fully integrate the traditional web browsing environment with the decentralized world. No external extensions or applications are needed. Instant Crypto Transactions: Thanks to the integrated Keyless Wallet, users can perform all crypto operations (Swap, Send, Receive tokens) directly within the browser with just a few clicks. Minimized Friction: Eliminates the need to switch applications or manage multiple interfaces, creating a unified and efficient digital workspace. B. Simplicity without Compromise Intuitive Design: The interface is engineered to be “Made for Humans,” ensuring that complex Web3 features are easy to understand and use. Easy Access: Critical security and transaction features are readily accessible, requiring only one tap for activation and zero deep configuration. Universal Suitability: Advanced tools are simplified, allowing both crypto newcomers and seasoned Web3 experts to use Herond safely and confidently. Conclusion: The Future of the Internet is in Your Hands

We have explored the triple threat that sets Herond Browser apart: Absolute Security with its Keyless architecture, Superior Speed thanks to its core blocking mechanism, and Default Privacy delivered via Herond Shield. Herond is more than just a browser; it is a declaration of individual ownership in the Web3 era.

The seamless unification of Web2 and Web3 alongside the intuitive design proves that you don’t have to sacrifice simplicity for maximum security.

Don’t settle for a subpar online experience. Download Herond Browser today to proactively seize control of your data, your assets, and your browsing speed. The safe, fast, and user-centric Internet is ready.

About Herond

Herond Browser is a cutting-edge Web 3.0 browser designed to prioritize user privacy and security. By blocking intrusive ads, harmful trackers, and profiling cookies, Herond creates a safer and faster browsing experience while minimizing data consumption.

To enhance user control over their digital presence, Herond offers two essential tools:

Herond Shield: A robust adblocker and privacy protection suite. Herond Wallet: A secure, multi-chain, non-custodial social wallet.

As a pioneering Web 2.5 solution, Herond is paving the way for mass Web 3.0 adoption by providing a seamless transition for users while upholding the core principles of decentralization and user ownership.

Have any questions or suggestions? Contact us:

On Telegram https://t.me/herond_browser On Discord https://discord.gg/Herond-Browser DM our official X @HerondBrowser

The post Ironclad Security, Superior Speed, and Default Privacy – The Power Trio of Herond Browser appeared first on Herond Blog.

The post Ironclad Security, Superior Speed, and Default Privacy – The Power Trio of Herond Browser appeared first on Herond Blog.

Stablecoin issuers have traditionally concentrated their compliance efforts on two critical touchpoints: issuance and redemption. When tokens are minted, issuers verify the customer's identity and source of funds. When tokens are burned, they verify who is redeeming.

In our recent live workshop, Introduction to Decentralized Identity, Richard Esplin (Dock Labs' Head of Product) and Agne Caunt (Dock Labs' Product Owner) explained how digital identity has evolved over the years and why decentralized identity represents such a fundamental shift.

If you couldn’t attend, here’s a quick summary of the three main identity models they covered:

For years, HYPR and Yubico have stood shoulder to shoulder in the mission to eliminate passwords and improve identity security. Yubico’s early and sustained push for FIDO-certified hardware authenticators and HYPR’s leadership as part of the FIDO Alliance mission to reduce the world’s reliance on passwords have brought employees and customers alike into the era of modern authentication.

Today, that partnership continues to expand. As enterprise adoption of YubiKeys continues to accelerate worldwide, HYPR and Yubico are proud to announce innovations that help enterprises to further validate that the employees receiving or using their YubiKeys are assured to the highest levels of identity verification. 

HYPR Affirm, a leading identity verification orchestration product, now integrates directly with Yubico’s provisioning capabilities, enabling organizations to securely verify, provision, and deploy YubiKeys to their distributed workforce with full confidence that each key is used by the right, verified individual.

Secure YubiKey Provisioning for Hybrid Teams

Security leaders routinely purchase YubiKeys by the hundreds or thousands, only to confront a stubborn challenge: securely provisioning those keys to a remote or hybrid workforce quickly and verifiably.

Manual processes, from shipment tracking to recipient activation, are no longer adequate for modern security. The current setup, while seemingly robust, lacks the critical identity assurance needed to withstand today's threats. Even the most advanced hardware security key is compromised if it's issued or activated by an unverified individual. What’s needed is not just faster fulfillment, but a secure, automated bridge that links verified identity directly with hardware credentialing.

What YubiKey Provisioning with HYPR Affirm Delivers

Enterprises can now link a verified human identity to a hardware-backed, phishing-resistant credential before a device is shipped. Yubico provisions a pre-registered FIDO credential to the YubiKey, binds it to the organization’s identity provider (IdP), and ships the key directly to the end user - no IT or security team intermediation required. The user receives a key that’s ready to activate in minutes - no shared secrets over insecure communications, no guesswork, zero gaps of trust. This joint approach streamlines operations while preserving Yubico’s gold-standard hardware security and user experience.

How It Works: Pre-Register → Verify → Activate

The flow is seamless. To activate a YubiKey, HYPR Affirm verifies that the intended user is, in fact, the right individual through high-assurance identity verification that incorporates orchestration capabilities that include options such as government ID scanning, facial biometrics with liveness detection, location data, and can even include live video verification with peer-based attestation. Policy settings can be easily grouped by role & responsibility.
Once verified, the user is issued a PIN to activate the pre-registered, phishing-resistant credential on the YubiKey, linked to the organization’s identity provider. When the user receives their key, activation is simple, secure, and immediate.

The result is an end-to-end, verifiable trust chain that gives IT, security, and compliance teams the assurance that:

The YubiKey was issued to a verified user. The credential was provisioned securely and cannot be intercepted. An auditable record ties the verified identity to the hardware-backed credential.

Scalable Remote Distribution and Faster Rollouts

This is built for the real world: companies that buy 100, 1,000, or 10,000 keys and need to deploy them across regions, time zones, and employment types. By anchoring every key to a verified user before it ships, organizations reduce failed enrollments, eliminate back-and-forth helpdesk tickets, and accelerate time-to-protection for global teams. 

Beyond Day One: Resets, Re-issues, and Role Changes

Implementing automated identity verification checks into the YubiKey provisioning process streamlines initial deployment, but the same model applies after initial rollout. When a new employee is being onboarded, or a key is lost, damaged, or reassigned, HYPR Affirm can re-verify identity at the moment of risk, and Yubico can provision a replacement credential with the same tight linkage between proofing and issuance. This reduces social-engineering exposure during high-risk helpdesk moments and keeps lifecycle events as deterministic as day one.

Building a Future of Trusted, Effortless Authentication

Yubico set the global benchmark for hardware-backed, phishing-resistant authentication. HYPR is extending that foundation to unlock identity assurance at scale - ensuring every YubiKey is ready to protect access from day one.

Together, we’re transforming what has traditionally been a manual, trust-based process into a verifiable, automated, and user-friendly standard for enterprise security.

From my perspective, this partnership represents something bigger than integration. It’s a proof point that security and simplicity can coexist at scale - and that’s what excites me most. We’re helping organizations move faster toward a passwordless future where verified identity and hardware-backed trust work seamlessly, everywhere.

Learn more about how HYPR and Yubico are redefining workforce identity and authentication for the modern era: Explore the Integration.

HYPR and Yubico FAQ

Q: What changes with this new HYPR and Yubico partnership?

A: Identity verification and YubiKey provisioning are now tightly connected, so each key is pre-registered to a user before shipment and is activated through identity verification upon arrival.

Q: How does this improve remote rollouts?

A: Enterprises can ship keys globally with proof that intended recipients are the ones who activate the device, reducing logistics friction and failed enrollments.

Q:  What compliance benefits does this provide?

A: The verified identity event is linked to the cryptographic credential, producing a clear audit trail and aligning with NIST 800-63-3’s assurance model (IAL for proofing, AAL for authentication) while enabling AAL3 from first use.

Q: Does this help with loss, replacement, or re-enrollment?

A: Yes. HYPR Affirm can trigger re-verification for high-risk events (like replacement or role change) before provisioning, reducing social-engineering risk and maintaining assurance over time. Yubico Enterprise Delivery allows organizations to seamlessly replace lost authenticators in a secure and simple workflow.

Q: What is the end-user experience like?

A: Receive a pre-registered YubiKey and activate with a simple identity verification. They log in with phishing-resistant passkeys - no passwords or complex setup.

 

Tired of manually hunting across a dozen different decentralized exchanges (DEXs) just to find the best token swap rate? In the volatile DeFi landscape, finding optimal liquidity and pricing can be time-consuming and often causes you to miss out on better deals. Herond Wallet delivers a game-changing solution by integrating the Uniswap Aggregator directly into its interface. This powerful tool automatically scans and combines liquidity from multiple DEXs across various chains, ensuring you consistently get the best possible price and lowest gas fees for every trade. This comprehensive guide will walk you through exactly how to harness the power of the Uniswap Aggregator on Herond Wallet for secure and optimized multi-chain token swaps.

What is the Uniswap Aggregator?

Uniswap Aggregator is a liquidity routing system that automatically finds the best exchange rate and lowest gas fee for your token swaps. Instead of swapping directly on a single DEX, the aggregator compares prices across multiple decentralized exchanges (DEXs) to ensure you always get the most optimal transaction.

When integrated into Herond Wallet, it allows users to:

Send or swap tokens across chains instantly. Reduce slippage and transaction fees. Complete swaps securely without leaving the browser. Why Send via Uniswap Aggregator in Herond Wallet?

Using Uniswap Aggregator inside Herond Wallet gives you the advantages of both worlds, the convenience of an embedded crypto wallet and the intelligence of an optimized DeFi router.

Key Benefits:

Best rates automatically: Aggregator scans multiple DEXs like Uniswap, SushiSwap, and 1inch for the best price. Lower gas costs: Transactions are routed for maximum efficiency. Non-custodial security: You own your keys; Herond never stores your private data. Instant transactions: All swaps are done directly inside your browser, no extensions required. How to Send Tokens via Uniswap Aggregator in Herond Wallet

Follow these simple steps to send or swap your tokens efficiently:

Step 1: Connect Herond Wallet and Open “Swap” Launch Herond Wallet inside Herond Browser. Go to Swap, choose your desired tokens, and enter the amount to exchange. Step 2: Review Route & Confirm Transaction View the optimized route generated by the Uniswap Aggregator. Confirm the transaction in your Herond Wallet and wait for on-chain confirmation. Track your transaction progress directly within Herond. Conclusion

Utilizing the Uniswap Aggregator through Herond Wallet is more than just a convenience—it’s a fundamental shift toward smarter, more secure trading.

You’ve now eliminated the need for complex manual research and the worry of executing a poorly priced trade. By dynamically routing your swaps through the deepest available liquidity pools across the multi-chain ecosystem, Herond ensures that every transaction is executed at the absolute best rate with minimized slippage. Take back control of your DeFi experience. Open Herond Wallet today and start trading smarter, where security, efficiency, and optimal pricing are always guaranteed.

About Herond

Herond Browser is a cutting-edge Web 3.0 browser designed to prioritize user privacy and security. By blocking intrusive ads, harmful trackers, and profiling cookies, Herond creates a safer and faster browsing experience while minimizing data consumption.

To enhance user control over their digital presence, Herond offers two essential tools:

Herond Shield: A robust adblocker and privacy protection suite. Herond Wallet: A secure, multi-chain, non-custodial social wallet.

As a pioneering Web 2.5 solution, Herond is paving the way for mass Web 3.0 adoption by providing a seamless transition for users while upholding the core principles of decentralization and user ownership.

Have any questions or suggestions? Contact us:

On Telegram https://t.me/herond_browser On Discord https://discord.gg/Herond-Browser DM our official X @HerondBrowser

The post How to Use Uniswap Aggregator on Herond Wallet: Secure & Optimized Multi-Chain Token Swaps appeared first on Herond Blog.

The post How to Use Uniswap Aggregator on Herond Wallet: Secure & Optimized Multi-Chain Token Swaps appeared first on Herond Blog.

In the crypto world, losing access to your wallet can mean losing all your assets forever. While Herond Wallet stands out with its innovative Keyless technology – meaning you don’t have to manage complex seed phrases – having a foolproof recovery system is still essential. What happens if you lose your device or forget your login password? That’s where the Backup Code comes in. It’s Herond’s unique, simple, and secure recovery mechanism designed to ensure you can always access your wallet, regardless of what happens to your device. This isn’t just a guide; it’s your essential path to security. Follow these easy steps on how to create a Backup Code for Herond Wallet, guaranteeing you have a safe and stress-free way to secure your crypto wallet easily.

What Is a Backup Code?

This is an emergency recovery code created by Herond Wallet that helps you restore your crypto wallet in case of:

Lost or changed devices. Forgotten login password. Migration to a new browser or computer.

The Code works similarly to a seed phrase, but it’s simpler and more secure. It’s encrypted directly inside your browser, ensuring only you have access to your wallet recovery data.

Why You Should Create a Backup Code in Herond Wallet

Creating a Backup Code is not optional – it’s the only way to guarantee full control and access to your Web3 assets.

Key Benefits: Instant Wallet Recovery: Regain access to your wallet quickly with just one secure code. Enhanced Security: Protect your crypto assets against loss or accidental lockout. No Central Server Dependency: Your recovery data is stored locally, you own your wallet, not the server. Multi-device Support: Easily move your wallet across new laptops, browsers, or mobile devices. How to Create a Backup Code in Herond Wallet

Follow these simple steps to create and activate your backup code:

Step 1: Open Herond Browser Go to Settings -> Login & Security -> Recovery Code, then click Set up to start. Step 2: Enter Password and Verify Re-enter your Herond Wallet password to confirm your identity before generating the code. Step 3: Generate and Confirm Backup Code Herond will display your Recovery Code. Store it safely and privately – avoid saving online or sharing screenshots. Click Confirm to finish setup. Security Tips for Managing Your Backup Code Never share your Backup Code with anyone. Store it in 2–3 secure offline locations (USB drive, notebook, or encrypted file). Regenerate your code if you change devices or suspect exposure. Immediately reset your Backup Code if you think it’s been compromised. Conclusion

Creating your Backup Code is the final, non-negotiable step to fully securing your crypto future on Herond Wallet.

This simple, encrypted code guarantees that, even without a traditional seed phrase, you maintain absolute control over your funds, regardless of device loss or forgotten passwords. By successfully combining the simplicity of the Keyless system with the security of the Backup Code, Herond provides true peace of mind. Don’t wait until an incident occurs; take a minute now to create and store your Backup Code safely. Your decentralized future deserves this layer of total security!

About Herond

Herond Browser is a cutting-edge Web 3.0 browser designed to prioritize user privacy and security. By blocking intrusive ads, harmful trackers, and profiling cookies, Herond creates a safer and faster browsing experience while minimizing data consumption.

To enhance user control over their digital presence, Herond offers two essential tools:

Herond Shield: A robust adblocker and privacy protection suite. Herond Wallet: A secure, multi-chain, non-custodial social wallet.

As a pioneering Web 2.5 solution, Herond is paving the way for mass Web 3.0 adoption by providing a seamless transition for users while upholding the core principles of decentralization and user ownership.

Have any questions or suggestions? Contact us:

On Telegram https://t.me/herond_browser On Discord https://discord.gg/Herond-Browser DM our official X @HerondBrowser

The post How to Create a Backup Code for Herond Wallet – Secure Your Crypto Wallet Easily appeared first on Herond Blog.

The post How to Create a Backup Code for Herond Wallet – Secure Your Crypto Wallet Easily appeared first on Herond Blog.

Experience effortless sending and receiving in Herond Keyless: no seed phrases, no hassle. Deposit funds instantly with a secure address or QR code, or send tokens with one-tap confirmation. Whether moving assets from another wallet or transferring out, every step is intuitive and secure. Follow this complete guide and take full control of your crypto today!

Receive

Step 1: Once logged in and your Herond Keyless wallet is created, simply click Deposit Now to kickstart funding your account instantly.

Step 2: If you don’t yet own any crypto, start by buying with our guide here: 7-Step Guide: Buy Crypto Directly into your Herond Keyless Wallet. Already holding crypto in another wallet or exchange? Simply click Receive to transfer it into your Herond Keyless wallet instantly.

Step 3: Select the network you want to receive crypto on. Once chosen, your Herond Keyless wallet offers two easy deposit options: copy the wallet address or scan the QR code. You can also save the QR code for faster future transfers. Important: Solana addresses differ from EVM networks, double check the network to avoid irreversible mistakes!

Step 4: Once the transfer is successful, your Herond Keyless wallet instantly displays your total balance in USD value. You’ll also see a detailed breakdown of each coin’s quantity and real-time value, keeping you in full control at a glance.

Send

Step 1: To send crypto, simply click the Send button to get started instantly.

Step 2: Your Herond Keyless wallet will display all the coins you currently hold, choose the one you want to send and proceed to the next step effortlessly.

Step 3: Enter the amount you want to send, your Herond Keyless wallet offers quick presets like 25%, 50%, or Max of your balance. Then, in the To field, paste the recipient’s wallet address or select from your saved contacts for fast, error free transfers.

Once the amount and address are set, click Send to move to the next step.

Step 4: Double-check the send amount and recipient address one final time to ensure accuracy. Next, review the gas fee, Herond Wallet offers three smart presets: Low, Optimal, and High, or customize your own for full control. Once everything looks good, hit Confirm to execute your transaction securely and instantly.

Step 5: Once the transaction is successfully completed, instantly verify the details and transaction hash with a single click on View Transaction, keeping you in full control, every step of the way.

Transfers Complete – Full Control in Your Hands

Your Herond Keyless wallet now handles sends and receives with effortless precision, assets updated in real time, fees optimized, and every transaction verified instantly. Stay secure, stay fast, and stay in charge across all networks. Download Herond Browser now at https://herond.org to track, transfer, or grow your portfolio. Your Web3 command center is live, start moving crypto with confidence!

About Herond

Herond Browser is a cutting-edge Web 3.0 browser designed to prioritize user privacy and security. By blocking intrusive ads, harmful trackers, and profiling cookies, Herond creates a safer and faster browsing experience while minimizing data consumption.

To enhance user control over their digital presence, Herond offers two essential tools:

Herond Shield: A robust adblocker and privacy protection suite. Herond Wallet: A secure, multi-chain, non-custodial social wallet.

As a pioneering Web 2.5 solution, Herond is paving the way for mass Web 3.0 adoption by providing a seamless transition for users while upholding the core principles of decentralization and user ownership.

Have any questions or suggestions? Contact us:

On Telegram https://t.me/herond_browser On Discord https://discord.gg/Herond-Browser DM our official X @HerondBrowser Technical support topic on https://community.herond.org

The post Master Sending and Receiving Crypto with Herond Keyless Wallet appeared first on Herond Blog.

The post Master Sending and Receiving Crypto with Herond Keyless Wallet appeared first on Herond Blog.

Trade any token swaps in seconds inside Herond Keyless: no seed phrases, no hidden fees. Pick your pair, set the amount, choose the best route, and confirm with one tap. Enjoy zero wallet fees (limited time), customizable slippage, and full transaction transparency. Jump into this seamless swap guide and start trading smarter today!

Step 1: To start a swap, simply click the Swap button on the main screen or tap the swap icon in the bottom toolbar – quick access, instant trading.

Step 2: First, select the tokens you want to swap by clicking Select. Herond Keyless wallet smartly lists your balance holding token swaps at the top, while you can search for any other token by its ticker or contract address.

Step 3: Once your token pair is selected, enter the amount or use smart presets like 25%, 50%, or Max. Next, choose your swap route. Herond Wallet currently powers trades through UniswapX for optimal liquidity.

Then, review the slippage tolerance (default 0.5%), adjust anytime via Customize for full control.

Step 4: Once all selections are set, click Swap to instantly move to the transaction confirmation screen – your trade is just one tap away!

Pro Tip: All wallet fees are currently waived on Herond Wallet – zero extra costs for swaps! This limited time perk won’t last forever, so swap smarter and save more while it’s active. Don’t miss out!

Step 5: Final check: review token amounts, swap routes, and gas fee – everything at a glance. Once verified, tap Confirm to execute your Herond Keyless swap instantly and securely!

Step 6: Once the transaction is successfully completed, instantly verify the details and transaction hash with a single click on View Transaction, keeping you in full control, every step of the way.

Swap Finished: Your Portfolio Is Updated

Your Herond Keyless swap is done – tokens updated instantly, fees saved, and every detail verified with a single click. Keep full control with real-time tracking and zero-cost trades while the waiver lasts. Open Herond Browser anytime to swap again, send, or grow your portfolio. Web3 trading just got faster, cheaper, and fully yours!

About Herond

Herond Browser is a cutting-edge Web 3.0 browser designed to prioritize user privacy and security. By blocking intrusive ads, harmful trackers, and profiling cookies, Herond creates a safer and faster browsing experience while minimizing data consumption.

To enhance user control over their digital presence, Herond offers two essential tools:

Herond Shield: A robust adblocker and privacy protection suite. Herond Wallet: A secure, multi-chain, non-custodial social wallet.

As a pioneering Web 2.5 solution, Herond is paving the way for mass Web 3.0 adoption by providing a seamless transition for users while upholding the core principles of decentralization and user ownership.

Have any questions or suggestions? Contact us:

On Telegram https://t.me/herond_browser On Discord https://discord.gg/Herond-Browser DM our official X @HerondBrowser Technical support topic on https://community.herond.org

The post Instant Token Swaps with Herond Keyless Wallet appeared first on Herond Blog.

The post Instant Token Swaps with Herond Keyless Wallet appeared first on Herond Blog.

Buy crypto and fund your Herond Keyless wallet with fiat in minutes – no seed phrases, no external transfers required. Just a few simple clicks to select currency, enter amount, complete secure KYC, and confirm payment. Enjoy automatic conversion, instant crediting, and full network control from day one. Follow this beginner friendly on ramp guide and start building your crypto portfolio today!

Step 1: Once logged in and your Herond Keyless wallet is created, simply click Deposit Now to kickstart funding your account instantly.

Step 2: If you already have crypto in another wallet, select Receive to deposit it instantly. Otherwise, click Buy to purchase crypto directly and fund your Herond Keyless wallet with ease.

Step 3: Choose your payment currency and the crypto you want to buy. Be sure to select the correct network to receive your assets instantly and securely.

Step 4: After making your selections, enter the fiat amount you wish to spend, the system will automatically convert it to the equivalent crypto and guide you to the select purchase method screen. Currently, Herond Wallet supports purchases via TransFi, with more trusted providers coming soon.

Step 5: Double-check the currency type and conversion rate, then click Buy to proceed. At this stage, the provider will collect essential details: full name, email, phone number, address, postal code, and more to complete your secure crypto purchase.

Step 6: After entering all required details, select your preferred payment method. The provider will instantly display international bank details – including international bank account number (IBAN), bank identifier code (BIC), recipient name, and reference text to complete the transfer. Once done, simply click Payment Completed to finalize your crypto deposit.

Step 7: Everything is ready! Your crypto is now in your Herond Keyless wallet – funded, secure, and ready to use across the blockchain! Buy crypto now!

Your Wallet Is Funded – Start Exploring Web3 Now

Your crypto is now live and secure in Herond Keyless wallet, buy crypto and get credited in minutes with zero hassle. Enjoy instant access, seamless cross chain support, and one tap management. Log in anytime, track balances, and explore Web3 with confidence. Download Herond Browser now at https://herond.org and start transacting, staking, or swapping. Your decentralized future begins here!

About Herond

Herond Browser is a cutting-edge Web 3.0 browser designed to prioritize user privacy and security. By blocking intrusive ads, harmful trackers, and profiling cookies, Herond creates a safer and faster browsing experience while minimizing data consumption.

To enhance user control over their digital presence, Herond offers two essential tools:

Herond Shield: A robust adblocker and privacy protection suite. Herond Wallet: A secure, multi-chain, non-custodial social wallet.

As a pioneering Web 2.5 solution, Herond is paving the way for mass Web 3.0 adoption by providing a seamless transition for users while upholding the core principles of decentralization and user ownership.

Have any questions or suggestions? Contact us:

On Telegram https://t.me/herond_browser On Discord https://discord.gg/Herond-Browser DM our official X @HerondBrowser Technical support topic on https://community.herond.org

The post 7-Step Guide: Buy Crypto Directly into your Herond Keyless Wallet appeared first on Herond Blog.

The post 7-Step Guide: Buy Crypto Directly into your Herond Keyless Wallet appeared first on Herond Blog.

Dive into the latest .NET 10 updates for authentication and authorization, and important breaking changes for .NET developers.

The 2025 OWASP Top 10 list is here! Discover what changed, the two new categories, and how to secure your applications against emerging threats.

Make your Herond Keyless wallet truly yours in under a minute. With just three clicks, add a unique wallet name and custom avatar to stand out in Web3. No technical skills needed, just simple, instant personalization right inside Herond Browser. Follow this quick guide and give your wallet a personal touch today!

Step 1: Once logged in and your Herond Keyless wallet is created, to customize your avatar and set a wallet name, start by clicking the Account section.

Step 2: Click the three-dot icon and select Customize to personalize your wallet.

Step 3: Choose a custom name, pick your favorite avatar from the collection, and hit Save. Done, your Herond Keyless wallet is now fully personalized!

Personalization Complete – Your Wallet Stands Out!

Your Herond Keyless wallet now has a custom name and avatar – recognizable and fully yours. Enjoy a personalized experience every time you log in, send, or swap. Update anytime with ease and keep your identity secure. Open Herond Browser now athttps://herond.org and make Web3 feel like home!

About Herond

Herond Browser is a cutting-edge Web 3.0 browser designed to prioritize user privacy and security. By blocking intrusive ads, harmful trackers, and profiling cookies, Herond creates a safer and faster browsing experience while minimizing data consumption.

To enhance user control over their digital presence, Herond offers two essential tools:

Herond Shield: A robust adblocker and privacy protection suite. Herond Wallet: A secure, multi-chain, non-custodial social wallet.

As a pioneering Web 2.5 solution, Herond is paving the way for mass Web 3.0 adoption by providing a seamless transition for users while upholding the core principles of decentralization and user ownership.

Have any questions or suggestions? Contact us:

On Telegram https://t.me/herond_browser On Discord https://discord.gg/Herond-Browser DM our official X @HerondBrowser Technical support topic on https://community.herond.org

The post Quick Personalization: Add Name & Avatar to Your Herond Keyless Wallet appeared first on Herond Blog.

The post Quick Personalization: Add Name & Avatar to Your Herond Keyless Wallet appeared first on Herond Blog.

What are the challenges enterprises face when deploying IAM systems in cloud-native environments?

In today’s cloud-first enterprise landscape, organizations face unprecedented challenges in managing identity and access across distributed, hybrid environments. Traditional on-premises IAM systems have become operational bottlenecks, with deployment cycles measured in weeks rather than hours, security vulnerabilities emerging from static configurations, and scaling limitations that can’t keep pace with business growth. As enterprises accelerate their digital transformation and embrace cloud-native architectures, these legacy constraints threaten competitive advantage and operational resilience. 

Key Takeaway: Traditional IAM systems can’t keep pace with cloud-native speed, scale, and security demands.

At Radiant Logic, we recognized these industry-wide pain points weren’t just technical challenges—they represented a fundamental shift in how IAM must be delivered and managed in the cloud era.  

Addressing the Cloud-Native IAM Gap 

The enterprise IAM landscape has been stuck in a legacy mindset while the infrastructure beneath it has transformed completely. Organizations are migrating critical workloads to Kubernetes clusters, embracing microservices architectures, and demanding the same agility from their IAM infrastructure that they have achieved in their application delivery pipelines. Yet most IAM solutions still operate with monolithic deployment models, manual configuration processes, and reactive monitoring approaches that belong to the pre-cloud era. Setting up new environments can take weeks, and keeping everything secure and compliant is a constant battle with the rollout of version patches and updates. 

The Three Critical Gaps in Traditional IAM Delivery

Through our extensive work with enterprise customers, we identified the following critical gaps in traditional IAM delivery: 

Deployment velocity: enterprises need IAM environments provisioned in hours, not weeks, to match the pace of modern DevOps practices Operational resilience: IAM systems must be designed for failure, with automatic healing capabilities and zero-downtime updates Real-time observability: security teams need continuous visibility into IAM performance, usage patterns, and potential threats as they emerge

Radiant Logic’s cloud-native IAM approach addresses these gaps by fundamentally reimagining how IAM infrastructure is delivered, managed, and operated in cloud-native environments. 

Re-Imagining Your IAM Operations with a Strategic Cloud-Native Architecture 

Our Environment Operations Center (EOC) is exclusively available as part of our SaaS offering, representing our commitment to cloud-native IAM delivery. This isn’t simply hosting traditional software in the cloud—it is a ground-up reimagining of IAM operations leveraging Kubernetes orchestration, microservices architecture, and cloud-native design principles. 

Why EOC Is Different from Traditional Cloud Hosting

Every EOC deployment provides customers with their own private, isolated cloud environment built on Kubernetes foundations. This cloud-native, container-based approach delivers four strategic advantages that traditional IAM deployments simply cannot match. 

Agility through microservices architecture Each component of the IAM stack operates as an independent service that can be updated, scaled, or modified without affecting other system elements. This eliminates the risk of monolithic upgrades that have historically plagued enterprise IAM deployments and enables continuous delivery of new features and security patches. Resilience through Kubernetes orchestration The EOC leverages Kubernetes’ self-healing capabilities, automatically detecting and recovering from failures at the container, pod, and node levels. This means your IAM infrastructure maintains availability even when individual components experience issues, providing the operational resilience that modern enterprises demand. Automation through cloud-native tooling Manual configuration and deployment processes are replaced by automated workflows that provision, configure, and maintain IAM environments according to defined policies. This reduces human error, accelerates deployment cycles, and ensures consistent security posture across all environments. Real-time observability through integrated monitoring The EOC provides comprehensive visibility into system health, performance metrics, and security events through cloud-native observability tools that integrate seamlessly with existing enterprise monitoring infrastructure.  Key Takeaway: Cloud-native IAM replaces static deployments with flexible, self-healing, continuously observable environments.
Real-time Insights: AI-Powered Operations Management 

The EOC’s cloud-native architecture enables sophisticated AI-driven operations management that goes far beyond traditional monitoring approaches. Our platform continuously analyzes metrics including CPU utilization, memory consumption, network traffic patterns, and application response times across your Kubernetes-based IAM infrastructure. 

How AI Can Detect and Resolve Issues Automatically

When our AI detects anomalous patterns—such as unexpected spikes in authentication requests, unusual network traffic flows, or resource consumption trends that indicate potential security threats—it doesn’t just alert operators. The system automatically triggers remediation actions, such as scaling pod replicas to handle increased load, reallocating resources to maintain performance, or isolating potentially compromised components while maintaining overall system availability. 

This proactive approach to operations management represents a fundamental shift from reactive problem-solving to predictive optimization. Instead of waiting for issues to impact users, the EOC identifies and addresses potential problems before they affect service delivery. 

Unified Management: Purpose-Built for Enterprise Operations 

The EOC consolidates all aspects of IAM operations management into a single, intuitive interface designed specifically for enterprise security and IT teams. Our dashboards provide real-time visibility into system health, performance trends, and security posture across your entire IAM infrastructure. 

Streamlining Everyday IAM Operations Through One Interface

Critical operations such as application version management, automated backup orchestration, and security policy enforcement are streamlined through purpose-built workflows that integrate naturally with existing enterprise tools. The platform’s responsive design ensures full functionality whether accessed from desktop workstations or mobile devices, enabling operations teams to maintain visibility and control regardless of location. 

Because the EOC is built specifically for our SaaS offering, it includes deep integration with Radiant Logic’s IAM capabilities while maintaining compatibility with your existing identity, monitoring, logging, and security infrastructure. This ensures seamless operations without requiring wholesale replacement of existing tooling. 

Future-Ready: Adaptive Security and Compliance 

The EOC’s cloud-native foundation enables adaptive security capabilities that automatically adjust protection levels based on real-time risk assessment. Our compliance management tools leverage automation to maintain regulatory adherence across dynamic, distributed environments, reducing the manual overhead traditionally associated with compliance reporting and audit preparation. 

As enterprises continue their cloud transformation journey, the EOC evolves alongside changing requirements, leveraging Kubernetes’ extensibility and our continuous delivery capabilities to introduce new features and capabilities without disrupting ongoing operations. 

Transform Your IAM Operations 

By delivering cloud-native IAM infrastructure through our SaaS platform, we are helping enterprises achieve the agility, resilience, and security required to compete in the cloud era. 

Ready to see how to transform your identity and access management operations? Contact Radiant Logic for a demo and discover how our cloud-native SaaS innovation can accelerate your organization’s digital transformation journey. 

The post Rethinking Enterprise IAM Deployments with Radiant Logic's Cloud-Native SaaS Innovation appeared first on Radiant Logic | Unify, Observe, and Act on ALL Identity Data.

The post Returns Abuse in E-Commerce | Link Index Report appeared first on Liminal.co.

In today’s connected world, your identity is more than your name or password. It’s your access key to everything from your bank to your email to your online shopping carts. But while technology has made life easier, it has also opened new doors for identity theft.

Fortunately, trusted biometric solutions are here to close those doors. These systems don’t just protect your data. They protect you using your unique traits to make identity theft nearly impossible.

 

The Growing Problem of Identity Theft

Identity theft isn’t a problem for tomorrow. It’s happening right now. According to cybersecurity analysts, global cases of online identity theft have jumped by more than 35% in just a year. Hackers now use deepfakes, AI-generated profiles, and synthetic data to impersonate real people.

Once your information is stolen, trying to recover it can be like chasing a ghost.

The most common forms of identity fraud include:

Financial theft: Stealing banking or credit details for unauthorized use

Medical identity theft: Using stolen identities for treatment or prescriptions

Synthetic identities: Creating fake people from pieces of real data

Social or digital impersonation: Cloning accounts to scam others

It’s not just about losing money. Victims spend months repairing their reputation, accounts, and credit. The best way to win this fight is by stopping it before it starts and biometric identity theft protection does exactly that.

 

Why Biometrics Are the Future of Identity Theft Protection

Biometrics use your unique physical and behavioral features, like your face, fingerprint, or voice, to verify your identity. Unlike passwords or PINs, they can’t be stolen, guessed, or shared.

Modern systems powered by AI are incredibly accurate. The NIST Face Recognition Vendor Test reports that advanced facial recognition models reach over 99% accuracy. That means they can verify you faster and more securely than traditional login methods.

Biometric security isn’t just the future of identity theft protection services. It’s becoming the standard for how we protect everything we value online.

 

How Biometric Identity Monitoring Services Work

Traditional identity theft monitoring only tells you something went wrong after it happens. But biometric protection acts before any damage occurs. It’s active, precise, and nearly foolproof.

Here’s how it works step by step:

1. Capture

The system starts by securely capturing your biometric data, such as a face scan. It’s quick, natural, and effortless. This becomes your digital signature, a personal identity key that no one else can copy.

2. Encryption

Your biometric data is instantly encrypted. Instead of storing your actual face or fingerprint, it’s turned into coded data that even a hacker couldn’t understand. This is where real identity theft prevention begins.

3. Matching

Whenever you try to log in or verify your identity, the system compares your live scan with your stored encrypted data. If it matches, access is granted. If it doesn’t, the system blocks entry and triggers identity fraud detection to check for suspicious behavior.

4. Alert

If the system spots something unusual, it alerts you immediately or locks down access. This rapid response prevents identity fraud protection breaches before they happen.

You can see how this works by trying Recognito’s Face Biometric Playground. It’s a fun, interactive way to see how biometric verification distinguishes real people from imposters in real time.

 

The Best Identity Theft Protection Uses Biometrics

The best identity theft protection doesn’t wait for alerts. It stops fraud before it starts. That’s what biometrics do so well, they make your physical presence part of the security process.

Modern systems use:

Facial recognition to instantly confirm identity

Liveness detection to ensure it’s a real person, not a photo or deepfake

Behavioral biometrics to monitor how users type or move

Voice recognition for call-based verification

Businesses can integrate these tools using Recognito’s Face Recognition SDK and Face Liveness Detection SDK. Together, they form the core of intelligent identity monitoring services that protect users from digital fraud without adding friction.

 

Real-Life Examples of Biometric Identity Fraud Prevention

 

1. Banking and Fintech

A global bank implemented facial verification to confirm customer logins. Within months, they prevented hundreds of fraudulent account openings. Fraudsters tried using edited selfies, but the liveness detection caught every fake.

2. E-commerce

Online retailers now use face recognition at checkout to confirm identity. Even if a hacker has your card details, they can’t mimic your live face or expressions.

3. Healthcare

Hospitals are starting to use biometrics for patient verification. This prevents criminals from using stolen identities for prescriptions or insurance fraud.

These are real examples of identity fraud protection at work. It’s fast, accurate, and much harder for scammers to outsmart.

 

Compliance and Data Security Come First

The rise of biometrics comes with responsibility. Ethical systems never store your photo or raw data. Instead, they keep encrypted templates that can’t be reverse-engineered.

This approach complies with the GDPR and other global privacy standards. It also promotes transparency, with open programs like FRVT 1:1 and community-driven research such as Recognito Vision’s GitHub. These efforts ensure fairness, security, and accountability across the biometric industry.

 

How Biometrics Stop Online Identity Theft

Online identity theft has become one of the fastest-growing cybercrimes in the world. Phishing scams, deepfakes, and password breaches make it easy for hackers to impersonate you online.

Biometric technology makes that nearly impossible. Even if criminals get your password, they can’t fake your face, voice, or live presence. AI-powered identity theft prevention systems recognize you using micro-expressions, natural movement, and behavioral patterns.

It’s no wonder that industries like banking, insurance, and remote onboarding are rapidly adopting these systems. They offer the perfect blend of convenience and unbeatable security.

 

Traditional vs Biometric Identity Protection

 

Feature Traditional Protection Biometric Protection Verification Based on what you know (passwords, PINs) Based on who you are Speed Slower, manual authentication Instant, automated Accuracy Prone to errors or guessing Over 99% accurate Fraud Prevention Reactive after breaches Proactive before breaches User Experience Complex and time-consuming Seamless and secure

If traditional methods are locks, biometrics are smart vaults that open only for their rightful owner.

 

The Future of Identity Theft Protection Services

The next generation of identity theft protection services will utilize a combination of AI, blockchain, and multi-biometric authentication for comprehensive digital security. Imagine verifying yourself anywhere in seconds, without sharing sensitive personal data.

Future systems will likely combine:

Face recognition for instant authentication

Voice and gesture biometrics for multi-layered security

Blockchain-backed identity to make personal data tamper-resistant

Regulators and innovators are already working together to ensure these systems stay ethical, inclusive, and bias-free. The goal is simple: a safer, more personal internet for everyone.

 

Staying Ahead with Recognito

Ultimately, identity theft protection is about trust. Biometrics provides that trust by using something only you have.

If you want to explore how biometric security can protect you or your business. Learn how Recognito helps organizations secure users through advanced facial recognition and liveness technology, keeping identities safe while making the user experience simple.

Because in the digital world, there’s only one you, and Recognito makes sure it stays that way.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

1. How does biometric technology prevent identity theft?

Biometric technology uses your unique traits, like your face or voice to verify your identity. It stops criminals from using stolen passwords or fake profiles, providing stronger identity theft protection than traditional methods.

 

2. Are biometric identity monitoring services secure?

Yes. Identity monitoring services that use biometrics encrypt your data, so your face or fingerprint is never stored as an image. This makes them safe, private, and nearly impossible for hackers to exploit.

 

3. What is the best way to protect yourself from online identity theft?

The best identity theft protection combines biometric verification with secure passwords and regular monitoring. Using facial recognition and liveness detection makes it much harder for cybercriminals to impersonate you online.

 

4. Can biometrics detect identity fraud in real time?

Yes. Modern identity fraud detection systems can instantly recognize fake attempts using AI and liveness checks. They verify real human presence and block fraud before any damage occurs.

The 2025 Gartner Hype Cycle for Digital Identity talks about the growing need for standardization in identity management—especially as organizations navigate fragmented directories, cloud sprawl, and increasingly complex hybrid environments. Among the mentioned technologies, SCIM (System for Cross-domain Identity Management) stands out as a foundational protocol for modern, scalable identity lifecycle management. 

Radiant Logic is proud to be recognized in this report. Our platform’s robust SCIMv2 support positions RadiantOne as a key enabler of identity automation, built on open standards and enterprise-proven architecture. 

Why Standardized Identity Management Matters 

SCIM was introduced to replace earlier models like SPML, offering a RESTful, schema-driven protocol to streamline identity resource management across systems. It defines a consistent structure and a set of operations for creating, reading, updating, and deleting (CRUD) identity resources such as User and Group. 

Today, SCIM is broadly adopted by SaaS and IAM platforms alike. It reduces manual effort, eliminates brittle custom integrations, and strengthens governance and compliance through standardized lifecycle operations. 

Without SCIM—or a consistent identity abstraction layer behind it—organizations are forced to manage identities with ad hoc connectors, divergent schemas, and fragile provisioning scripts. Gartner rightly identifies SCIM as essential to achieving identity governance at scale, enabling consistent policy enforcement and lowering operational risk. 

Radiant Logic’s SCIM Implementation 

RadiantOne delivers full SCIMv2 support, allowing organizations to extend standardized provisioning across their entire environment—cloud, on-prem, and hybrid—without rearchitecting existing infrastructure. 

As both a SCIM client and server, RadiantOne can expose enriched identity views to downstream applications or ingest SCIM-based data from external sources for correlation and normalization. This bidirectional flexibility eliminates the need for custom connectors and hardcoded integrations. 

At the core is RadiantOne’s semantic identity layer, which unifies identity data across sources, ensures consistency, and drives intelligent automation. This data foundation supports not only SCIM-based lifecycle management, but also Zero Trust access control, governance workflows, and AI-driven analytics. 

Where RadiantOne and SCIM Deliver Real Value 

Here are six practical use cases where Radiant Logic’s SCIM support drives immediate impact: 

Accelerated Onboarding with Trusted Identity Data  RadiantOne consolidates authoritative sources—HR, AD, ERP, SaaS—into a single, richly structured identity record. That record is exposed over SCIM v2 (or any preferred connector) to the customer’s existing join-move-leave engines—IGA, ITSM, or custom workflows—so they grant birth-right access through the tools already built for approvals and fulfillment.   Offering complete and accurate provisioning with minimal integration effort, RadiantOne stays focused on delivering clean, governed identity data rather than duplicating workflow logic. From SSO to Lifecycle Management  SSO controls access, but SCIM controls who gets access. RadiantOne aggregates and enriches identity data from sources like Active Directory, LDAP, and HR systems, making it available to SCIM-enabled applications. Provisioning decisions are based on accurate, policy-aligned identity, ensuring access is granted appropriately from the start.  This closes the gap between authentication and authorization, reducing overhead and aligning with Zero Trust principles.  Simplifying Application Migrations  RadiantOne delivers a clean, normalized identity record and, through its enriched SCIM v2 interface, maps every attribute name and value to the exact schema and format the target expects. This built-in translation removes custom scripts, connector rewrites, and brittle middleware, so admins can load thousands of users into new SaaS platforms quickly during M&A, re-platforming, or app consolidation.  Admins can provision thousands of users into SaaS platforms efficiently, making this ideal for M&A, re-platforming, or app consolidation.  Real-Time Updates as Identity Changes  RadiantOne keeps identity data current as roles change or users depart. Apps simply ask RadiantOne via SCIM v2 for the latest record—no custom sync jobs or code—so they can enforce least-privilege and de-provision on time while their own workflows remain untouched.  This ensures timely de-provisioning and continuous enforcement of least-privilege access.  Precision Access for Governance and PAM  Provisioning isn’t just account creation—it’s about controlled access. RadiantOne adds business context to identity data, such as org structure, clearance, and location, so SCIM can support fine-grained entitlements.  This aligns with PAM policies, improves audit readiness, and enhances IGA and analytics accuracy.  Keeping Workflows and Business Logic in Sync  SCIM also supports operational workflows. RadiantOne keeps identity attributes—like manager relationships, email, or job status—accurate across systems.   This ensures approval chains, directories, and collaboration tools function correctly without manual updates. Conclusion

Radiant Logic’s SCIM implementation is already powering identity automation in some of the world’s most complex IT environments, proving its value in delivering standards-based, high-integrity identity infrastructure. Book a demo to explore how Radiant Logic’s SCIM-enabled identity platform can transform your organization’s identity management practices, drive operational excellence, and secure your digital identity future. 

  

Disclaimers: 

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. 

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner and Hype Cycle is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved. 

 

 

The post Radiant Logic’s SCIM Support Recognized in 2025 Gartner® Hype Cycle™ for Digital Identity appeared first on Radiant Logic | Unify, Observe, and Act on ALL Identity Data.

There is a growing problem lurking in your identity infrastructure—one that doesn’t trigger alerts, isn’t flagged by vulnerability scanners, and yet quietly compounds security vulnerabilities: technical debt in IAM. 

It is not just a side effect of legacy systems anymore. It is a direct result of the growing gap between rapid digital transformation and the brittle, aging identity plumbing beneath it. According to the 2025 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, stolen credentials were involved in 88% of web application attacks—reinforcing identity as the top threat vector. But now, Gartner adds another critical lens. 

In their June 2025 research GTP report, Reduce IAM Technical Debt1, Gartner® analysts Nat Krishnan and Erik Wahlstrom warn that “technical debt weakens the agility of an IAM team and the effectiveness of organizational security controls.”  In our opinion, their findings highlight the same five culprits we see in the field every day: siloed tools, outdated integrations, incomplete identity discovery, poor IAM hygiene and inconsistent application onboarding. 

When identity becomes fragmented, so does control—and without control, it defeats the very purpose of why we do IAM in the first place.  

What Is IAM Technical Debt, Really? 

To explain what technical debt is, think of it as the accumulated cost of shortcuts: ad-hoc integrations and workarounds, siloed tools, rushed deployments and postponed cleanup. It forms slowly, but the result is predictable. When left unchecked, it creates operational drag, governance blind spots, increased threat surface and catastrophic risk exposure.  

Here’s what drives it: 

Custom and siloed IAM tools that don’t communicate Legacy and nonstandard apps still critical to operations but incompatible with modern identity governance Incomplete discovery of identities and entitlements Weak hygiene around least-privilege, access reviews and MFA Fragmented onboarding of apps and services into IAM systems

When identity becomes fragmented, so does control. And in today’s cloud-first, hybrid-everything reality, that is both inefficient and dangerous. 

From Sprawl to Strategy: Reclaiming Identity Control 

Fixing IAM technical debt isn’t about ripping and replacing—it’s about rethinking identity as a data problem and solving it with the right architecture.

Based on both industry research and hands-on field experience, the path forward includes four critical steps: 

Identify your silos: Map out identity sources—across AD forests, cloud apps, legacy tools, shadow IT—and expose where the cracks begin Consolidate and virtualize: Aggregate fragmented data into a unified identity data lake. Use abstraction to simplify integration and reduce your connector footprint Control identity sprawl: Build bridges, not walls—stitch together disparate identity records without replacing systems and bring order to the chaos Orchestrate across the mess: Govern consistently across central and distributed environments, enabling context-rich enforcement no matter where access decisions happen Why Radiant Logic? 

Radiant Logic’s platform RadiantOne was built to solve this problem and to unify, enrich and activate identity data. 

RadiantOne virtualizes all identity sources into a single semantic layer—whether they come from AD, LDAP, Azure AD, Okta, SaaS applications or custom databases. It then brings real-time observability to the identity layer, enabling you to spot risky access patterns, automate entitlement cleanup and surface context-rich insights to stakeholders before an auditor or attacker finds the gap to exploit. 

With RadiantOne: 

You turn fragmented identity data into a governable, observable asset You gain line-of-sight across humans, machines, and APIs You eliminate the root causes of IAM project failures and identity-related incidents Final Thought: Identity Debt is Not Just IT’s Problem 

IAM technical debt isn’t just a nuisance—it’s a strategic liability. It stalls digital transformation and cloud projects, burdens compliance and weakens your security posture. But with the right foundation, it can be reversed. 

Ready to act? Schedule a demo of RadiantOne and start reducing your identity debt today. 

 

 

1: Gartner, Reduce IAM Technical Debt, ID G00798396, June 23, 2025, by Nat Krishnan and Erik Wahlstrom. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved. 

 

The post When IAM Technical Debt Becomes a Security Crisis — And How to Reverse It appeared first on Radiant Logic | Unify, Observe, and Act on ALL Identity Data.

What principles guide AI security? We adapt Asimov's Three Laws for modern AI agents to solve core LLM security challenges, from data control to tool access.

The post Indicio secures investment from NEC X, accelerating a new era of user-controlled digital identity appeared first on Indicio.

As states modernize public services, privacy must move from principle to practice. Laws define what to protect, but it’s technology that enforces how. Embedding statutory safeguards, such as unlinkability, data minimization, and selective disclosure, directly into the architecture is critical to making privacy protection real and reliable. In this blog post, we explore recommendations around translating privacy law into digital architecture.

Compliance by Design

Compliance with a state’s privacy statutes should be embedded directly into the design and governance of state digital identity, ensuring that protections are enforced through both technology and policy.

One approach is to use personal data licenses, where every credential presentation carries machine-readable terms that specify how the data may be used, for how long it may be retained, and whether it may be shared. Wallets can enforce these licenses automatically, creating automated privacy compliance that is consistent with statutory requirements and reducing reliance on after-the-fact enforcement.

Establishing Reasonable Disclosure Norms

States could also establish the principle of reasonable disclosure, defining contextual norms for when certain attributes may be shared. For example, in a bar setting, presenting “over 21” is a reasonable disclosure, but if the bar requests an email address, that exceeds the scope of the transaction and must be flagged or presented differently. 

An insurance company might ask for someone’s basic history, but additionally requesting genetic indicators of future disease may be considered unlawful or predatory. Embedding these rules into wallet UX and verifier obligations ensures that disclosures remain consistent with a state’s privacy laws while still supporting legitimate use cases.

Governance and Decentralized Enforcement

It is a very difficult but important task to determine the proper governance around agreeing upon “reasonable disclosure” across many different industry use cases. We believe that one entity would not be able to make good judgements across all industry verticals, and so industry engagement is critical for this to be successful. 

Further, it remains unclear if a government agency is the best entity to coordinate these efforts, versus non-profits, cooperatives, or even private companies specializing in digital reputation management. This is a hard and open problem in decentralized identity, but necessary to create the benefits while managing the risks of increased user control.

Balancing User Autonomy and System Safety

It’s our opinion that this should operate in a decentralized manner, with wallets mediating requests and issuers not serving as intermediaries for every transaction. We believe that enforcement of these reasonable disclosure frameworks should be composable across many different sources and list maintainers, and ultimately configured at the wallet level. 

We should “push decision-making towards the edges” as much as possible, while ensuring reasonable defaults which provide an acceptable trade-off between user choice and safety.

Incentivizing Privacy by Design

To further protect residents, states could consider imposing an insurance requirement on verifiers or entities that retain personally identifiable information (PII). This creates a financial incentive to minimize data collection and retention, while ensuring that residents are protected if breaches occur. 

States could also consider strongly restricting the appropriate request criteria, which would transmit PII and result in full identification. Finally it would also be possible for wallet providers to align on a privacy-preserving fraud signal mechanism, where relying parties overcollecting data are detected via anonymized aggregated reporting so that investigations and enforcement can take suitable action.

Putting Privacy Law Into Action

Translating privacy law into digital architecture is both a technical and civic responsibility. It demonstrates how statutory principles, such as unlinkability, minimal disclosure, and individual control, can be implemented in real systems. When wallets enforce policy through personal data licenses and reasonable disclosure frameworks, compliance becomes built-in and verifiable.

By embedding privacy into the core architecture, governments and institutions can establish a new standard for privacy-by-design governance that protects individuals and fosters confidence in digital services. SpruceID enables governments and organizations to turn privacy principles into secure, trusted digital systems. To learn more, contact our team.

Contact Us

About SpruceID: SpruceID is building a future where users control their identity and data across all digital interactions. We build privacy-preserving digital identity infrastructure that empowers people and organizations to control their data. Governments, financial institutions, and enterprises use SpruceID’s technology to issue, verify, and manage digital credentials based on open standards.

Government agencies have more digital asset data than ever before. The rapid growth in crypto adoption over recent years means that agencies now encounter digital assets across a much broader range of their work, from traditional fraud investigations that involve blockchain transactions to large-scale seizures containing vast amounts of crypto intelligence.

In a competitive telecom market where customers expect instant onboarding, congstar must balance speed with security and compliance.

We sat down with Christopher Krause, Senior Manager Customer Finance at congstar, to discuss how the company’s partnership with IDnow enables seamless eSIM activations and postpaid sign-ups in seconds through AI-powered identity verification, why digital trust has become as important as price or network speed, and why telcos are uniquely positioned to become anchors of digital identity in the era of EU Digital Wallets and decentralized credentials.

congstar is known for fair, transparent tariffs and a simple, digital customer experience. What role does identity verification play in keeping the onboarding process both secure and smooth? 

We put convenience and security on an equal pedestal. When a customer signs up for a postpaid plan, we offer a range of identification options, especially automated identity verifications so that only real, eligible customers get through – this protects against fraud and satisfies legal requirements in Germany.  

When customers sign up for postpaid plans or activate eSIMs, how do you ensure the process feels instant and seamless, while still meeting all regulatory and fraud-prevention requirements? 

For postpaid or eSIM activation, speed is king, but we never cut corners on compliance. A perfect example is our sub-brand fraenk, our fully digital mobile phone app tariff. Here we rely on fully digital KYC tools, in our case IDnow’s automated identity verification solution, that scans a photo ID and do a quick selfie/liveness check. These AI-powered checks turn around in seconds, replacing old-school video calls or lengthy paperwork. As a result, signing up feels almost instant to the customer – yet it still meets all legal requirements.  

Another good example is our congstar website, where we have incorporated the verification step into the checkout process. By doing the identity check with a fast, in-browser process (no extra app needed) and clearly explaining each step, customers hardly feel any friction.  

In short, we assure our customers are safe, while keeping the process simple and transparent – a key part of our “fair and worry-free” brand promise. 

You’ve been working with IDnow for identity verification. How does this collaboration support congstar’s goals for digital efficiency, compliance and customer satisfaction? 

Our partnership with IDnow is a cornerstone of this approach. IDnow’s automated identity verification solution is AI-powered and designed exactly for telco onboarding. It lets us verify identities fully automatically using just a smartphone. The benefit is twofold: it accelerates the process for users, and it guarantees compliance with strict regulations. 

Thanks to that, we can scale up our digital sales without bottlenecks – maintaining our light, digital touch while staying on the right side of the law. In practice, this means high customer satisfaction because sign-ups are almost instant, and our operations save time – all contributing to our goal of a smooth, yet secure and digital experience. 

IDnow’s automated solution is AI-powered and designed exactly for telco onboarding. It lets us verify identities fully automatically using just a smartphone. The benefit is twofold: it accelerates the process for users, and it guarantees compliance with strict regulations.

Christopher Krause, Senior Manager Customer Finance at congstar

With growing eSIM adoption and automated onboarding, where do you see the biggest opportunities or challenges for congstar in the next few years? 

Looking ahead, the rise of eSIMs and automated onboarding is a big opportunity for us. Analysts expect eSIMs to boom soon. For us, this means we can offer even more flexible, instant activations. It also cuts costs – no more plastic SIM cards or waiting for mail delivery. The flip side: as onboarding goes 100% digital, we need to stay vigilant against evolving fraud, like SIM swap attacks or deepfakes. We’re preparing by continuously improving our automated checks and monitoring tools. Overall, the shift is positive – it lets us focus on the best customer experience and leaves us more bandwidth to innovate on products and services. The main challenge is simply staying one step ahead of bad actors as we grow digitally. 

Do you see digital trust as a new differentiator in the telecom market, similar to how speed or price once defined competition? 

Absolutely – we see digital trust becoming a real differentiator. In a mature market like ours, price and speed are table stakes. What sets a brand apart now is how much customers trust it with their heart, their data and security. Trust wins loyalty: research shows that trusted telcos gain more market share, foster long-term customers and are recommended more than others. Our brand is built on transparency and fairness, so emphasizing trust feels natural for us.  

When a customer goes through an identity check, what do you want them to feel –safety, simplicity, control?  

In the identity check itself, we want customers to feel a sense of calm and confidence. They should feel that the process is simple as we guide them clearly through each step and respectful as they decide what information to share. Altogether, we want people to walk away thinking: “That was easy, and I know my account is protected.” 

How does your verification journey contribute to that emotional experience? 

Our verification flow is designed to build those positive feelings. For example, we use the in-app browser for IDnow’s automated identity verification solution in our fraenk app, which keeps the process friendly and fast. The user sees clear instructions and immediate feedback, so they never feel lost. Every step is optimized for transparency: we show progress bars, explain why we need each check, and never ask for data twice. The result is a consistent, reassuring experience that strengthens the feeling of security and control. 

What sets a brand apart now is how much customers trust it with their heart, their data and security.

Christopher Krause, Senior Manager Customer Finance at congstar

How do you prepare for upcoming regulations like eIDAS 2.0 and the EUDI Wallet, and what opportunities do these create for telcos?  

We’re monitoring the developments around eIDAS 2.0 and the EU Digital Wallet and we are seeing them as enablers rather than headaches. As the regulations come into force, we review them with our identification partners and examine how we can further improve identification with the new options available. For telcos, the opportunity could be big: according to experts, eIDAS-compliant credentials mean we can verify any EU customer’s identity seamlessly and with reduced risk of fraud.  

In a world of digital wallets and decentralised identity, how do you see the telco’s role in verifying and protecting digital identity?  

Telcos have a vital role to play. We already have something others don’t have: a verified link between a real person and a SIM card. That makes us natural authorities for certain credentials – for instance, confirming that a person is a current mobile subscriber, or verifying age to enable services. Industry analysts note that telcos are well-positioned as “mobile-SIM-anchored” issuers of digital credentials.  

Telcos have something others don’t have: a verified link between a real person and a SIM card. That makes us natural authorities for verifying credentials.

Christopher Krause, Senior Manager Customer Finance at congstar

How important is orchestration, i.e connecting verification, fraud and user experience, to achieving a scalable, future-proof onboarding process?  

Orchestration is absolutely critical for scaling securely. We can’t treat identity checks, fraud detection and user experience as separate silos. Instead, we tie them together. For example, if our system flags an order as high-risk, it immediately triggers additional steps. Conversely, if everything looks legitimate, the user sails through. This end-to-end coordination (identification, device risk profiling and behavior analytics) is what lets us grow quickly without ballooning costs.  

How do data-sharing initiatives or consortium-based approaches help strengthen fraud prevention across the telecom sector?  

Industry-wide collaboration is a force-multiplier against fraud because fraudsters don’t respect company boundaries. For instance, telecoms worldwide have started exchanging through platforms like the Deutsche Fraud Forum. In addition, regular and transparent communication with government authorities such as the BNetzA and LKA is essential to set uniform industry standards and combat potential fraud equally. 

How do you see AI helping to detect fraud in real time without adding friction for genuine users?  

Finally, AI is becoming essential to catch clever fraud without inconveniencing users. We use AI and machine learning models that watch behind the scenes. The smart part is that genuine customers hardly notice: the system learns normal behavior and only steps in (with an extra check or block) when something truly stands out. This adaptive learning means false alarms drop over time, reducing friction for legitimate users. We also benefit by deploying solutions like IDnow’s automated identity verification solution, which already uses AI trained on millions of data points to verify identities. In network operations, we complement that with risk scores on each transaction. The net effect is real-time fraud defense that locks out attackers but lets loyal customers pass through hassle-free.  

About congstar: 

Founded in 2007 as a subsidiary of Telekom Deutschland GmbH, congstar offers flexible, transparent, and fair mobile and DSL products tailored for digital-savvy customers. Known for its customer-first approach and innovative app-based brand fraenk, congstar continues to redefine simplicity and security in Germany’s telecom market. 

Interested in more from our customer interviews? Check out: Docusign’s Managing Director DACH, Kai Stuebane, sat down with us to discuss how secure digital identity verification is transforming digital signing amid Germany’s evolving regulatory landscape. DGGS’s CEO, Florian Werner, talked to us about how strict regulatory requirements are shaping online gaming in Germany and what it’s like to be the first brand to receive a national slot licence.

By

Nikita Rybová
Customer and Product Marketing Manager at IDnow
Connect with Nikita on LinkedIn

This guide explains how biometrics identity verification systems use facial recognition, liveness detection, and AI to stop fraud, meet global compliance standards, and streamline secure digital onboarding at scale.

The post What to Look for in a Biometrics Identity Verification System first appeared on ComplyCube.

We know not to trust user input, but what about AI output? Learn how improper output handling leads to XSS, SQL injection, and RCE, and how to prevent it.

As blue confetti settles in Los Angeles after an historic World Series win, we close the chapter on another electric sports event on Bluesky. It’s during these cultural flashpoints when Bluesky is at its best – when stadium crowds are going wild, you can feel that same excitement flooding into posts.

Numbers can help describe the scale of that feeling. There were approximately 600,000 baseball posts made during the World Series, based on certain key terms. (note: we’re pretty sure that this number is an undercount, as it’s hard for us to accurately attribute to baseball the flood of “oh shit” posts that came in during Game 7)

At least 3% of all posts made on November 1 (Game 7) were about baseball. The final game also resulted in a +30% bump in traffic to Bluesky, with engagement spikes up to +66% from previous days.

We loved seeing World Series weekend in action, but it wasn’t a total surprise. In the last three months, sports generated the third-highest number of unique posts of any topic. Sports posters are also seeing greater engagement rates from posting on Bluesky than on legacy social media apps - up to ten times better.

But in a world of analytics, it’s easy to lose the love of the game. In that regard, we’re fortunate to have a roster of posters who bring the intangibles. They genuinely care about sports. Less hate, more substance and celebration.

yep, this is the baseball place now

[image or embed]

— Keith Law (@keithlaw.bsky.social) November 1, 2025 at 10:28 PM

That was the greatest baseball game I’ve ever seen.

— Molly Knight (@mollyknight.bsky.social) November 1, 2025 at 9:19 PM

If this World Series proved anything, it’s that big moments are more enjoyable when they unfold in real time, with real people. Sports has the juice on Bluesky — and every high-stakes game is bringing more fans into the conversation.

Learn about Fastly's VCL syntax updates, including return values and parameters for custom subroutines, enabling better code reuse and abstraction.

The post Mythics, LLC Appoints Sundar Padmanaban as Executive Vice President, Consulting Sales & Solution Engineering, to Drive Transformative Growth appeared first on Mythics.

Control website traffic and prevent server overload with Fastly Compute waiting rooms. Learn how to build scalable, customizable queues for high-demand events.

Copernicus Sentinel-1D Earth observation satellite successfully launched tas Tue, 11/04/2025 - 22:45 Space

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The Sentinel-1 family is now complete.

Sentinel-1D is the last satellite in the first constellation of the Copernicus program, supplying vital radar imagery for understanding climate change and protecting our planet.

Kourou, November 4, 2025 – The Copernicus Sentinel-1D Earth observation satellite, built by prime contractor Thales Alenia Space, the joint company between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), was successfully launched by Arianespace with an Ariane 6 rocket from Europe’s spaceport, in French Guiana.

Sentinel-1D is part of Copernicus, the Earth Observation component of the European Union’s Space Programme. This program is managed by the European Commission and co-funded by the European Union and the European Space Agency.

With Sentinel-1D now successfully launched, the Sentinel-1 family is complete. As the final satellite in the first Copernicus constellation, Sentinel-1D will ensure continuity and enhance the missions in orbit, extending system operations for at least the next seven years and beyond.

Sentinel-1 © ESA

The satellite captures images of Earth’s surface — day and night, in all weathers — for a wide range of applications to help protect our planet. This crucial data will be used to monitor landslides, earthquake zones, volcanic activity and variations in polar ice cover. They will also provide valuable insights for monitoring deforestation, the use of water resources and supporting emergency responders and search and rescue teams in the event of natural disasters.

Sentinel-1D, like Sentinel-1C, carries an Automatic Identification System (AIS) payload to enhance maritime safety — improving traffic management, preventing collisions and monitoring vessels in sensitive areas. It also introduces a world-first: a patented mechanism that separates the radar antenna from the spacecraft bus during end-of-life reentry, helping reduce orbital debris.

“I’m particularly proud of this successful launch — now the Sentinel-1 family is complete,” said Giampiero di Paolo, Deputy CEO and Senior Vice President Observation, Exploration and Navigation at Thales Alenia Space. “Our long-standing recognized expertise in developing radar-based Earth observation satellites is once again on orbit”.

“Over the years, our company has proven it has the capabilities required to meet this program’s technological challenges, fully aligned with Europe’s environmental policy goals and marking a new phase in our collaboration with the European Commission and ESA” Thales Alenia Space CEO Hervé Derrey said.

Thales Alenia Space’s role

©Thales Alenia Space/Alban Pichon

As prime contractor for the Sentinel-1 mission on behalf of ESA, Thales Alenia Space is responsible for satellite design, development, integration and testing. Each Sentinel-1 satellite is built on the PRIMA spacecraft bus developed by Thales Alenia Space for the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and carries a C-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) instrument developed by Airbus Defence & Space. This SAR instrument enables precise mapping at resolutions up to 5 meters and coverage out to 400 kilometers.

More about Sentinel 1

©Thales Alenia Space/Alban Pichon

The Sentinel-1 mission comprises two satellites in Sun-synchronous orbit operating in tandem to provide optimal global coverage with a 12-day repeat cycle. Their pre-tasking capability means data can be acquired consistently over long periods, which is essential for analyzing environmental trends. This data is made available to public authorities, businesses and citizens around the world on a free, full and open basis.

With a launch mass of 2,184 metric tons, Sentinel-1D will operate in low-Earth orbit at an altitude of 700 kilometers and has a design life of seven years.

Leonardo contributed to the development of the Sentinel-1D and 1C satellites by supplying the attitude sensors (Autonomous Star Tracker) and power units for the radar, ensuring continuous availability of images.

Telespazio Germany supported the launch of Sentinel-1D and is providing assistance during the launch and early operations phase (LEOP) with regard to mission operations, ground segment services and software coordination.

Data from the Sentinel-1D satellite will be collected by several European centres, including the Matera Space Centre operated by e-GEOS, a joint venture between Telespazio (80%) and the Italian Space Agency (20%). The Centre is part of the ESA Core Ground Segment within the Copernicus Programme.

About Copernicus

©Thales Alenia Space

Copernicus is the Earth observation component of the European Union Space Programme, monitoring our planet and its environment for the benefit of all Europeans. It delivers accurate, timely and accessible information to improve environmental management, address climate change and support civil security. As the world’s most advanced Earth observation system, Copernicus provides continuous, free and reliable data and services to public authorities, businesses and citizens worldwide.

Copernicus comprises 12 satellite families and a suite of monitoring networks — such as ground weather stations, ocean buoys and air-quality networks — to deliver robust integrated information and calibrate and validate satellite data.

The satellites are built for ESA by European prime contractors. A program of this scale helps Europe anticipate the impacts of climate change and take action to protect our planet.

The program is managed by the European Commission and funded by the EU, with additional contributions from ESA

Thales Alenia Space, a key Copernicus partner

Thales Alenia Space is a major contributor to 11 of the Copernicus program’s 12 missions. Sentinel-1 monitors land and sea in all weathers, day and night, thanks to its radar capabilities. Sentinel-2 and -3 acquire high-resolution optical imagery over land and coastal waters. Sentinel-4 and -5 are dedicated to meteorology and climatology missions. Sentinel-6 monitors the planet’s oceans. As well as being prime contractor for the Sentinel-1 and -3 satellite families, Thales Alenia Space also supplied the Sentinel-2 image ground segment and helped build the imaging spectrometer on Sentinel-5P and the Poseidon-4 radar altimeter on Sentinel-6. In 2020, Thales Alenia Space was awarded five contracts for the six new Copernicus Expansion missions, as prime contractor for the CIMR, ROSE-L and CHIME satellites and supplier of the CRISTAL and CO2M mission payloads. These new satellites will measure human-induced atmospheric carbon dioxide, survey sea ice and snow cover, support new optimized services for sustainable farming and biodiversity, observe sea-surface temperature and salinity as well as sea ice density and strengthen land monitoring and emergency management services.

About Thales Alenia Space

Drawing on over 40 years of experience and a unique combination of skills, expertise and cultures, Thales Alenia Space delivers cost-effective solutions for telecommunications, navigation, Earth observation, environmental monitoring, exploration, science and orbital infrastructures. Governments and private industry alike count on Thales Alenia Space to design satellite-based systems that provide anytime, anywhere connections and positioning, monitor our planet, enhance management of its resources and explore our Solar System and beyond. Thales Alenia Space sees space as a new horizon, helping build a better, more sustainable life on Earth. A joint venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), Thales Alenia Space also teams up with Telespazio to form the Space Alliance, which offers a complete range of solutions including services. Thales Alenia Space posted consolidated revenues of €2.23 billion in 2024 and has more than 8,100 employees in 7 countries with 14 sites in Europe.

View PDF market_segment : Space copernicus-sentinel-1d-earth-observation-satellite-successfully-launched On

On November 4, 2025, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) listed over fifty crypto addresses belonging to the sanctioned North Korean bank Cheil Credit Bank for facilitating financial activity of North Korean cybercrime and espionage. Additionally, OFAC also sanctioned another North Korean financial institution and several bankers. Cheil Credit Bank was originally sanctioned by OFAC in 2017.

Go-to-market teams today face a frustrating challenge: they know more about their market than ever before, but struggle to act on that intelligence fast enough. Teams have the data, but not the coordination. They know who’s buying, but not when or why. And they often watch opportunities slip simply because their systems and workflows can’t keep pace with how fast buyer behavior changes.

That’s why we built Scout, a new product module inside our Link platform designed to help teams move from insight to execution in real time. Scout connects live market, competitor, and buyer signals directly to the tools teams already use—sales, marketing, and planning—turning static intelligence into coordinated GTM action.

Announced during Money20/20 USA 2025, Scout helps organizations in fraud prevention, cybersecurity, risk, and trust-critical sectors close the gap between strategy and execution. Rather than relying on static reports or siloed data sources, teams can now build programs that evolve in lockstep with the market itself.

From signals to outcomes

Most GTM teams are drowning in signals but starving for clarity. Buyer demand shifts fast, contacts decay, and generic messaging rarely resonates. Scout addresses this directly by surfacing verified buyer signals, mapping decision-makers, and activating guided plays across the platforms teams already rely on—from outbound tools and CRMs to marketing automation and enablement systems

“Organizations are drowning in signals but starving for clarity,” said Travis Jarae, CEO of Liminal. “With Scout, the intelligence our customers already trust inside Link becomes immediately actionable. We connect what teams know about the market to what they can actually do about it, right where they already work.”

Why Scout matters for go-to-market teams

Scout builds on the same proprietary intelligence graph that powers Link, continuously mapping relationships between vendors, buyers, and technologies to maintain a live, contextual view of the market. Predictive signals trigger guided playbooks that tell teams who to target, what to say, and which proof points will land. The result is faster, more precise go-to-market programs that stay aligned with real buyer intent and market movement.

“Liminal’s approach to data quality and context is unlike anything else in the industry,” said Matthew Thompson, CRO of Socure. “They help teams cut through the noise and make decisions based on what actually matters.”

Early users are already seeing measurable impact: 70–90% account coverage within target segments, roughly 97% automation of repetitive workflows, and 2× faster pipeline conversion compared with traditional outbound approaches. When Liminal deployed Scout across its own campaigns, the platform identified 570 target accounts and delivered personalized outreach to more than 2,400 verified contacts within minutes—demonstrating its ability to turn intelligence into coordinated execution.

How Scout works

Scout moves teams from intelligence to impact through four connected layers: Build, Align, Engage, and Scale.

Build

Scout gives teams the flexibility to start from scratch or plug into existing account strategies and data models. Whether you’re building new target lists or optimizing current ABM programs, Scout automatically unifies your market intelligence, contact data, and buyer signals into a single activation layer. With deep vertical context, teams can capture market movements as they happen, navigate complex GTM motions, and deploy enterprise-scale campaigns without manual lift.

Align

Scout compresses months of planning into automated Account Strategy Plans—a dynamic activation blueprint that clarifies market context, use-case alignment, key purchase criteria, and the campaign-aligned path to close. Each plan includes live buyer insights, prioritized talking points, and step-by-step execution guidance for every account.

Engage

No person is just one person. Scout gives teams deep context around who buyers are, what they need, and how to align value with their goals. Teams gain verified contacts, role-specific insights, and adaptable account strategies that drive meaningful engagement.

Scale

Every email, call, and inMail reflects the latest competitive, market, and regulatory intelligence. Scout helps reps highlight the strongest proof points, feature what motivates each prospect most, and handle objections with confidence—making every rep an expert in the moment that matters.

The new standard for GTM execution

Go-to-market intelligence is no longer about collecting data; it’s about activating it. Scout gives teams a unified intelligence layer that connects what’s happening in the market to what happens next in pipeline. The result is execution that’s coordinated, contextual, and always current.

See how Scout can help your team turn market intelligence into GTM action → Book a demo

The post Introducing Scout — Turn Market Intelligence into GTM Action appeared first on Liminal.co.

As one dark web user selling a jailbroken AI tool aptly put it, “AI has two faces, just like humans.” At Elliptic, we are committed to helping the cryptoasset ecosystem detect both: Not only the crypto crime threats that AI may be exacerbating, but also the opportunities AI offers to upscale their detection and prevention.

The global stablecoin payment market is experiencing explosive growth, with businesses demanding infrastructure that combines seamless cross-border transactions with robust FATF Travel Rule compliance. Shyft Network, a leading blockchain trust protocol and compliance solution provider, has partnered with Endl, a stablecoin neobank and payment rail provider, to integrate Veriscope for regulatory compliance. This collaboration showcases how VASPs can enable secure, compliant digital finance for modern payment infrastructure while prioritizing user privacy and meeting global regulatory standards.

Building the Future of Compliant Payment Infrastructure

As the digital payments landscape evolves, Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) need blockchain compliance tools that ensure regulatory adherence without adding friction to user experience. Veriscope leverages cryptographic proof technology to facilitate secure, privacy-preserving data exchanges, aligning with FATF Travel Rule requirements and AML compliance standards. By integrating Veriscope, Endl demonstrates how next-generation stablecoin payment platforms can achieve regulatory readiness seamlessly while maintaining operational efficiency.

Endl is a regulatory-compliant stablecoin neobank providing fiat and stablecoin payment rails, multicurrency accounts, and crypto on/off ramps designed for businesses and individuals seeking secure cross-border payment solutions. By integrating Veriscope for Travel Rule compliance, Endl strengthens its commitment to security and regulatory compliance, enabling users to seamlessly convert, manage, and transfer both fiat and cryptocurrencies while meeting global AML and KYC compliance standards.

The Power of Veriscope for Global Payment Platforms

The Shyft Network-Endl partnership highlights Veriscope’s ability to transform crypto compliance and blockchain regulatory infrastructure for payment platforms:

Seamless FATF Travel Rule Compliance: Automated cryptographic proof exchanges ensure FATF Travel Rule compliance for VASPs without disrupting user workflows or transaction speed Privacy-First AML Verification: User Signing technology enables secure KYC data verification and AML compliance while protecting customer privacy through blockchain encryption Global Regulatory Readiness for VASPs: Position Endl for expansion into regulated crypto markets worldwide with built-in compliance infrastructure that meets international standards Enhanced Trust in Digital Asset Transactions: Demonstrate commitment to security and regulatory standards, building confidence with both users and institutional partners in the stablecoin payment ecosystem

Zach Justein, co-founder of Veriscope, emphasized the integration’s impact on the crypto compliance landscape:

“The future of digital payments lies in seamless integration between fiat and digital assets with robust regulatory compliance. Veriscope’s integration with Endl reflects Shyft Network’s commitment to enabling compliant, privacy-preserving blockchain infrastructure for the next generation of payment platforms. As stablecoin adoption accelerates globally, FATF Travel Rule solutions like this will be essential for VASPs serving international markets and meeting evolving regulatory requirements.”

Endl joins a global network of Virtual Asset Service Providers adopting Veriscope to meet FATF Travel Rule and AML compliance demands seamlessly. This partnership underscores the critical need for secure, compliant crypto infrastructure as stablecoin payments become mainstream across cross-border transactions, international remittances, and B2B digital asset payments.

About Veriscope

Veriscope, built on Shyft Network, is the leading blockchain compliance infrastructure for Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs), offering a frictionless solution for FATF Travel Rule compliance and AML regulatory requirements. Powered by User Signing cryptographic proof technology, it enables VASPs to request verification from non-custodial wallets, simplifying secure KYC data verification while prioritizing privacy through blockchain encryption. Trusted globally by leading crypto exchanges and payment platforms, Veriscope reduces compliance complexity and empowers VASPs to operate confidently in regulated digital asset markets worldwide.

About Endl

Endl is a digital asset payment infrastructure provider established in 2024. The company operates stablecoin payment rails, multicurrency account services, and fiat-to-crypto conversion infrastructure for commercial and retail clients. Services include cross-border transaction processing, linked card spending functionality, and yield generation on deposited assets. The platform is designed to meet regulatory compliance standards in jurisdictions where it operates, including FATF Travel Rule and anti-money laundering requirements.

Visit Shyft Network, subscribe to our newsletter, or follow us on X, LinkedIn, Telegram, and Medium.

Book a consultation at calendly.com/tomas-shyft or email bd @ shyft.network

Shyft Veriscope Expands VASP Compliance Network with Endl Integration was originally published in Shyft Network on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The post The Future of Identity Security: Demands of a New Era appeared first on uqudo.

“A friend sent over an interesting article by Ross Haleluik that opened with ‘Why it’s not just power grid and water, but also tools like Stripe and Twilio that should be defined as critical infrastructure.'”

The point being made is that there are some services (as demonstrated by the recent AWS outage) that cause significant harm if they become unavailable. The definition of critical infrastructure needs to go beyond power, water, or even core ICT networking.

So let’s talk about that outage. On 19 October 2025, an AWS outage (of course it was the DNS) made the Internet wobble. Payments failed. Authentication broke. Delivery systems froze. For a few hours, the digital economy looked a lot less digital and a lot more fragile.

From my perspective, the strangest things failed. I was in the process of boarding a plane to the Internet Identity Workshop. Air traffic control was fine (yay for archaic systems!), but the gate agent couldn’t run the automated bag check tools. The flight purser couldn’t see what catering had been loaded. And my seatmate completely panicked, wondering if it was even safe to fly.

So many things broke. A lot of things didn’t. Everyday people had no idea how to differentiate what mattered. That moment reminded me how fragile modern “resilience” can be.

We used to worry about power grids, water, and transportation—the visible bones of civilization. Now it is APIs, SaaS platforms, and cloud services that keep everything else alive. The outage didn’t just break a few apps; it exposed how invisible dependencies have become the modern equivalents of roads and power lines.

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The invisible backbone

Modern business runs on other people’s APIs (I’m also looking at you, too, MCP). Stripe handles payments. Twilio delivers authentication codes and customer messages. Okta provides identity. AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure host it all.

These are not niche conveniences. They form the infrastructure of global commerce. When you tap your phone to pay for coffee, when a government portal confirms your tax filing, or when an airline gate agent scans your boarding pass, one of these services is quietly mediating that interaction.

They don’t look like infrastructure. There are no visible grids, transformers, or pipes. They exist as lines of code, data centers, and service contracts in that they are modular, rentable, and ephemeral. Yet they behave like utilities in every meaningful way.

We have replaced public infrastructure with private platforms. The shift brought convenience and innovation, but also a new kind of risk. Infrastructure used to be something we built and maintained. Now it’s something we subscribe to and assume will stay online. We stopped building things to last and started building things to scale by leveraging someone else’s efficiencies. The assumption that the lights will always stay on has not caught up with reality.

The paradox of “resilient” design

Cloud architecture is often described as inherently resilient. Redundancy, failover, and microservices are meant to prevent collapse. But “resilient” in one dimension can mean “fragile” in another. I talked about this in an earlier post, The End of the Global Internet.

Designing for resilience makes sense in a world where the Internet is fragmenting. Companies build multi-region redundancies, on-prem backups, and hybrid clouds to protect themselves from geopolitical risk, supply chain issues, and simple human error. That same design logic—isolating risk, duplicating services, layering complexity—often increases fragility at the systemic level. Resilience is considered important, but efficiency is even better.

Microservices make each node stronger while the overall network becomes more brittle. Every layer of redundancy adds another point of failure and another dependency. A service might survive the loss of one data center but not the failure of a shared authentication API or DNS resolver. Local resilience frequently amplifies global fragility.

The AWS outage demonstrated this clearly. A system built for reliability failed because its dependencies were too successful. Interdependence works in both directions. When everyone relies on the same safety net, everyone falls together.

Utility or vendor?

This raises a larger question: should services like AWS, Stripe, or Twilio be treated as critical infrastructure? Haleluik says yes. I’m trying to decide where I stand on this, which is why I’m writing this series of blog posts.

In the United States, the FTC and FCC have debated for decades whether the Internet itself (aka, “broadband”) qualifies. If you aren’t familiar with that quagmire, you might be interested in “FCC vs FTC: A Primer on Broadband Privacy Oversight.”

The arguments for the designation are clear. Without broadband access, the modern economy falters. The arguments against it are equally clear. Labeling something as critical infrastructure introduces regulation, and regulation remains politically unpopular when applied to the Internet.

To put it another way, declaring something critical brings oversight, compliance requirements, and coordination mandates. Avoiding that label preserves flexibility and profit margins but leaves everyone downstream exposed. The result is an uneasy middle ground. These systems operate as essential infrastructure but remain governed by private interest. Their reach exceeds their obligations.

In traditional utilities, physical constraints limited monopoly power. Another way to look at it, though, is that traditional utilities are monopolized by government agencies (ideally) to the benefit of all. The economics of software, however, reward centralization. Success creates scale, and scale discourages competition. Very few can afford to get there (big enough to mask failures) from here (small enough to feel them).

I think we’re seeing quite a bit of magical thinking when it comes to the stories companies tell themselves when it comes to resilience: When your infrastructure depends on someone else’s business continuity plan, governance becomes an act of faith.

When “public” meets “critical”

While the debate over “critical infrastructure” in the United States often focuses on regulation versus innovation, the rest of the world is having a different but related conversation under the banner of digital public infrastructure (DPI).

Across the G20 and beyond, governments are grappling with whether digital public infrastructure—such as national payment systems, digital identity programs, and data exchange platforms—should be designated as critical information infrastructure (CII). A recent policy brief from a G20 engagement group argues that while both concepts overlap, they represent opposing design instincts: DPI is built for openness, interoperability, and inclusion, whereas CII emphasizes restriction, control, and national security.

That tension is already visible in India, where systems such as the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) have become de facto critical infrastructure. Although UPI has not been formally designated as CII, its scale and centrality to the nation’s payment system have raised similar questions about oversight and control. Its success has increased trust and security expectations, but also heightened concerns about market access for private and foreign participants, as well as the challenges of cross-border interoperability.

The G20 paper calls for ex-ante (early) designation of digital public systems as critical, rather than ex-post (after deployment), to avoid costly retrofits and policy confusion. But the underlying debate remains unresolved: Should public-facing digital infrastructure be treated like essential utilities, or like regulated assets of the state? The answer may depend less on technology and more on who society believes should bear responsibility for keeping the digital lights on. The answer to that won’t be the same everywhere.

Security versus availability

That tension over control doesn’t stop at the policy level. It runs straight through the design decisions companies make every day. When regulation is ambiguous, incentives fill the gap—and the strongest incentive of all is keeping systems online.

Availability has become the real currency of trust. It’s a strange thing, if you think about it logically, but human trust rarely is. (Cryptographic trust is another matter entirely.) Downtime brings backlash, lost revenue, and penalties, so companies do the rational thing: they optimize for uptime above all else. Security comes later. I don’t like it, but I understand why it happens.

Availability wins because it’s visible. Customers notice an outage immediately. They don’t notice an insecure configuration, a quiet policy failure, or a missing audit trail until something goes horribly wrong and the media gets a hold of the after-action report.

That visibility gap distorts priorities. When reliability is measured only by uptime, risk grows quietly in the background. You can’t meaningfully secure systems you don’t control, yet most organizations depend on the illusion that control and accountability can be outsourced while reliability remains intact.

And then there are the incentives, a word I probably use too often, but for good reason. The incentives in this landscape reward continuity, not transparency. Revenue flows as long as the service runs, even if it runs insecurely. Yes, fines exist, but they are exceptions, not deterrents.

What counts as “working” is still negotiated privately, even when the consequences are public. Until those definitions include societal resilience, we’ll continue to mistake uptime for stability.

Regulated by dependence

All of this sounds like arguments for the critical infrastructure label, doesn’t it? But remember, formal regulation is only one kind of control. Dependence is another, because dependence acts as a form of unofficial regulation.

Society already treats many tech platforms as critical infrastructure even without saying so. Governments host essential services on AWS. Health systems use commercial clouds for patient records. Banks rely on private payment APIs to move billions each day.

We trust these companies to act in the public interest, not because they must, but because we lack alternatives. Massive failures result in conversations like this post about whether these companies need to be more thoroughly monitored. This is the logic of “too big to fail,” translated into digital infrastructure. Authentication services, data hosting, and communication gateways now carry systemic risk once reserved for banks.

We have built a layer of critical infrastructure that is privately owned but publicly relied upon. It operates by trust, not by oversight, and that is a fragile foundation for a system this essential.

The illusion of choice

Dependence isn’t only a matter of trust. It’s also the result of market design. The systems we treat as infrastructure are built on platforms that appear competitive but converge around the same few providers.

Vendor neutrality looks fine on a procurement slide but falters in practice.

Ask a CIO whether their organization could migrate off a cloud provider; most will say yes. Ask whether they could do it today, and the answer shortens to silence.

APIs, SDKs, and proprietary integrations make switching possible but painful. That pain enforces dependence. It isn’t necessarily malicious, but it keeps theoretical competition safely theoretical.

Lock-in is the quiet tax on convenience.

The market appears to offer many choices, but those choices often lead back to the same infrastructure. A handful of global providers now underpin authentication, messaging, hosting, and payments.

When a platform failure can delay paychecks, ground flights, or disrupt hospital systems, we’re no longer talking about preference or pricing. We’re talking about public safety.

The same qualities that once made the Internet adaptable—modular APIs, composable services, seamless integration—have made it fragile in aggregate. We built a dependency chain and called it innovation.

That dependency chain doesn’t just reshape markets. It reshapes how societies determine what constitutes essential. When the same few providers sit beneath every major system, “critical infrastructure” stops being a policy category and starts being a description of reality.

The expanding definition of “critical”

What we’re looking at is the challenge that “critical” is just too big a concept. As societies become more technically complex, the definition of critical infrastructure also keeps growing.

Power, water, and transport once defined the baseline. Then came telecommunications. Then the Internet. The stack now includes authentication, payments, communication APIs, and identity services. Each layer improves capability while expanding exposure.

Whether or not you believe that these tools should exist, their failure now extends beyond the control of any single organization. As dependencies multiply, the distinction between convenience and infrastructure fades.

An AWS outage can make it really hard to check in for your flight. A Twilio misconfiguration can interrupt millions of authentication codes. A payment API failure can halt payroll for small businesses. These systems support not only individual companies but also the systems that support those companies.

If we decide that these systems function as critical infrastructure, the next question is what to do about them. Recognition doesn’t come free. It brings oversight, obligations, and trade-offs that neither governments nor providers are fully prepared to bear.

The cost of recognition

Calling an API a utility isn’t about nationalization. It’s about acknowledging that private infrastructure now performs public functions. With that acknowledgment comes responsibility.

Critical infrastructure is what society cannot function without. That definition once focused on physical essentials; now it includes the digital plumbing that supports everything else. Expanding that list has consequences. Every new addition stretches oversight thinner and diffuses accountability.

Resources are finite. Attention is finite. When every system is declared critical, prioritization becomes impossible. The next challenge isn’t deciding whether to protect these dependencies, but how much protection each truly deserves.

I can (and will!) say a lot more on this particular subject. Stay tuned for next week’s post.

Closing thoughts

Ross Haleluik’s observation was an interesting perspective on what utilities look like in modern life. Stripe, Twilio, AWS, and others do not just enable business; they are the business. They have become the unacknowledged utilities of a digital economy.

When I watched Delta’s systems falter during the AWS outage, it was not just an airline glitch. It was a glimpse into the depth of interdependence that defines a modern technical society. If efficiency is the goal, then labeling these systems as critical infrastructure may be the right path. But if resilience is the goal, then perhaps we have other choices to make.

The next outage will not be an exception. It will serve as another reminder that the foundations of the modern world are built on rented infrastructure, and the bill is coming due.

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Transcript

[00:00:29]
Hi and welcome back.

I’m recording this episode while dealing with the cold that everyone seems to have right now — so apologies for it being a little bit late. I had hoped the cold would pass before I picked up the microphone again.

But here we are, and today I want to talk about Critical Infrastructure.

Rethinking What Counts as Critical

A friend of mine recently sent over an article by Ross Havelwick that began with an interesting point:

“It’s not just power grids and water systems that count as critical infrastructure, but also tools like Stripe and Twilio.”

His argument was simple yet powerful — some services have become so essential that when they fail, the impact ripples far beyond their own operations. The AWS outage in October proved that vividly.

Before diving deeper, it’s worth defining what we mean by critical infrastructure.
These are systems and assets so vital that their disruption would harm national security, the economy, or public safety.

In the United States, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) identifies 16 sectors, including energy, water, transportation, and communications. Other countries use similar frameworks, but all share the same idea: protect what society cannot function without — ideally with some level of government oversight.

Yet, as Havelwick and others note, this list keeps expanding.

When AWS Went Down

On October 19, 2025, AWS experienced a major outage in one region. A database error cascaded into failures across DNS, payments, and authentication systems.

For a few hours, the digital economy looked far less digital.

I remember it clearly: I was boarding a flight to the Internet Identity Workshop. Air traffic control was fine — archaic but stable. Yet the gate agent couldn’t check bags, and the purser couldn’t confirm catering. My seatmate was visibly anxious about whether it was even safe to fly.

So many systems failed, yet many didn’t. What struck me most was how few people could tell the difference between what mattered and what didn’t.

Invisible Dependencies and Fragile Resilience

This incident made something clear — modern resilience is fragile because we’ve built it atop invisible dependencies that we rarely acknowledge.

Modern businesses run on other people’s APIs:

Stripe handles payments. Twilio delivers authentication codes. Okta manages identity. AWS, Google Cloud, Azure host nearly everything.

These aren’t niche conveniences anymore — they’re the infrastructure of global commerce. When you tap your phone to pay for coffee or file taxes online, one of these services is working silently in the background.

They may not look like traditional infrastructure — no visible grids or pipes — but they behave like utilities.

In short, we’ve replaced public infrastructure with private platforms.

Innovation and Its Risks

This shift has brought incredible innovation but also new risks.
Infrastructure used to be something we built and maintained. Now it’s something we subscribe to and assume will always work.

We’ve optimized for scale, not longevity.
But our assumptions about resilience haven’t kept pace.

There’s a paradox here:

Cloud architectures are built for redundancy and fault tolerance. Yet every layer of resilience adds another dependency — and therefore, another potential point of failure.

When a shared DNS resolver or authentication API fails, the entire ecosystem can crumble, no matter how many backups you have.

Interdependence and Oversight

Interdependence cuts both ways. When everyone relies on the same few providers, a failure for one becomes a failure for all.

So the big question arises:
Should services like AWS or Stripe be treated as critical infrastructure?

Havelwick argues yes. I’m not entirely convinced — but I see both sides.

In the U.S., agencies like the FTC and FCC have debated for decades whether the Internet itself qualifies as critical infrastructure.
Supporters argue that broadband is essential to modern life; opponents worry that regulation could slow innovation.

Declaring something “critical” brings oversight and compliance. Avoiding the label keeps flexibility — but also leaves society exposed.

We now have systems that operate like infrastructure yet remain governed by private interests. Their influence extends far beyond their legal obligations.

Digital Public Infrastructure and Global Perspectives

Outside the U.S., this debate continues under the banner of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI).
Governments across the G20 are exploring whether payment systems, digital identity networks, and data exchange platforms should be classified as Critical Information Infrastructure (CII).

A recent G20 policy brief captured the tension well:

DPI emphasizes openness and inclusion. CII emphasizes restriction and control.

For example, India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) functions as critical infrastructure in practice, even if not in name.

Its success raises key questions:

Who controls access? How should foreign participants interact? Can cross-border interoperability be trusted?

The G20’s advice: identify critical systems early, before they become too big to retrofit with proper governance. But again, recognition invites regulation, which can stifle the innovation that made those systems successful.

The Incentive Problem

When regulation lags, incentives take over — and the biggest incentive of all is uptime.

Companies prioritize continuity because:

Downtime is visible. Security failures often aren’t.

As a result, availability becomes the currency of trust.
Revenue flows as long as systems run — even if they run insecurely.

Until we include societal resilience in our definition of “working,” we’ll keep mistaking uptime for stability.

The Trust Dilemma

Dependency itself already acts as a form of regulation.
Governments host their services on AWS. Hospitals store patient records in the cloud.

We trust these platforms — not because they’re obligated to serve the public interest, but because we have no alternative.

It’s the logic of too big to fail rewritten for the digital era.
We’ve built a layer of infrastructure that’s privately owned yet publicly indispensable — and it’s running on trust, not oversight.

Lock-In and Market Gravity

Dependence isn’t just about trust — it’s about design.

If you ask most CIOs whether they could migrate off a major cloud provider, they’ll say yes.
Ask if they could do it today, and the answer is no.

Proprietary integrations make switching possible but painful. That pain enforces dependence — not maliciously, but through market gravity.

Lock-in is the tax on convenience.
And when a platform failure can delay paychecks, disrupt hospitals, or ground flights, this isn’t about preference — it’s about public safety.

Expanding the Definition of Critical

As technology grows more complex, the concept of critical infrastructure keeps expanding.

Power, water, and transportation were once the baseline. Then came telecommunications and the Internet. Now we’re talking about authentication, payments, messaging, and identity services.

Each layer increases capability — but also multiplies exposure.

The real question isn’t whether these systems are critical. They clearly are.
It’s how to manage the responsibilities that come with that recognition.

Responsibility and Resilience

[00:13:10]
Calling an API a utility doesn’t mean nationalizing it. It means acknowledging that private infrastructure now performs public functions, and that recognition carries responsibility.

Yet every new addition to the “critical” list spreads oversight thinner. If everything’s a priority, nothing truly is.

We have to decide which dependencies deserve protection — and which risks we can live with.

Stripe, AWS, and similar services don’t just enable business. They are business. They’ve become the unacknowledged utilities of our digital economy.

When I saw my airline systems falter during the AWS outage, it wasn’t just a glitch — it was a glimpse into how deeply interwoven our dependencies have become.

If your goal is efficiency, labeling these systems as critical may help create stability through regulation.

But if your goal is resilience, perhaps it’s time to design for flexibility — to accept failure as part of stability, and to plan for it.

The next outage will happen. It won’t be an exception. It will simply remind us that the foundations of the modern world run on rented infrastructure, and that rent always comes due.

[00:15:26]
And that’s it for this week’s episode of The Digital Identity Digest.

If it helped make things a little clearer — or at least more interesting — share it with a friend or colleague and connect with me on LinkedIn @HLFLanagan.

If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe and leave a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.

You can also find the full written post at sphericalcowconsulting.com.

Stay curious, stay engaged — and let’s keep these conversations going.

The post The Infrastructure We Forgot We Built appeared first on Spherical Cow Consulting.

By: Bruce Pon

I want to address the following false statements and allegations made by Sheikh, Goertzel and Burke:

Oct 9, 2025 — Sheikh on X Spaces (Dmitrov)Oct 9, 2025 — Jamie Burke X PostOct 13, 2025 — Sheikh and Goertzel on X Spaces (Benali)Oct 15, 2025 — Jamie Burke X PostOct 17, 2025 — Sheikh on All-in-Crypto Podcast

To put to rest any false claims or allegations of “theft” of property, let’s track the story from start to finish. This post has also been prepared with input from Ocean Expeditions.

Prior to March 2021, Ocean Protocol Foundation (‘OPF’) owned the minting rights to the $OCEAN token contract (0x967) with 5 signers assigned by OPF.

The Ocean community allocation, which would comprise 51% of eventual $OCEAN supply, (‘51% Tokens’) had not yet been minted but its allocation had been communicated to the Ocean community in the Ocean whitepaper.

To set up the oceanDAO properly, OPF engaged commercial lawyers, accountants and auditors to conceive a legal and auditable pathway to grant the oceanDAO the rights of minting the Ocean community allocation.

In June 2022 (but with documents dated March 2021), the rights of minting the 51% Tokens was irrevocably signed over to the oceanDAO. Along with this, seven Ocean community members and independent crypto OGs, stepped in, in their individual capacities to become trustees of the 51% Tokens.

March 31, 2021 — Legal and formal sign-over of assets to oceanDAO from Ocean Protocol Foundation

One year later, in May 2023, using the minting rights it had been granted in June 2022, the oceanDAO minted the 51% Token supply and irreversibly relinquished all control over the $OCEAN token contract 0x967 for eternity. The $OCEAN token lives wholly independent on the Ethereum blockchain and cannot be changed, modified or stopped.

TX ID: https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9286ab49306fd3fca4e79a1e3bdd88893042fcbd23ddb5e705e1029c6f53a068

The 51% Tokens were minted into existence on the Ethereum blockchain. The address holding the $OCEAN tokens sat in the ether, owned by no one. The address could release $OCEAN when at least 4 of 7 signers activated their key in the Gnosis Safe vault, which governs the address.

None of the signers had any claim of ownership over the address, Gnosis Safe vault or the contents (51% Tokens). They acted in the interest of the Ocean community and not anyone else, and certainly not OPF or the Ocean Founders.

During the ASI talks in Q2/2024, Fetch.ai applied significant pressure on OPF to convert the entire 51% Token supply immediately to $FET. OPF pushed back clearly stating that it had no power to do so as the 51% Tokens were not the property of, or under the control of OPF.

During those talks, OPF also repeatedly emphasized to Fetch.ai and SingularityNET that the property rights of EVERY token holder (including those of OPF and oceanDAO) must be respected, and that these rights were completely separate to the ASI Alliance. Fetch.ai and SingularityNET agreed with this fundamental principle.

March 24, 2024 — First discussion about Ocean joining ASIApril 3, 2024 — Pon to the Sheikh (Fetch.ai), Goertzel, Lake, Casiraghi (SingularityNET)May 24, 2024 — Pon to D. Levy (Fetch.ai)August 6, 2024 — ASI Board Call where Sheikh calls for ASI Alliance to refrain from exerting control over ASI membersAugust 17, 2025 — SingularityNET / Ocean Call

It must also be highlighted that oceanDAO was never a party to any agreement with Fetch.ai and SingularityNET. It had its own investment priorities and objectives as a regular token holder. oceanDAO’s existence, and the fact that it was the entity controlling the 51% Tokens with 7 signers, was acknowledged by SingularityNET at the very start of talks in March 2024.

In those discussions, OPF explained the intentions of the oceanDAO to release $OCEAN tokens to the community on an emission schedule.

In mid-2024, after the formation of the ASI Alliance, Fetch minted 611 million $FET tokens for the Ocean community. The sole purpose of minting this 611 million $FET was to accommodate a 100% swap-out of the Ocean community’s token supply of 1.41 billion $OCEAN. This swap-out would be via a $OCEAN-$FET token bridge and migration contract.

At that time, the oceanDAO did not initiate a conversion of the Gnosis Safe vault 51% Tokens from $OCEAN to $FET. The 51% of tokens sat dormant, as they had since being minted in May 2023.

However, with the continued and relentlessly deteriorating price of $FET due to the actions of Fetch.ai and SingularityNET, the Ocean community treasury had fallen in value from $1 billion in Q1/2024 to $300 million in Q2/2025.

oceanDAO therefore decided around April 2025 that it needed to take steps to avoid further fall in the value of the 51% Tokens for the Ocean community by converting some of the $OCEAN into other crypto-currencies or stablecoins, so that the oceanDAO would not be saddled with a large supply of steadily depreciating token.

The immediate and obvious risk to the Ocean community would be that if and when suitable projects come about, the Ocean community rewards could very well be worthless due to the continued fall in $FET price. This was an important consideration for the oceanDAO when it eventually decided that active steps had to be taken to protect the interests of the Ocean community.

Upon the establishment of Ocean Expeditions, a Cayman trust, in late-June, 2025, oceanDAO transferred signing rights over the 51% Tokens to Ocean Expeditions, who then initiated a conversion of $OCEAN to $FET using the token bridge and migration contract.

TX ID: https://etherscan.io/tx/0xce91eef8788c15c445fa8bb6312e8d316088ce174454bb3c96e7caeb62da980d

Sheikh alluded to this act of conversion of $OCEAN to $FET, along with his incorrect understanding of their purpose in a podcast.

Oct 17, 2025 — Sheikh speaking on All-in Crypto

However, unlike what Sheikh falsely claimed, Ocean Expeditions’s conversion of the 51% Tokens from $OCEAN to $FET and the selling of some of these tokens, is in no way a “theft” of these tokens by Ocean Expeditions or by OPF. These are unequivocally, not ASI community tokens, not “ASI” community reward tokens and not under any consideration of the ASI community.

Ocean Expeditions converted its $OCEAN holdings into $FET by utilising the $FET that were specifically minted for the Ocean community and earmarked by Fetch.ai for this conversion. It is important to emphasize that Ocean Expeditions did not tap into any other portion of the $FET supply. Simply put, there was no “theft” because Ocean Expeditions had claimed what it was rightfully allocated and entitled to.

Any token movements of the 51% Tokens to 30 wallets, Binance, GSR or any other recipient AND any token liquidations or disposals, are the sole right of, and at the discretion of Ocean Expeditions, and no one else.

Ocean Expeditions sought to preserve the value of the community assets, for the good of the Ocean community. Any assets, whether in $FET, other tokens or fiat, remain held by Ocean Expeditions in trust for the Ocean community. The assets have not been transferred to, or in any other way taken by OPF or the Ocean Founders.

We demand that Fetch.ai, Sheikh and all other representatives of the ASI Alliance who have promulgated any lies, incitement and misrepresentations (e.g. “stolen” “scammers” “we will get you”) immediately retract their statements, delete their social media posts where these statements were made, issue a clarification to the broader news media and issue a formal apology to Ocean Expeditions, Ocean Protocol Foundation, and the Ocean Founders.

We repeat that the 51% Tokens are owned by Ocean Expeditions, for the sole purpose of the Ocean community and no one else.

Ocean Community 51% Tokens was originally published in Ocean Protocol on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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In today’s digital age, knowing who’s on the other side of the screen isn’t just a security measure, it’s a necessity. From online banking to employee attendance, businesses across the globe are under pressure to verify users faster and with absolute accuracy. That’s where the biometric face scanner steps in, giving companies the confidence to know every interaction is authentic.

The rise of artificial intelligence has turned face scanning into a cornerstone of identity verification. Whether it’s an AI face scanner, a facial recognition scanner, or an advanced face scanning machine, the goal remains the same: keep things secure without slowing people down.

 

The Evolution of Facial Scanning Technology

Facial recognition has come a long way since the early 2000s. What once required large systems and clunky cameras now fits into a sleek face scanner device powered by deep learning. Modern facial scanning technology can detect and verify faces in milliseconds while maintaining compliance with global data standards such as GDPR.

AI-driven algorithms analyze facial landmarks, comparing them with stored biometric templates. This process ensures unmatched accuracy. A study conducted by NIST’s Face Recognition Vendor Test confirmed that advanced AI models now achieve over 99% accuracy in matching and verification, outperforming traditional biometric systems like fingerprints under certain conditions.

These results show that biometric verification isn’t just futuristic talk, it’s an essential layer of digital trust.

 

Why Businesses Are Switching to Face Scanner Biometric Systems

Passwords, ID cards, and manual checks are vulnerable to theft, fraud, and human error. A face scanner biometric solution eliminates these weaknesses. For many businesses, it’s not about replacing human judgment, it’s about enhancing it.

Companies are now using AI face scan systems to authenticate employees, onboard new clients, and manage visitor access seamlessly. Here’s why adoption is growing so fast:

Faster verification: A simple glance replaces lengthy manual identity checks.

Stronger security: Faces can’t be borrowed, stolen, or easily replicated.

Higher accuracy: The system adapts to lighting, angles, and even subtle changes like facial hair.

Better compliance: Aligned with data protection and global standards.

It’s the balance between convenience and control that makes facial recognition scanners invaluable in sectors such as finance, healthcare, retail, and corporate access management.

 

How a Face Scan Attendance Machine Improves Workforce Management

Time theft and attendance fraud cost businesses millions annually. Traditional punch cards or RFID systems can be manipulated, but a face scan attendance machine offers transparency and efficiency. Employees simply look into a face scan camera, and their attendance is logged instantly.

This system ensures that only real, verified individuals are recorded. No more buddy punching or proxy logins. Companies integrating such systems experience improved productivity and cleaner attendance data. It’s a small change that brings big operational discipline.

Solutions like the face recognition SDK make implementation simple by offering APIs that integrate directly into existing HR and access management software.

 

The Technology Behind AI Face Scanners

A biometric face scanner operates on the principles of artificial intelligence and computer vision. It starts by mapping key facial points such as eyes, nose, jawline, and contours to create a unique mathematical pattern.

Here’s how the process unfolds:

A face scan camera captures the user’s face in real-time.

The AI model extracts biometric data points.

The AI face scanner compares the captured data with stored templates.

The result is an instant verification decision.

Unlike passwords or tokens, facial biometrics are almost impossible to replicate. Many systems also include liveness detection to distinguish between a live person and a photo or mask. Businesses can test this feature through the face liveness detection SDK, ensuring their verification process isn’t fooled by fake attempts.

 

Ensuring Privacy and Data Security

One major concern surrounding facial scanning technology is data privacy. Responsible companies know that collecting biometric data requires careful handling. The good news is that modern systems don’t store raw images. Instead, they use encrypted templates, mathematical representations that can’t be reverse-engineered into a real face.

Organizations adhering to GDPR and global privacy laws can confidently deploy face scanner devices without compromising user rights. Transparency, consent, and clear data retention policies are the pillars of ethical AI use.

To stay updated on compliance standards and performance benchmarks, many developers reference the NIST FRVT 1:1 reports, which highlight progress in algorithmic accuracy and fairness.

 

Real-World Applications of Face Scanning Machines

Facial recognition scanners have a wide range of real-world applications that continue to grow each year. Here are some key areas where they are being used:

1. Banking and Finance

Facial recognition technology helps prevent identity fraud during digital onboarding, ensuring secure access to banking services.

2. Corporate Offices

These systems provide secure and frictionless access control, allowing employees to enter restricted areas without the need for physical keys or ID cards.

3. Airports

Airports use facial recognition to streamline processes, offering faster and more secure boarding and immigration checks.

4. Education

In education, facial recognition is used for automated attendance tracking and exam proctoring, reducing administrative overhead and ensuring exam integrity.

For developers or businesses looking to explore how these systems work, the face biometric playground provides a hands-on environment to test AI-based facial recognition in action.

 

Challenges and Ethical Considerations

While the benefits are undeniable, biometric systems must still address several challenges. AI bias, varying lighting conditions, and evolving spoofing methods are ongoing hurdles. Continuous algorithm training using diverse datasets is key to ensuring fairness and reliability.

Ethical implementation also plays a major role. Users must always know when and why their data is being collected. Transparent policies build trust, the same trust that a biometric face scanner promises to uphold.

Open-source initiatives like Recognito Vision’s GitHub repository are helping drive responsible innovation by allowing researchers to refine and test AI-based recognition models openly and collaboratively.

 

The Future of Face Scanning and Business Verification

As AI becomes more sophisticated, so will biometric systems. Future scanners will combine 3D depth sensing, emotion analytics, and advanced liveness detection to improve security even further.

The evolution of AI face scan systems is not about replacing traditional verification but complementing it, building a security framework that feels effortless to users yet nearly impossible to breach.

 

Building Trust in the Age of Intelligent Verification

Trust isn’t built in a day, but it can be verified in a second. A well-designed biometric face scanner offers that confidence, enabling companies to know their users without a doubt. From corporate offices to fintech platforms, businesses that invest in intelligent verification today will lead tomorrow’s secure digital economy.

As one of the pioneers in ethical biometric verification, Recognito continues to empower organizations with AI-driven identity solutions that combine precision, privacy, and confidence.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

1. What is a biometric face scanner and how does it work?

It’s an AI-powered system that analyzes facial features to verify identity in seconds.

 

2. Is facial recognition technology safe for user privacy?

Yes. Modern systems use encrypted facial templates instead of storing real images.

 

3. What are the main benefits of using facial recognition in businesses?

It offers faster verification, stronger security, and reduced fraud risks.

 

4. How can companies integrate a biometric face scanner into their systems?

They can use APIs or SDKs to easily add facial verification to existing software.

Predictoor DF160, DF161 rewards available. DF162 runs October 30th — November 6th, 2025 1. Overview

Data Farming (DF) is an incentives program initiated by Ocean Protocol. In DF, you can earn OCEAN rewards by making predictions via Predictoor.

Data Farming Rounds 160 (DF160) and 161 (DF161) have completed and rewards are now available after a temporary interruption in service from Oct 13 — Oct30.

DF162 is live, October 30th. It concludes on November 6th. For this DF round, Predictoor DF has 3,750 OCEAN rewards and 20,000 ROSE rewards.

2. DF structure

The reward structure for DF162 is comprised solely of Predictoor DF rewards.

Predictoor DF: Actively predict crypto prices by submitting a price prediction and staking OCEAN to slash competitors and earn.

3. How to Earn Rewards, and Claim Them

Predictoor DF: To earn: submit accurate predictions via Predictoor Bots and stake OCEAN to slash incorrect Predictoors. To claim OCEAN rewards: run the Predictoor $OCEAN payout script, linked from Predictoor DF user guide in Ocean docs. To claim ROSE rewards: see instructions in Predictoor DF user guide in Ocean docs.

4. Specific Parameters for DF162

Budget. Predictoor DF: 3.75K OCEAN + 20K ROSE

Networks. Predictoor DF applies to activity on Oasis Sapphire. Here is more information about Ocean deployments to networks.

Predictoor DF rewards are calculated as follows:

First, DF Buyer agent purchases Predictoor feeds using OCEAN throughout the week to evenly distribute these rewards. Then, ROSE is distributed at the end of the week to active Predictoors that have been claiming their rewards.

Expect further evolution in DF: adding new streams and budget adjustments among streams.

Updates are always announced at the beginning of a round, if not sooner.

About Ocean and DF Predictoor

Ocean Protocol was founded to level the playing field for AI and data. Ocean tools enable people to privately & securely publish, exchange, and consume data. Follow Ocean on Twitter or TG, and chat in Discord.

In Predictoor, people run AI-powered prediction bots or trading bots on crypto price feeds to earn $. Follow Predictoor on Twitter.

DF160, DF161 Complete and DF162 Launches was originally published in Ocean Protocol on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Introducing a patent-pending framework that fuses AI, DID, and Blockchain to enable secure AI delegation

Imagine this:

What if you could give your personal AI assistant a Power of Attorney — so it could act on your behalf? That sounds convenient, but only if it’s done in a fully secure, verifiable, and trustworthy way. No more sharing passwords. No more blind trust in centralized services. Just a cryptographically proven system of delegation.

A recent patent filed by CPLABS, titled “Method for Delegated AI Agent-Based Service Execution on Behalf of a User,” outlines exactly such a future. This patent proposes a new model that combines Decentralized Identity (DID), blockchain, and AI agents — so your AI can act for you, but with boundaries, verifiability, and accountability built in.

The Problem with Today’s Delegation Methods

We delegate all the time to people, apps, and APIs. But today’s delegation models are broken

Paper-based authorizations are outdated: Physical documents are cumbersome and easily forged, and verifying who issued them is hard. API keys & password sharing are risky: Tokens can be leaked, and once exposed, there’s no way to limit or track their use. Most systems lack built-in revocation or expiration controls. There is no clear apparent trace of responsibility: If your AI does something using your credentials, it is recorded as if you did it. There is no audit trail, proof of scope, or consent.

We need a more secure and user-centric model in the age of AI agents acting autonomously.

A New Solution: DID + Blockchain + AI Agent

The patent proposes an architecture built on three core technologies

1. Decentralized Identity (DID)

Every user has a self-sovereign, blockchain-based digital ID. So does the AI agent — it operates as its own verifiable identity.

2. Blockchain Ledger

All actions and delegations are immutably recorded on-chain. Who delegated what, to whom, when, and how is traceable and tamper-proof.

3. Encrypted Delegation Credential (Digital PoA)

Instead of paper documents, users issue digitally signed credentials. These include

The agent’s DID The scope of authority Expiration timestamp Revocation endpoint
This creates a “digital power of attorney” that can be cryptographically verified by any service.

The entire process runs without centralized intermediaries and is powered by standardized DID and blockchain protocols.

How It Actually Works User delegates authority to AI
e.g., “My AI may book doctor appointments this month.” AI submits delegation proof when acting
The AI presents both its own DID and the user-signed credential. The service provider verifies
The service checks the signatures and revocation status via the DID registry and the blockchain. Authorization scope is enforced
If the action goes beyond the delegated scope, it’s rejected. Every action is logged on-chain
Whether successful or failed, all attempts are transparently recorded. The user can revoke at any time
Revocation is immediate and recorded immutably on-chain.

The AI can only act using the digital “key” you’ve granted — and every move is auditable.

Potential Use Cases Healthcare: The AI assistant retrieves records from Hospital A, forwards them to Hospital B with full user consent, and logs them securely. Finance: Delegate your AI to automate transfers up to $1,000 per day. Every transaction is verified and capped. Government services: AI files address changes or document requests using digital credentials — recognized legally as your proxy. Smart home access: Courier arrives? Your AI is granted temporary “open door” access, which is revoked automatically post-delivery. Why This Matters User-Controlled Delegation
You define the rules. Nothing happens without your explicit, cryptographically backed consent. Verifiable Trust
Anyone can audit the record on-chain. Services don’t need to “trust” blindly. Scalable Automation
Enables safe, rule-bound AI delegation across sectors. Clear Responsibility
Transparent logs help determine who’s accountable if anything goes wrong. In Summary

This system provides a secure infrastructure for AI-human collaboration, backed by blockchain. It’s like handing your AI a digitally signed key with built-in expiration and tracking — ensuring it never oversteps its bounds.

This patent envisions a simple but powerful future: Your AI can act for you, but only within the rules you define, and everything it does is traceable and accountable.

That’s not just clever tech — it’s the foundation of digital trust in an AI-driven world.

내 AI에게 ‘디지털 위임장’을 안전하게 맡기는 법 내 AI에게 권한을 주는 시대

생각해보세요. 내 개인 AI 비서에게 위임장(Power of Attorney)을 주어 나를 대신해 일을 처리하게 한다면 어떨까요? 하지만 이때 중요한 건 완전히 안전하고 신뢰할 수 있는 방식으로 맡기는 것입니다. 더 이상 비밀번호를 공유하거나, 앱에 내 데이터 전체를 맡기며 불안해할 필요가 없는 거죠.

최근 CPLABS에서 출원된 특허(명칭: 사용자로부터 권한을 위임받아 서비스를 대리 수행하는 방법 및 이를 이용한 AI 에이전트)는 바로 이런 미래를 보여줍니다. 이 기술은 분산 신원(DID)과 블록체인, 그리고 AI 에이전트를 결합해, AI가 사용자를 대신해 행동하되 모든 것이 검증 가능하고 추적 가능한 방식으로 이루어지도록 합니다.

지금의 위임 방식이 가진 문제점

우리는 종종 다른 사람이나 소프트웨어에 일을 맡깁니다. 하지만 현재의 위임 방식에는 여러 가지 문제가 있습니다.

서류 기반 위임의 불편함: 종이 위임장은 작성도 번거롭고 위조도 쉽습니다. 위임자와 수임자의 관계를 확인하기도 애매하고, 신뢰성이 떨어집니다. API 키/비밀번호 공유의 위험성: 오늘날 앱이나 서비스 연결은 보통 API 키나 토큰을 공유하는 방식입니다. 이 키가 유출되면 공격자가 무제한 권한을 행사할 수 있죠. 만료나 철회 기능도 미비합니다. 책임 추적의 부재: AI가 내 계정으로 수행한 행동은 결국 ‘내가 한 것’처럼 기록돼 분쟁 시 책임 소재가 불분명합니다.

지금의 위임은 너무 불편하거나, 너무 위험합니다. 특히 AI 시대에는 이런 방식으로는 부족합니다.

새로운 해법: DID + 블록체인 + AI 에이전트

이번 특허가 제안하는 해법은 세 가지 핵심 기술을 결합합니다.

1. DID (Decentralized Identifier) 중앙 기관 없이 발급되고, 사용자가 직접 관리하는 디지털 신분증입니다. 사용자와 AI 에이전트 모두 독립적인 DID를 가집니다. 2. 블록체인 위임 관계와 AI 행동 내역을 변조 불가능하게 기록합니다. 누구에게, 언제, 어떤 권한이 위임되었고 AI가 어떤 행동을 했는지를 모두 투명하게 남깁니다. 3. 디지털 자격증명 기반 위임장 사용자가 직접 전자 서명해 발급하는 위임 토큰(Credential)에는 에이전트 DID, 권한 범위, 만료일, 철회 URL 등이 포함됩니다. 누구든 검증 가능한 디지털 위임장입니다.

이 모든 것은 중앙 시스템 없이, DID와 블록체인 기반 인프라 위에서 이루어집니다.

실제 흐름은 이렇게 작동합니다 사용자가 AI에 위임장 발급 (예: “내 AI는 이번 달 동안 병원 예약을 대신할 수 있다”) AI가 서비스에 위임장 제출 (AI는 자신의 DID 서명과 함께, 위임장을 제시하며 요청을 수행합니다.) 서비스가 검증 수행 (블록체인 DID 레지스트리를 통해 사용자와 AI의 DID를 검증하고, 위임장 서명도 확인합니다.) 권한 범위 확인 (위임장에 명시된 범위를 벗어난 요청은 거부됩니다.) 행동 로그 기록 (성공/실패 여부를 블록체인에 기록하여 감사가 가능합니다.) 즉시 철회 가능 (사용자는 언제든 위임을 취소할 수 있고, 철회 사실도 블록체인에 반영됩니다.)

즉, AI는 당신이 발급한 디지털 열쇠로만 행동할 수 있으며, 모든 흔적은 감사 가능한 증거로 남습니다.

활용 시나리오 의료: 환자가 AI에게 병원 기록 접근 권한을 위임. AI는 병원 A에서 기록을 받아 병원 B에 전달 (오남용은 불가능) 금융: AI 금융비서에게 “하루 100만원 한도 자동 이체” 권한을 위임. 초과 시 자동 거절 행정: 시민이 AI에게 주소 변경, 주민등록등본 발급 등 민원 업무를 맡김. AI는 합법적인 디지털 대리인으로 인식됨 생활/스마트홈: 택배기사 방문 시간에만 유효한 “문 열기 권한”을 발급. 시간이 지나면 자동 철회 왜 중요한가? 사용자 중심 통제: 내가 허락하지 않은 행동은 애초에 불가능 디지털 신뢰 확보: 블록체인 기반의 검증 가능한 기록 AI 자동화 확산: 신뢰 기반으로 더 많은 업무를 맡길 수 있음 책임 구분 가능: 문제가 생겨도 책임 주체가 명확

결국 이 시스템은 AI와 사람이 안전하게 협업할 수 있는 새로운 신뢰 인프라입니다. 마치 AI에게 범위가 제한된 디지털 열쇠를 주고, 그 모든 흔적을 공증처럼 남기는 셈이죠.

마치며

이 특허 기술은 단순한 자동화 도구가 아닙니다. AI가 우리를 대신해 행동할 수 있는 디지털 신뢰 프레임워크를 구현한 사례입니다. 앞으로 다가올 “AI와 함께 사는 세상”에서, 우리는 이런 시스템을 통해 안전하게 협업하고, 책임을 분명히 나누며, 더 많은 자유를 누릴 수 있게 될 것입니다.

이제, 당신의 AI에게 진짜 믿을 수 있는 디지털 열쇠를 쥐어줄 때입니다.

Website | https://metadium.com Discord | https://discord.gg/ZnaCfYbXw2 Telegram(KOR) | http://t.me/metadiumofficialkor Twitter | https://twitter.com/MetadiumK Medium | https://medium.com/metadium

How to Safely Entrust a ‘Digital Power of Attorney’ to My AI was originally published in Metadium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) acts as a programmable coordination layer, recording proposals, votes, and outcomes through immutable or verifiable channels. This ensures that every decision can be audited and traced.

For blockchain systems spanning a broad spectrum of applications — from enterprise solutions and government infrastructure to consumer-facing services — this structure provides the transparency and accountability required by regulated entities while enabling decentralized control.

DAO governance delivers substantial value by providing a standardized, neutral framework for coordination that reduces operational and regulatory friction.

Third-Party and In-House DAO Infrastructures

In recent years, the infrastructure supporting DAOs has advanced significantly. A variety of third-party governance solutions now offer stable, enterprise-ready interfaces for managing proposals, conducting votes, and executing multi-signature transactions. Some noteworthy platforms include:

Snapshot: An off-chain, gasless voting platform widely used across leading protocols. It allows flexible voting strategies, quorum requirements, and verifiable results without introducing high transaction costs. Tally: A fully on-chain governance dashboard built on Ethereum, designed for transparency and auditability of protocol votes, treasury management, and proposal lifecycle tracking.

These solutions form a growing middleware ecosystem that brings governance to the same level of technical maturity as enterprise resource planning systems.

At the same time, in-house DAO frameworks extend beyond generic governance tooling. They integrate DAO logic with the project’s native identity, treasury, and compliance layers, enabling seamless coordination between on-chain and organizational processes. This approach ensures that governance not only reflects community consensus but also aligns with operational and regulatory realities.

DAO Governance as a Mechanism for Neutrality

DAO governance reinforces network neutrality, a crucial characteristic for projects that operate across multiple jurisdictions or regulatory contexts. This structural neutrality diminishes the concentration of control that can lead to compliance issues and enables projects to remain resilient during regulatory or organizational changes.

For blockchain systems aimed at enterprises, DAO infrastructure provides three measurable benefits:

Regulatory Adaptability: Transparent proposal and voting systems create a verifiable governance record suitable for audits, disclosures, or compliance reviews. Operational Continuity: Distributed governance logic allows decision-making to persist independently of any single corporate entity or leadership group. Stakeholder Alignment: Token-weighted or role-based participation aligns validators, contributors, and investors under a unified, rule-based coordination framework. Toward Structured and Resilient Governance

As blockchain networks evolve into critical data and financial infrastructure, governance must progress beyond mere symbolic decentralization. DAO systems offer a structured, compliant, and resilient approach to managing complex ecosystems.

DAOs are not merely voting or staking platforms. They serve as the operational core that defines how decentralized systems make, record, and enforce decisions. Only with a well-structured DAO model can projects establish the legal, operational, and procedural foundation required to function as sustainable organizations.

BC 101 #7: DAO, Standardization, and Neutrality was originally published in Aergo (HPP) on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Boost your Auth0 security monitoring with eight essential log detections for your SIEM available in the Auth0 Detection Catalog. Protect against credential stuffing, MFA exploits, and authorization request abuse.

At Bluesky, we’re building a place where people can have better conversations, not just louder ones. We’re not driven by engagement-at-all-costs metrics or ad incentives, so we’re free to do what’s good for people. One of the biggest parts of that is the replies section. We want fun, genuine, and respectful exchanges that build friendships, and we’re taking steps to make that happen.

So far, we’ve introduced several tools that give people more control over how they interact on Bluesky. The followers-only reply setting helps posters keep discussions focused on trusted connections, mod lists make it easier to share moderation preferences, and the option to detach quote posts gives people a way to limit unwanted attention or dogpiling. These features have laid the groundwork for what we’re focused on now: improving the quality of replies and making conversations feel more personal, constructive, and in your control.

In our recent post, we shared some of the new ideas we were starting to develop to encourage healthier interactions. Since then, we’ve started rolling out updates, testing new ranking models, and studying how small product decisions can change the tone of conversations across the network.

We’re testing a mix of ranking updates, design changes, and new feedback tools — all aimed at improving the quality of conversation and giving people more control over their experience.

Social proximity

We’re developing a system that maps the “social neighborhoods” that naturally form on Bluesky — the people you already interact with or would likely enjoy knowing. By prioritizing replies from people closer to your neighborhood, we can make conversations feel more relevant, familiar, and less prone to misunderstandings.

Dislikes beta

Soon, we’ll start testing a “dislike” option as a new feedback signal to improve personalization in Discover and other feeds. Dislikes help the system understand what kinds of posts you’d prefer to see less of. They may also lightly inform reply ranking, reducing the visibility of low-quality replies. Dislikes are private and the signal isn’t global — it mainly affects your own experience and, to an extent, others in your social neighborhood.

Improved toxicity detection

Our latest model aims to do a better job of detecting replies that are toxic, spammy, off-topic, or posted in bad faith. Posts that cross the line are down-ranked in reply threads, search results, and notifications, reducing their visibility while keeping conversations open for good-faith discussion.

Reply context

We’re testing a small change to how the “Reply” button works on top-level posts: instead of jumping straight into the composer, it now takes you to the full thread first. We think this will encourage people to read before replying — a simple way to reduce context collapse and redundant replies.

Reply settings refresh

Bluesky’s reply settings give posters fine-grained control over who can reply, but many people don’t realize they exist. We’re rolling out a clearer design and a one-time nudge in the post composer to make them easier to find and use. Better visibility means more people can shape their own conversations and prevent unwanted replies before they happen. Conversations you start should belong to you.

We won’t get everything right on the first try. Building healthier social media will take ongoing experimentation supported by your feedback. This work matters because it tackles a root flaw in how social platforms have been built in the past — systems that optimize for attention and outrage instead of genuine conversation. Improving replies cuts to the heart of that problem.

Over the next few months, we’ll keep refining these systems and measuring their impact on how people experience Bluesky. Some experiments will stick, others will evolve, and we’ll share what we learn along the way.

AI systems need decentralized identity. Why? Only decentralized identity provides the authentication, consent, delegated authority, structure, and governance needed for AI to deliver value.

By Trevor Butterworth

AI is going to be everywhere. From virtual assistants to digital twins and autonomous systems, it will reinvent how we do everything. But only if it can be trusted with high value data, only if it can access high quality data, only if there’s user consent to that data being shared, and only if it can be easily governed.

This is where decentralized identity comes in. It removes obstacles, solves problems, and does so in a way that delivers next-generation security. Here are the five ways decentralized identity and its key technology — Verifiable Credentials — puts AI agents and autonomous AI systems on the path to trust and monetization.

1. Authentication

We are going to need to authenticate AI agents. They are going to need to authenticate us. It’s an obvious trust issue when so much data is at stake.

“We” means everything that interacts with an agent — people, organizations, devices, robots, and other AI agents.

Traditional forms of identity authentication aren’t going to cut it (see this recent article by Hackernoon — “When OAuth Becomes a Weapon: AI Agents Authentication Crisis”).

And given the current volume of losses to identity fraud (the estimated global cost of digital fraud was $534 billion over the past 12 months, according to Infosecurity Magazine), the idea that we should now open up massive quantities of high-value data to the same security vulnerabilities is insane.

The first fake AI agent that scams a major financial customer will cause panic, burn trust, and trigger regulation.

Only decentralized, Verifiable Credentials can provide the seamless, secure, and AI-resistant authentication to identify both AI agents and their users. And they enable authentication to occur before any data is shared.

2. Consent

AI needs data to work — and that means a lot of personal data and user data. If you want AI solutions that require access to personal data to comply with GDPR and other data privacy regulations, the “data subject” needs to be able to consent to sharing their data. Otherwise, that data is going nowhere — or you’re headed toward compliance hell.

Verifiable Credentials are a privacy-by-design technology. Consent is built into how they work. This simplifies compliance issues and can be easily recorded for audit.

3. Delegated authority

AI agents are going to need to access multiple data sources. While Verifiable Credentials and digital wallets allow people and organizations to hold their own data, they are not necessarily going to hold all the data needed for a task.

For example, banks and financial institutions have multiple departments. An AI agent that is given permission to access an account holder’s information, will need to share that information across different departments either to access the customer’s data or connect it to other data. It might need to share the data with other agents or external organizations.

Verifiable Credentials make it easy for a person to delegate their authority to an AI agent to go where it needs to go to execute a task, radically simplifying compliance. Decentralized governance (more of which later) simplifies establishing trust between different organizations and systems.

4. Structured data

AI agents and systems need good quality data to do their job (and therefore earn their keep). Verifiable Credentials issued by trusted data sources contain information that’s tamper-proof, that can come from validated documents, and that is structured in a way that each data point can be selectively disclosed.

In other words by putting information into a Verifiable Credential, we minimize error while structuring it to be easy to consume. In the process, we enable data and purpose minimization to meet GDPR requirements.

5. Decentralized governance

Finally, we come to one of the less-well known features of decentralized identity: decentralized ecosystem governance — or as we call it DEGov, which is based on the Decentralized Identity Foundation Credential Trust Establishment specification.

DEGov is a way for humans to structure interaction through trust. The governance authority for a particular use case publishes trust lists for credential issuers and credential verifiers in a machine readable form. This is downloaded by each participant in a credential ecosystem, and it enables a credential holder’s software to automatically recognize that an AI agent issued by a given organization is trustable. These files also contain rules for data presentation workflows.

DEGov enables you to easily orchestrate data sharing: for example, a Digital Travel Credential issued by an airline for a passenger identity can be used by a hotel to automate check-in because the hotel’s verifier software has downloaded a governance file containing the airline as trusted credential issuer (this also facilitates offline verification as governance rules are cached).

The value of decentralized governance really comes to the fore when you start building autonomous systems with multiple AI agents. You can easily program which agent can interact with which resource and what information needs to be presented. You can orchestrate interaction and authentication across different departments, domains, sectors.

As you can also enable devices, such as sensors, to generate Verifiable Credentials containing the data they record, you can rapidly share trusted data across domains for use by pre-permissioned AI agents.

In sum, decentralized identity is more than identity or identity authentication — it’s a way to authenticate and share any kind of data across any kind of environment, seamlessly and securely. It’s a way to create digital relationships between participants, even virtual ones.

Indicio ProvenAI

We designed Indicio ProvenAI to do all of the above. It’s the counterpart of the Proven technology we’re deploying to manage borders, KYC, travel and everything in between. It’s why we are now a member of the NVIDIA Inception program.

We see decentralized identity as the key to AI unlocking the right kind of data in the right way. It’s the path to trust, and trust means value.

Contact Indicio to learn how we’re building a world filled with intelligent authentication.

The post Five reasons why AI needs decentralized identity appeared first on Indicio.

In this edition of CryptoCubed, we look at the top crypto cases worldwide. This includes Canada's record-breaking $177 million fine against Cryptomus, Dubai's ongoing enforcement sweep on virtual asset firms, and Trump's pardon.

The post The CryptoCubed Newsletter: October Edition first appeared on ComplyCube.

Defining a pricing benchmark for KYC and AML is an important step in managing compliance expenses effectively. Understanding the factors that drive the costs of KYC and AML helps organizations make more informed pricing decisions.

The post How to Use a KYC AML Pricing Benchmark Effectively first appeared on ComplyCube.

Any institution engaging with digital assets faces a persistent compliance challenge: How should you handle transactions involving unhosted wallets when regulators have not yet provided clear guidance on specific obligations? As customer demand for crypto services intensifies, the question of hosted vs unhosted wallets has moved from theoretical to operationally urgent.

AT&T and Thales collaborate to revolutionize IoT deployments with new eSIM solution prezly Thu, 10/30/2025 - 12:00 Enterprise Mobile communications Cybersecurity

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Facebook X Whatsapp Linkedin Email URL copied to clipboard 30 Oct 2025 AT&T and Thales introduce a next generation eSIM solution, powered by the latest GSMA IoT specification (SGP.32), giving enterprises a consolidated platform to remotely and securely manage IoT subscriptions, while preserving device integrity on a highly secure and reliable network. Backed by Thales’ “secure by design” approach, this solution targets the highest level of cybersecurity for IoT devices and supports compliance with evolving global cybersecurity regulations. Optimized for large-scale IoT deployments, the new eSIM management platform simplifies operations, reduces costs, and delivers advanced automation beyond SGP.32 standards to support diverse industries and device types.

With over 5.8 billion IoT cellular connections expected globally by 2030 (GSMA Intelligence) — powering everything from smart meters to wearable health trackers — the need for secure, scalable, and easy-to-manage connectivity is greater than ever. AT&T, a leader in connectivity and IoT solutions, and Thales, a global leader in advanced Cyber & Digital technologies, announce the launch of a new eSIM solution designed to help businesses remotely activate and manage IoT devices. This eSIM solution, powered by Thales Adaptive Connect (TAC), becomes a key part of AT&T’s global IoT solution, AT&T Virtual Profile Management for IoT, and can support many industries worldwide including automotive, smart cities, healthcare and utilities.

Compliant with the GSMA SGP.32 standard1, the new solution enables customers to ship connected devices anywhere in the world with one single, pre-integrated eSIM from Thales, then seamlessly activate the correct local connectivity profile remotely, eliminating the need for any physical access to it. This results in faster launches and simpler logistics for global IoT deployments. It also enables AT&T and its customers to easily manage connectivity policies, diagnostics, and subscription changes entirely over the air, through a single unified industry-certified interface.

This solution also adds advanced automation to simplify the remote eSIM management of large numbers of devices. It automates complex tasks, such as switching subscriptions or updating fleets rules, so enterprises can spend less time on logistics and operations, while bringing new products and services faster to market.

Thanks to these advanced features, Thales’ eSIM solution (TAC) gives companies the flexibility to localize within AT&T network partners or adjust devices’ subscriptions across large fleets without hardware changes, helping optimize costs, supply chains, coverage, and performance.

The service is now available for commercial use and supports customers worldwide.

At AT&T, we deliver intelligent IoT solutions you can trust­—highly secure, end-to-end, and built to scale,” said Cameron Coursey, VP of AT&T Connected Solutions. “Our state-of-the-art approach, paired with Thales’ solution, will help customers reduce friction and gain control of managing their own devices with reliable connectivity.”

We are entering a new era for remote eSIM Provisioning, ready to power billions of IoT devices, and we are proud to collaborate with AT&T in delivering smarter and safer IoT connectivity around the world,” said Eva Rudin, EVP Mobile Connectivity Solutions at Thales. “With Thales Adaptive Connect, we’re ensuring that every connected device benefits from strong security, reliable service, and simplified management — from the first connection and throughout its lifetime.”

1 The GSMA SGP.32 standard the latest specification from the GSM Association for eSIM (embedded SIM) Remote SIM Provisioning (RSP), for the remote eSIM management of Internet of things (IoT) devices and other types of mobile device deployments.

About Thales

Thales (Euronext Paris: HO) is a global leader in advanced technologies for the Defence, Aerospace, and Cyber & Digital sectors. Its portfolio of innovative products and services addresses several major challenges: sovereignty, security, sustainability and inclusion.

The Group invests more than €4 billion per year in Research & Development in key areas, particularly for critical environments, such as Artificial Intelligence, cybersecurity, quantum and cloud technologies.

Thales has more than 83,000 employees in 68 countries. In 2024, the Group generated sales of €20.6 billion.

About AT&T

We help more than 100 million U.S. families, friends and neighbors, plus nearly 2.5 million businesses, connect to greater possibility. From the first phone call 140+ years ago to our 5G wireless and multi-gig internt offerings today, we @ATT innovate to improve lives. For more information about AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T), please visit us at about.att.com. Investors can learn more at investors.att.com.

View PDF market_segment : Cybersecurity + Enterprise > Mobile communications ; countries : Americas > United States https://thales-group.prezly.com/att-and-thales-collaborate-to-revolutionize-iot-deployments-with-new-esim-solution att-and-thales-collaborate-revolutionize-iot-deployments-new-esim-solution On AT&T and Thales collaborate to revolutionize IoT deployments with new eSIM solution

How IDnow’s latest collaborative research project, MAMMOth, will make the connected world fairer for all – regardless of skin tone.

While the ability of artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize certain processes is well documented, there are still genuine concerns regarding the link between unfair and unequal data processing and discriminatory practices and social inequality.    

In November 2022, IDnow, alongside 12 European partners, including academic institutions, associations and private companies, began the MAMMOth project, which set out to explore ways of addressing bias in face verification systems. 

Funded by the European Research Executive Agency, the goal of the three-year long project, which wrapped on October 30, 2025, was to study existing biases and create a toolkit for AI engineers, developers and data scientists so they may better identify and mitigate biases in datasets and algorithm outputs.   

Three use cases were identified:    

Face verification in identity verification processes. 
  Evaluation of academic work. In the academic world, the reputation of a researcher is often tied to the visibility of their scientific papers, and how frequently they are cited. Studies have shown that on certain search engines, women and authors coming from less prestigious countries/universities tend to be less represented.   
  Assessment of loan applications. 

IDnow predominantly focused on the face verification use case, with the aim of implementing methods to mitigate biases found in algorithms.   

Data diversity and face verification bias.

Even the most state-of-the-art face verification models are typically trained on conventional public datasets, which features an underrepresentation of minority demographics. A lack of diversity in data makes it difficult for models to perform well on underrepresented groups, leading to higher error rates for people with darker skin tones.  

To address this issue, IDnow proposed using a ‘style transfer’ method to generate new identity card photos that mimic the natural variation and inconsistencies found in real-world data. By augmenting the training dataset with synthetic images, it not only improves model robustness through exposure to a wider range of variations but also enables a further reduction of bias against darker skin faces, which significantly reduces error rates for darker-skinned users, and provides a better user experience for all.

The MAMMOth project has equipped us with the tools to retrain our face verification systems to ensure fairness and accuracy – regardless of a user’s skin tone or gender. Here’s how IDnow Face Verification works.

When registering for a service or onboarding, IDnow runs the Capture and Liveness step, which detects the face and assesses image quality. We also run a liveness/ anti‑spoofing check to check that photos, screen replays, or paper masks are not used. 

The image is then cross-checked against a reference source, such as a passport or ID card. During this stage, faces from the capture step and the reference face are converted into compact facial templates, capturing distinctive features for matching. 

Finally, the two templates are compared to determine a “match” vs. “non‑match”, i.e. do the two faces belong to the same person or not? 

Through hard work by IDnow and its partners, we developed the MAI-BIAS Toolkit to enable developers and researchers to detect, understand, and mitigate bias in datasets and AI models.

We are proud to have been a part of such an important collaborative research project. We have long recognized the need for trustworthy, unbiased facial verification algorithms. This is the challenge that IDnow and MAMMOth partners set out to overcome, and we are delighted to have succeeded.

Lara Younes, Engineering Team Lead and Biometrics Expert at IDnow.

What’s good for the user is good for the business.

While the MAI-BIAS Toolkit has demonstrated clear technical improvements in model fairness and performance, the ultimate validation, as is often the case, will lie in the ability to deliver tangible business benefits.  

IDnow has already began to retrain its systems with learnings from the project to ensure our solutions are enhanced not only in terms of technical performance but also in terms of ethical and social responsibility.

Top 5 business benefits of IDnow’s unbiased face verification. Fairer decisions: The MAI-BIAS Toolkit ensures all users, regardless of skin color or gender, are given equal opportunities to pass face verification checks, ensuring that no group is unfairly disadvantaged.  
  Reduced fraud risks: By addressing biases that may create security gaps for darker skinned users, the MAI-BIAS Toolkit strengthens overall fraud prevention by offering a more harmonized fraud detection rate across all demographics. 
  Explainable AI: Knowledge is power, and the Toolkit provides actionable insights into the decision-making processes of AI-based identity verification systems. This enhances transparency and accountability by clarifying the reasons behind specific algorithmic determinations.  
  Bias monitoring: Continuous assessment and mitigation of biases are supported throughout all stages of AI development, ensuring that databases and models remain fair with each update to our solutions.  
  Reducing biases: By following the recommendations provided in the Toolkit, research methods developed within the MAMMOth project can be applied across industries and contribute to the delivery of more trustworthy AI solutions.  

As the global adoption of biometric face verification systems continues to increase across industries, it’s crucial that any new technology remains accurate and fair for all individuals, regardless of skin tone, gender or age.

Montaser Awal, Director of AI & ML at IDnow.

“The legacy of the MAMMOth project will continue through its open-source tools, academic resources, and policy frameworks,” added Montaser. 

For a more technical deep dive into the project from one of our research scientists, read our blog ‘A synthetic solution? Facing up to identity verification bias.’

By

Jody Houton
Senior Content Manager at IDnow
Connect with Jody on LinkedIn

Introduction

Zambia, like many African nations, is on a path toward digital transformation. With growing mobile penetration, fintech adoption, and government interest in digital services, the country needs reliable, secure, and scalable technologies to support inclusive growth. One of the most promising tools is Ontology Blockchain — a high-performance, open-source blockchain specializing in digital identity, data security, and decentralized trust.

Unlike general-purpose blockchains, Ontology focuses on building trust infrastructure for individuals, businesses, and governments. By leveraging Ontology’s features, Zambia can unlock innovation in financial inclusion, supply chain transparency, e-governance, and education.

1. Digital Identity for All Zambians

A key challenge in Zambia is limited access to official identification. Without proper IDs, many citizens struggle to open bank accounts, access healthcare, or register land. Ontology’s ONT ID (a decentralized digital identity solution) could:

Provide every citizen with a secure, self-sovereign digital ID stored on the blockchain. Link identity with services such as mobile money, health records, and education certificates. Reduce fraud in financial services, voting systems, and government benefit programs.

This supports Zambia’s push for universal access to identification while protecting privacy.

2. Financial Inclusion & Digital Payments

With a large unbanked population, Zambia’s fintech growth depends on trust and interoperability. Ontology offers:

Decentralized finance (DeFi) solutions for micro-loans, savings, and remittances without reliance on traditional banks. Cross-chain compatibility to connect Zambian fintech startups with global crypto networks. Reduced transaction fees compared to traditional remittance channels, making it cheaper for Zambians abroad to send money home. 3. Supply Chain Transparency (Agriculture & Mining)

Agriculture and mining are Zambia’s economic backbones, but inefficiencies and lack of transparency hinder growth. Ontology can:

Enable farm-to-market tracking of crops, ensuring farmers get fair prices and buyers trust product origins. Provide traceability in copper and gemstone mining, reducing smuggling and boosting global market confidence. Help cooperatives and SMEs access financing by proving their transaction history and supply chain credibility via blockchain records. 4. E-Government & Service Delivery

The Zambian government aims to digitize public services. Ontology Blockchain could:

Power secure land registries, reducing disputes and fraud. Create tamper-proof records for civil registration (births, deaths, marriages). Support digital voting systems that are transparent, verifiable, and resistant to manipulation. Improve public procurement processes by reducing corruption through transparent contract tracking. 5. Education & Skills Development

Certificates and qualifications are often hard to verify in Zambia. Ontology offers:

Blockchain-based education records: universities and colleges can issue tamper-proof digital diplomas. A verifiable skills database that employers and training institutions can trust. Empowerment of youth in blockchain and Web3 development, opening new economic opportunities. 6. Data Security & Trust in the Digital Economy

Zambia’s growing reliance on mobile money and e-commerce requires strong data protection. Ontology brings:

User-controlled data sharing: individuals decide who can access their personal information. Decentralized identity verification for businesses, preventing fraud in digital transactions. Strong compliance frameworks to align with Zambia’s Data Protection Act of 2021. Challenges to Overcome

Digital literacy gaps: Zambian citizens need training to use blockchain-based services.

Regulatory clarity: as Zambia we must craft clear policies around blockchain and cryptocurrencies.

Infrastructure: because reliable internet and mobile access are essential for blockchain adoption.

Conclusion

Ontology Blockchain provides Zambia with more than just a digital ledger — it offers a trust framework for identity, finance, governance, and innovation. By integrating Ontology into key sectors like agriculture, health, mining, and public administration, Zambia can accelerate its journey toward a secure, inclusive, and transparent digital economy.

This is not just about technology it’s about empowering citizens, building investor confidence, and positioning Zambia as a leader in blockchain innovation in Africa.

How Ontology Blockchain Can Strengthen Zambia’s Digital Ecosystem was originally published in OntologyNetwork on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As part of the EU-funded MAMMOth project, IDnow shows how bias in AI systems can be detected and reduced – an important step toward trustworthy digital identity verification.

London, October 30, 2025 – After three years of intensive work, the EU-funded MAMMOth (Multi-Attribute, Multimodal Bias Mitigation in AI Systems) project has published key findings on reducing bias in artificial intelligence (AI) systems. Funded by the EU’s Horizon Europe program, the project brought together organizations from a consortium of leading universities, research centers, and private companies across Europe. 

IDnow, a leading identity verification platform provider in Europe, was directly involved in the implementation of the project as an industry partner. Through targeted research and testing, an optimized AI model was developed to significantly reduce bias in facial recognition, which is now integrated into IDnow’s solutions.

Combating algorithmic bias in practice

Facial recognition systems that leverage AI are increasingly used for digital identity verification, for example, when opening a bank account or registering for car sharing. Users take a digital image of their face, and AI compares it with their submitted ID photo. However, such systems can exhibit bias, leading to poorer results for certain demographic groups. This is due to the underrepresentation of minorities in public data sets, which can result in higher error rates for people with darker skin tones. 

A study by MIT Media Lab showed just how significant these discrepancies can be: while facial recognition systems had an error rate of only 0.8% for light-skinned men, the error rate for dark-skinned women was 34.7%. These figures clearly illustrate how unbalanced many AI systems are – and how urgent it is to rely on more diverse data. 

As part of MAMMOth, IDnow worked specifically to identify and minimize such biases in facial recognition – with the aim of increasing both fairness and reliability.

Research projects like MAMMOth are crucial for closing the gap between scientific innovation and practical application. By collaborating with leading experts, we were able to further develop our technology in a targeted manner and make it more equitable.

Montaser Awal, Director of AI & ML at IDnow.

Technological progress with measurable impact

As part of the project, IDnow investigated possible biases in its facial recognition algorithm, developed its own approaches to reduce these biases, and additionally tested bias mitigation methods proposed by other project partners.

For example, as ID photos often undergo color adjustments by issuing authorities, skin tone can play a challenging role, especially if the calibration is not optimized for darker skin tones. Such miscalibration can lead to inconsistencies between a selfie image and the person’s appearance in an ID photo.  

To solve this problem, IDnow used a style transfer method to expand the training data, which allowed the model to become more resilient to different conditions and significantly reduced the bias toward darker skin tones.

Tests on public and company-owned data sets showed that the new training method achieved an 8% increase in verification accuracy – while using only 25% of the original training data volume. Even more significantly, the accuracy difference between people with lighter and darker skin tones was reduced by over 50% – an important step toward fairer identity verification without compromising security or user-friendliness. 

The resulting improved AI model was integrated into IDnow’s identity verification solutions in March 2025 and has been in use ever since.

Setting the standard for responsible AI

In addition to specific product improvements, IDnow plans to use the open-source toolkit MAI-BIAS developed in the project in internal development and evaluation processes. This will allow fairness to be comprehensively tested and documented before new AI models are released in the future – an important contribution to responsible AI development. 

“Addressing bias not only strengthens fairness and trust, but also makes our systems more robust and adoptable,” adds Montaser Awal. “This will raise trust in our models and show that they work equally reliably for different user groups across different markets.”

Naarden, 30 oktober 2025 – De politie heeft in Amsterdam en Zaandam afgelopen maand acht mensen aangehouden op verdenking van grootschalige hypotheekfraude, witwassen en valsheid in geschrifte.
De zaak draait volgens de politie om valse werkgeversverklaringen en fictieve dienstverbanden. Het benadrukt opnieuw hoe kwetsbaar processen zijn die vertrouwen op door consumenten aangeleverde documenten.

Discover the three key signs that your app is outgrowing its user authentication setup. Learn to solve these challenges and scale with Auth0's advanced features.

Boost web performance with Fastly’s JS SDK v3.35.0. Use the new streaming HTML rewriter to customize, cache, and transform pages faster and more efficiently.

Stay online when it matters most. Learn how Fastly's multi-cloud and edge strategies protect against outages, keeping your systems fast and reliable.

The post Redefining Age Assurance appeared first on Liminal.co.

In its latest round of sanctions on Russia, the European Union has taken aim at the A7A5 stablecoin - part of efforts to choke off Russia’s sanctions circumvention schemes. 

A look at what the Ocean core team has built, and what’s to come

· 1. Introduction
· 2. Ocean Nodes: from Foundation to Framework
· 3. Annotators Hub: Community-driven data annotations
· 4. Lunor: Crowdsourcing Intelligence for AI
· 5. Predictoor and DeFi Trading
· 6. bci/acc: accelerate brain-computer interfaces towards human superintelligence
· 7. Conclusion

1. Introduction

Back in June, we shared the Ocean Protocol Product Update half-year check-in for 2025 where we outlined the progress made across Ocean Nodes, Predictoor, and other Ocean ecosystem initiatives. This post is a follow-up, highlighting the major steps taken since then and what’s next as we close out 2025.

We’re heading into the final stretch of 2025, so it’s only fitting to have a look over what the core team has been working on and what is soon to be released. Ocean Protocol was built to level the playing field for AI and data. From day one, the vision has been to make data more accessible, AI more transparent, and infrastructure more open. The Ocean tech stack is built for that mission: to combine decentralized compute, smart contracts, and open data marketplaces to help developers, researchers, and companies tap into the true potential of AI.

This year has been about making that mission real. Here’s how:

2. Ocean Nodes: from Foundation to Framework

Since the launch of Ocean Nodes in August 2024, the Ocean community has shown what’s possible when decentralized infrastructure meets real-world ambition. With over 1.7 million nodes deployed across 70+ countries, the network has grown far beyond expectations.

Throughout 2025, the focus has been on reducing friction, boosting usability, and enabling practical workflows. A highlight: the release of the Ocean Nodes Visual Studio Code extension. It lets developers and data scientists run compute jobs directly from their editor — free (within defined parameters), fast, and frictionless. Whether they’re testing algorithms or prototyping dApps, it’s the quickest path to real utility. The extension is now available on the VS Code Marketplace, as well as in Cursor and other distributions, via the Open VSX registry.

We’ve also seen strong momentum from partners like NetMind and Aethir, who’ve helped push GPU-ready infrastructure into the Ocean stack. Their contribution has paved the way for Phase 2, a major upgrade that the core team is still actively working on and that’s set to move the product from PoC to real production-grade capabilities.

That means:

Compute jobs that actually pay, with a pay-as-you-go system in place Benchmarking GPU nodes to shape a fair and scalable reward model Real-world AI workflows: from model training to advanced evaluation

And while Phase 2 is still in active development, it’s now reached a stage where user feedback is needed. To get there, we’ve launched the Alpha GPU Testers program, for a small group of community members to help us validate performance, stability and reward mechanics across GPU nodes. Selected participants simply need to set their GPU node up and make it available for the core team to run benchmark tests. As a thank-you for their effort and uptime, each successfully tested node will receive a $100 reward.

Key information:

Node selection: Oct 24–31, 2025 Benchmark testing: Nov 3–17, 2025 Reward: $100 per successfully tested node Total participants: up to 15, on a first come-first served basis. Only one node/owner is allowed

With Phase 2 of Ocean Nodes, we will be laying the groundwork for something even bigger: the Ocean Network. Spoiler alert: it will be a peer-to-peer AI Compute-as-a-Service platform designed to make GPU infrastructure accessible, affordable, and censorship-resistant for anyone who needs it.

More details on the transition are coming soon. But if you’re running a node, building on Ocean, or following along, you’re already part of it.

What else have we launched?

3. Annotators Hub: Community-driven data annotations Current challenge: CivicLens, ends on Oct 31, 2025

AI doesn’t work without quality data. And creating it still is a huge bottleneck. That’s why we’ve launched the Annotators Hub: a structured, community-driven initiative where contributors help evaluate and shape high-quality datasets through focused annotation challenges.

The goal is to improve AI performance by improving what it learns from: the data. High-quality annotations are the foundation for reliable, bias-aware, and domain-relevant models. And Ocean is building the tools and processes to make that easier, more consistent, and more inclusive.

Human annotations remain the single most effective way to improve AI performance, especially in complex domains like education and politics. By contributing to the Annotators Hub, the Ocean community members directly help build better models, that can power adaptive tutors, improve literacy tools, and even make political discourse more accessible.

For example, LiteracyForge, the first challenge ran in collaboration with Lunor.ai, focused on improving adaptive learning systems by collecting high-quality evaluations of reading comprehension material. The aim: to train AI that better understands question complexity and supports literacy tools. Here are a few highlights, as the challenge is currently being evaluated:

49,832 total annotations submitted 19,973 unique entries 147 annotators joined throughout the three weeks of the first challenge 17,581 double-reviewed annotation

The second challenge will finish in just 2 days, on Friday, October 31. This time we’re looking into analyzing speeches from the European Parliament, to help researchers, civic organizations as well as the general public better understand political debates, predict voting behavior, and make parliamentary discussions more transparent and accessible. There’s still time to jump in and become an annotator,

Yes, this initiative can be seen as a “launchpad” for a marketplace with ready-to-use, annotated data, designed to give everyone access to training-ready data that meets real-world quality standards. But on that in an upcoming blogpost.

As we get closer to the end of 2025, we’re doubling down on utility, usability, and adoption. The next phase is about scale and about creating tangible ways for Ocean’s community to contribute, earn, and build.

4. Lunor: Crowdsourcing Intelligence for AI

Lunor is building a crowdsourced intelligence ecosystem where anyone can co-create, co-own, and monetize Intelligent Systems. As one of the core projects within the Ocean Ecosystem, Lunor represents a new approach to AI, one where the community drives both innovation and ownership.

Lunor’s achievements so far, together with Ocean Protocol, comprise of:

Over $350,000 in rewards distributed from the designated Ocean community wallet More than 4,000 contributions submitted 38 structured data and AI quests completed

Assets from Lunor Quests are published on the Ocean stack, while future integration with Ocean nodes will bring private and compliant Compute-to-Data for secure model training.

Together with Ocean, Lunor has hosted quests like LiteracyForge, showcasing how open collaboration can unlock high-quality data and AI for education, sustainability, and beyond.

5. Predictoor and DeFi Trading

About Predictoor. In Predictoor, people run AI-powered prediction bots or trading bots on crypto price feeds to earn $. The “earn $” part is key, because it fosters usage.

Predictoor involves two groups of people:

Predictoors: data scientists who use AI models to predict what the price of ETH, BTC, etc will be 5 (or 60) minutes into the future. The scientists run bots that submit these predictions onto the chain every 5 minutes. Predictoors earn $ based on sales of the feeds, including sales from Ocean’s Data Farming incentives program. Traders: run bots that input predictoors’ aggregated predictions, to use as alpha in trading. It’s another edge for making $ while trading.

Predictoor is built using the Ocean stack. And, it runs on Oasis Sapphire; we’ve partnered with the Oasis team.

Predictoor traction. Since mainnet launch in October 2023, Predictoor has accumulated about $2B total volume. [Source: DappRadar]. Furthermore, in spring 2025, our collaborators at Oasis launched WT3, a decentralized, verifiable trading agent that uses Predictoor feeds for its alpha.

Predictoor past, present, future. After Predictoor product and rewards program were launched in fall 2023, the next major goal was “traders to make serious $”. If that is met, then traders will spend $ to buy feeds; which leads to serious $ for predictoors. The Predictoor team worked towards this primary goal throughout 2024, testing trading strategies with real $. Bonus side effects of this were improved analytics and tooling.

Obviously “make $ trading” is not an easy task. It’s a grind taking skill and perseverance. The team has ratcheted, inching ever-closer to making money. Starting in early 2025, the live trading algorithms started to bear fruit. The team’s 2025 plan was — and is — keep grinding, towards the goal “make serious $ trading”. It’s going well enough that there is work towards a spinoff. We can expect trading work to be the main progress in Predictoor throughout 2025. Everything else in Predictoor and related will follow.

6. bci/acc: accelerate brain-computer interfaces towards human superintelligence

Another stream in Ocean has been taking form: bci/acc. Ocean co-founder Trent McConaghy first gave a talk on bci/acc at NASA in Oct 2023, and published a seminal blog post on it a couple months later. Since then, he’s given 10+ invited talks and podcasts, including Consensus 2025 and Web3 Summit 2025.

bci/acc thesis. AI will likely reach superintelligence in the next 2–10 years. Humanity needs a competitive substrate. BCI is the most pragmatic path. Therefore, we need to accelerate BCI and take it to the masses: bci/acc. How do we make it happen? We’ll need BCI killer apps like silent messaging to create market demand, which in turn drive BCI device evolution. The net result is human superintelligence.

Ocean bci/acc team. In January 2025, Ocean assembled a small research team to pursue bci/acc, with the goal to create BCI killer apps that it can take to market. The team has been building towards this ever since: working with state-of-the-art BCI devices, constructing AI-data pipelines, and running data-gathering experiments. Ocean-style decentralized access control will play a role, as neural signals are perhaps the most private data of all: “not your keys, not your thoughts”. In line with Ocean culture and practice, we look forward to sharing more details once the project has progressed to tangible utility for target users.

7. Conclusion

2025 has been a year of turning vision into practice. From Predictoor’s trading traction, Ocean Nodes being pushed into a GPU-powered Phase 2, to the launch of Annotators Hub, and with ecosystem projects like Lunor driving community-led AI forward, it feels like the pieces of the Ocean vision are falling into place.

The focus is clear for the Ocean core team in Q4: scale, usability, and adoption. Thanks for being part of it. The best is yet to come.

Ocean Protocol: Q4 2025 Update was originally published in Ocean Protocol on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Ontology’s token economy has always been designed to evolve alongside the network. This week, that evolution takes another step forward. A new governance proposal has been initiated by an Ontology Consensus Node, calling on all Triones nodes to vote on an update to ONG tokenomics. The update aims to strengthen the foundation for long-term sustainability and fairer incentives across the ecosystem.

Voting will take place on OWallet from October 28, 2025 (00:00 UTC) through October 31, 2025 (00:00 UTC).

Understanding the Current Model

Let’s start with where things stand today.

Total ONG Supply: 1 billion Total Released: ≈ 450 million (≈ 430 million circulating) Annual Release: ≈ 31.5 million ONG Release Curve: All ONG unlocked over 18 years. The remaining 11 years follow a mixed release pace: 1 ONG per second for 6 years, then 2, 2, 2, 3, and 3 ONG per second in the final 5 years.

Currently, both unlocked ONG and transaction fees flow back to ONT stakers as incentives, generating an annual percentage rate of roughly 23 percent at current prices.

What the Proposal Changes

The new proposal suggests several key adjustments to rebalance distribution and align long-term incentives:

Cap the total ONG supply at 800 million. Lock ONT and ONG equivalent to 100 million ONG in value, effectively removing them from circulation. Strengthen staker rewards and ecosystem growth by making the release schedule steadier and liquidity more sustainable. Implementation Plan

1. Adjust the ONG Release Curve

Total supply capped at 800 million. Release period extended from 18 to 19 years. Maintain a 1 ONG per second release rate for the remaining years.

2. Allocation of Released ONG

80 percent directed to ONT staking incentives. 20 percent, plus transaction fees, contributed to ecological liquidity.

3. Swap Mechanism

Use ONG to acquire ONT within a defined fluctuation range. Pair the two tokens to create liquidity and receive LP tokens. Burn the LP tokens to permanently lock both ONG and ONT, tightening circulating supply. Community Q & A

Q1. How long will the ONT + ONG (worth 100 million ONG) be locked?

It’s a permanent lock.

Q2. Why does the total ONG supply decrease while the release period increases?

Under the current model, release speeds up in later years. This proposal keeps the rate fixed at 1 ONG per second, so fewer tokens are released overall but over a slightly longer span — about 19 years in total.

Q3. Will this affect ONT staking APY?

It may, but not necessarily negatively. While staking rewards in ONG drop 20 percent, APY depends on market prices of ONT and ONG. If ONG appreciates as expected, overall returns could remain steady or even rise.

Q4. How does this help the Ontology ecosystem?

Capping supply at 800 million and permanently locking 100 million ONG will make ONG scarcer. With part of the released ONG continuously swapped for ONT to support DEX liquidity, the effective circulating supply may fall to around 750 million. That scarcity, paired with new products consuming ONG, could strengthen price dynamics and promote sustainable network growth. More on-chain activity would also mean stronger rewards for stakers.

Q5. Who can vote, and how?

All Triones nodes have the right to vote through OWallet during the official voting window.

Why It Matters

This isn’t just a supply adjustment. It’s a structural change designed to balance reward distribution, liquidity, and governance in a way that benefits both the Ontology network and its long-term participants.

Every vote counts. By joining this governance round, Triones nodes have a direct hand in shaping how value flows through the Ontology ecosystem — not just for today’s staking cycle, but for the years of decentralized growth ahead.

A New Chapter for ONG: Governance Vote on Tokenomics Adjustment was originally published in OntologyNetwork on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In August 2025, the US Department of the Treasury issued a request for comment on innovative methods to detect illicit activity involving digital assets. Treasury specifically sought input on four key technologies:

Identity is moving fast–AI agents, new fraud patterns, and tightening regulations are reshaping the identity landscape under our feet. At Ping YOUniverse 2025, thousands of identity leaders, customers, and partners came together to confront this dramatic shift.

 

We compared notes on what matters now:

 

Stopping account takeover without killing conversion, so security doesn’t tax your revenue engine.

Orchestrating trust signals across apps and partners, so decisions get smarter everywhere.

Shrinking risk and cost with just‑in‑time access, so the right access appears—and disappears—on demand.

 

This recap distills the most useful takeaways for you: real-world use cases, technical demos within our very own Trust Lab, and deep-dive presentations from partners like Deloitte, AWS, ProofID, Midships, Versent, and more—plus guest keynotes from Former Secretary General of Interpol, Dr. Jürgen Stock and cybersecurity futurist, Heather Vescent. And it’s unified by a single theme: Resilient Trust isn’t a moment. It’s a mindset.

 

Optimize your multi-CDN setup with Fastly's new dns-account-01 ACME challenge. Eliminate label collisions and enhance certificate management.

As states move toward private, interoperable, and resident-controlled digital identity systems, certification of wallets and issuers becomes a cornerstone of trust. Certification doesn’t just validate technical conformance; it enforces privacy, supports procurement flexibility, and enables multiple vendors to participate under a consistent trust framework. This blog post outlines recommendations to meet these goals, with statutory guardrails and governance practices built in from the start.

The Case for Certification

We believe that states should require certification of Digital Wallets that are capable of holding a state digital identity. Certification provides assurance that wallet providers comply with key requirements such as privacy preservation, unlinkability, minimal disclosure, and security of key material, which are enforced by design.

SpruceID believes that additional legislation should be enacted to establish a formal certification program for wallets, issuers, and potentially verifiers participating in a state digital identity ecosystem. The legislation should specify that the designated regulating entity may conduct audits and certify providers directly, or delegate certification responsibilities to qualified external organizations, provided such delegation is formally approved by the appropriate higher authority.

Enforcing Privacy and Minimization

A certification program would mandate compliance with privacy-preserving technical standards, restrict verifiers from requesting or storing more information than is legally required, and require wallets to obtain clear user consent before transmitting credential data. Wallets would also need to provide plain-language explanations of how data is used in each transaction. By creating a statutory basis for certification and oversight, states can ensure that unlinkability and data minimization are not just principles, but enforceable requirements with technological and governance safeguards.

Pilot Programs to Support Innovation

We recommend that states enact a pilot program allowing provisional, limited, and expiring operating approvals of issuers, wallets, and verifiers, preceding the establishment and full operation of its formal certification programs, for the purpose of encouraging market solutions to operate in real-world environments and generate learnings. The appropriate oversight agency would be able to adapt the resulting learnings towards creating the formal certification programs. Today’s best practice in the software industry has been to take an iterative “agile” approach towards implementation, and we believe this would be the best approach to creating certification programs for software as well, to fully engage industry early and often in a limited operating capacity, instead of attempting to fully specify rules a priori, which may become irrelevant if not created with perfect knowledge.

Clarifying Responsibilities Across the Ecosystem

Clear allocation of liability and responsibility is essential for the trust and sustainability of any state digital identity program. A state's role is to establish statutory guardrails, oversee governance, and authorize a certification framework that ensures all ecosystem participants meet consistent standards. This includes creating a certification program for both digital wallet providers and credential issuers, verifying that they comply with statutory principles for privacy, unlinkability, minimal disclosure, and security.

Wallet Provider Responsibilities

Digital wallet providers bear responsibility for ensuring acceptable security mechanisms, proper user consent, presenting clear and plain-language disclosures which meet accessibility requirements, and ensuring features like personal data licenses and privacy-protective technical standards are honored in practice. Certified wallets must also support recovery mechanisms for key loss or compromise, ensuring that holders are not permanently locked out of identity credentials due to technical failures. Digital wallet providers should coordinate with issuers, designing solutions which anticipate that wallets and keys will be lost, stolen, and compromised.

Issuer Responsibilities

Issuers are responsible for creating a strong operational environment that ensures the accuracy of the attributes they release, and for maintaining correct and untampered authoritative source records. They are also responsible for ensuring that state digital identity credentials are issued to the correct holders, and to any acceptable wallets, free of unreasonable delay, burden, or fees. They must provide accessibility to holders, such as providing workable paths for holders who lose their credentials, wallets, and/or keys. Their certification ensures that state digital identity credentials are issued only under audited processes that meet required levels of identity proofing and revocation safeguards.

Legislating Technical Safeguards and Liability

In addition, states should require certification of wallets against a published state digital identity protection profile and create clear liability rules. Legislation should establish that wallet providers are responsible for implementing technical safeguards, that Holders maintain control over disclosure decisions, and that verifiers may only request attributes that are legally permitted. By legislating these aspects, states will ensure that residents can trust any certified wallet to uphold their rights, while fostering a competitive ecosystem of providers who innovate on usability and design within a consistent regulatory baseline.

Enabling Interoperability and Competition

Certification also creates a mechanism for interoperability and trust across the ecosystem. By publishing a clear “state digital identity Wallet Protection Profile” and certifying wallets against it, states can ensure that wallets from different vendors operate consistently while still allowing for competition and innovation.

Building Public Confidence Through Transparency

Finally, certification helps build public confidence. Residents will know that any wallet bearing a certification mark has been independently tested and approved to uphold privacy and prevent surveillance, while verifiers will know they can safely interact with those wallets. At the same time, states should keep certification processes lightweight and transparent to avoid excluding smaller vendors, ensuring that certification supports security and privacy without stifling innovation.

Establishing the Guardrails of a Trusted Ecosystem

Certification is more than a checkbox, it's how we turn principles like unlinkability and minimal disclosure into an enforceable reality. By embedding privacy protections in wallet and issuer certification, states can foster innovation without compromising trust. The foundation for interoperable, people-first digital identity isn’t a single app or provider, it’s a standards-aligned ecosystem, governed responsibly and built to last.

SpruceID works with governments and standards bodies to build privacy-preserving, interoperable infrastructure designed for public trust from day one. Contact us to start the conversation.

Contact Us

About SpruceID: SpruceID is building a future where users control their identity and data across all digital interactions. We build privacy-preserving digital identity infrastructure that empowers people and organizations to control their data. Governments, financial institutions, and enterprises use SpruceID’s technology to issue, verify, and manage digital credentials based on open standards.

What does this mean?

Identity, privacy, and AI are colliding fast. In this community conversation, builders and advocates examined who should own identity online, how to protect privacy, and how AI agents change the trust model for everything we do on the internet.

Read the full post

Featured speakers Humpty — long-time contributor and advocate of decentralized identity and privacy Geoff — veteran ecosystem builder and Head of Community at Ontology Barnabas — grassroots organizer driving Web3 education and adoption across Africa Five core takeaways

Ownership and agency come first
Web3 should let people own their identity and control what they share. Identity is not a wallet address. It is a richer record that reflects consent and context.

“You are in control of your data, and you get to choose what you want people to see.” — Barnabas

Privacy with portability
Identity must work across apps and chains while preserving privacy. Single-chain IDs limit users.

“Portable identity should not work only on one chain.” — Humpty

Design for everyone
Education and simple UX are essential so new users can participate without feeling overwhelmed.

“Removing barriers is essential to building community.” — Geoff

AI needs attribution and reputation
As AI agents multiply, we must evaluate outputs and the credibility of agents and their builders.

“We need attribution to know if a result is good, outdated, or hallucinated.” — Humpty

A builder’s opening
There is real opportunity to launch AI apps and agents with verifiable identity and reputation that users can trust.

“Start thinking about how you can develop those AI apps to launch in the marketplace.” — Geoff

Bigger picture

Identity is becoming shared infrastructure. It underpins privacy, enables reputation, and helps us decide which people or agents to trust. As AI agents begin to outnumber humans online, transparent identity and reputation will guide safe participation for everyone.

TL;DR

User-owned identity must be private and portable. Education and simple UX bring people in. AI raises the stakes for attribution and reputation, which is a clear opportunity for builders to ship trustworthy agents tied to real user intent.

Read the full post

Related reading Explore ONT ID and decentralized reputation. ont.id Who Really Owns Web3’s Data? 7 Questions for the Community. ont.io

Identity in the Age of AI was originally published in OntologyNetwork on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Thales unveils space surveillance radar AURORE - unique in Europe prezly Tue, 10/28/2025 - 11:22 Defence Space

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Facebook X Whatsapp Linkedin Email URL copied to clipboard 28 Oct 2025 As part of the ARES program (Action and Space Resilience), Thales has been notified of a contract from the French Defence Procurement Agency (DGA) to develop, deliver and deploy a new ground-based low orbit space surveillance radar system. Called AURORE, it will watch the satellites and debris in low orbit from the earth. This ground-breaking radar system provides continuous monitoring and tracking of multiple space objects simultaneously. It will strengthen French capabilities for assessing the space situation. AURORE will be the largest surveillance radar deployed in Europe. In the context of the increasing militarization of space, this decision marks an important milestone for European and French sovereignty, by providing unprecedented detection capabilities to enhance military space surveillance missions of activities in low orbit. Designed and manufactured at Thales’ Limours site, the AURORE radar also benefits from the expertise gained through partnerships with several French SMEs.

AURORE, a new solution for spatial monitoring and situation assessment, chosen by France © Thales

As space operations are challenged by a substantial increase in threats, from military to space debris, the ability to identify and track multiple small objects in space in real-time makes all the difference when it comes to space sovereignty and protecting the skies.

AURORE is a software-defined radar operating in the Ultra High Frequency (UHF) band, that will provide continuous surveillance and simultaneous multi-tracking of numerous space objects with a fast low Earth orbit responsiveness time, and the generation of a high-resolution picture of the space environment in real-time.

The modularity of its architecture will form the backbone of a comprehensive roadmap aimed at expanding the product portfolio with a new family of UHF radars capable of meeting the needs of multiple critical missions, enabling protection against emerging ballistic and hypersonic threats.

"With AURORE, the only radar of its kind in Europe, Thales is contributing to French sovereignty by strengthening its capabilities for monitoring the space environment at low orbits. AURORE demonstrates, once again, Thales' leadership in the field of air and space surveillance systems.” said Patrice Caine, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Thales.

About Thales

Thales (Euronext Paris: HO) is a global leader in advanced technologies for the Defence, Aerospace, and Cyber & Digital sectors. Its portfolio of innovative products and services addresses several major challenges: sovereignty, security, sustainability and inclusion.

The Group invests more than €4 billion per year in Research & Development in key areas, particularly for critical environments, such as Artificial Intelligence, cybersecurity, quantum and cloud technologies. Thales has more than 83,000 employees in 68 countries. In 2024, the Group generated sales of €20.6 billion.

View PDF market_segment : Defence + Space https://thales-group.prezly.com/thales-unveils-space-surveillance-radar-aurore-unique-in-europe thales-unveils-space-surveillance-radar-aurore-unique-europe On Thales unveils space surveillance radar AURORE - unique in Europe

We’re excited to share that Dock Labs is collaborating with GSMA, Telefónica Tech, and TMT ID on a new initiative to reinvent call centre authentication.

Here's why:

Today’s customer authentication processes often rely on knowledge-based questions or one-time passwords (OTPs). These methods are time-consuming, typically taking between 30 and 90 seconds, and can be vulnerable to SIM swap attacks, phishing, Caller Line Identification (CLI) spoofing and data breaches. 

On top of that, they frequently require customers to disclose personal information to call center agents, creating privacy and compliance risks for organisations.

To address these issues, the group has initiated a Proof of Concept (PoC) to explore a new, privacy-preserving model of caller authentication that is faster, secure, and user-friendly.

“For decades, standards development has been anchored in the idea that the Internet is (and should be) one global network. If we could just get everyone in the room—vendors, governments, engineers, and civil society—we could hash out common rules that worked for all.”

That premise is a lovely ideal, but it no longer reflects reality. The Internet isn’t collapsing, but it is fragmenting: tariffs, digital sovereignty drives, export controls, and surveillance regimes all chip away at the illusion of universality. Standards bodies that still aim for global consensus risk paralysis. And yet, walking away from standards altogether isn’t an option.

The real question isn’t whether we still need standards. The question is how to rethink them for a world that is fractured by design.

This is the fourth of a four-part series on what the Internet will look like for the next generation of people on this planet.

First post: “The End of the Global Internet“ Second post: “Why Tech Supply Chains, Not Protocols, Set the Limits on AI and the Internet“ Third post: “The People Problem: How Demographics Decide the Future of the Internet“ Fourth post: [this one]

A Digital Identity Digest Can Standards Survive Trade Wars and Sovereignty Battles? Play Episode Pause Episode Mute/Unmute Episode Rewind 10 Seconds 1x Fast Forward 30 seconds 00:00 / 00:16:24 Subscribe Share Amazon Apple Podcasts CastBox Listen Notes Overcast Pandora Player.fm PocketCasts Podbean RSS Spotify TuneIn YouTube iHeartRadio RSS Feed Share Link Embed

You can Subscribe and Listen to the Podcast on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to Podcasts.

And be sure to leave me a Rating and Review!

Global internet, local rulebooks

If you look closely, today’s Internet is already more a patchwork quilt of overlapping, sometimes incompatible regimes, and less global.

Europe pushes digital sovereignty and data protection rules, with eIDAS2 and the AI Act setting global precedents. The U.S. leans on export controls and sanctions, using access to chips and cloud services as levers of influence. China has doubled down on domestic control, firewalling traffic and setting its own technical specs. Africa and Latin America are building data centers and digital ID schemes to reduce dependence on foreign providers, while still trying to keep doors open for trade and investment.

Standards development bodies now live in this reality. The old model where universality was the goal and compromise was the method is harder to sustain. If everyone insists on their priorities, consensus stalls. But splintering into incompatible systems isn’t viable either. Global supply chains, cross-border research, and the resilience of communications all require at least a shared baseline.

The challenge is to define what “interoperable enough” looks like.

The cost side is getting heavier

The incentives for participation in global standards bodies used to be relatively clear: access to markets, influence over technical direction, and reputational benefits. Today, the costs of cross-border participation have gone up dramatically.

Trade wars have re-entered the picture. The U.S. has imposed sweeping tariffs on imports from China and other countries, hitting semiconductors and electronics with rates ranging from 10% to 41%. These costs ripple across supply chains. On top of tariffs, the U.S. has restricted exports of advanced chips and AI-related hardware to China. The uncertainty of licensing adds compliance overhead and forces firms to hedge.

Meanwhile, the “China + 1” strategy—where companies diversify sourcing away from over-reliance on China—comes with a hefty price tag. Logistics get more complex, shipping delays grow, and firms often hold more inventory to buffer against shocks. A 2025 study estimated these frictions alone cut industrial output by over 7% and added nearly half a percent to inflation.

And beyond tariffs or logistics, transparency and compliance laws add their own burden. The U.S. Corporate Transparency Act requires firms to disclose beneficial ownership. Germany’s Transparency Register and Norway’s Transparency Act impose similar obligations, with Norway’s rules extending to human-rights due diligence.

The result is that companies are paying more just to maintain cross-border operations. In that climate, the calculus for standards shifts. “Do we need this standard?” becomes “Is the payoff from this standard enough to justify the added cost of playing internationally?”

When standards tip the scales

The good news is that standards can offset some of these costs when they come with the right incentives.

One audit, many markets. Standards that are recognized across borders save money. If a product tested in one region is automatically accepted in another, firms avoid duplicative testing fees and time-to-market shrinks.

Case study: the European Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI). In 2024, the EU adopted a reform of the eIDAS regulation that requires all Member States to issue a European Digital Identity Wallet and mandates cross-border recognition of wallets issued by other states. The premise here is that if you can prove your identity using a wallet in France, that same credential should be accepted in Germany, Spain, or Italy without new audits or registrations.

The incentives are potentially powerful. Citizens gain convenience by using one credential for many services. Businesses reduce onboarding friction across borders, from banking to telecoms. Governments get harmonized assurance frameworks while retaining the ability to add national extensions. Yes, the implementation costs are steep—wallet rollouts, legal alignment, security reviews—but the payoff is smoother digital trade and service delivery across a whole bloc.

Regulatory fast lanes. Governments can offer “presumption of conformity” when products follow recognized standards. That reduces legal risk and accelerates procurement cycles.

Procurement carrots. Large buyers, both public and private, increasingly bake interoperability and security standards into tenders. Compliance isn’t optional; it’s the ticket to compete.

Risk transfer. Demonstrating that you followed a recognized standard can reduce penalties after a breach or compliance failure. In practice, standards act as a form of liability insurance.

Flexibility in a fractured market. A layered approach—global minimums with regional overlays—lets companies avoid maintaining entirely separate product lines. They can ship one base product, then configure for sovereignty requirements at the edges.

When incentives aren’t enough

Of course, there are limits to how far incentives can stretch. Sometimes the costs simply outweigh the benefits.

Consider a market that imposes steep tariffs on imports while also requiring its own unique technical standards, with no recognition of external certifications. In such a case, the incentive of “one audit, many markets” collapses. Firms face a choice between duplicating compliance efforts, forking product lines, or withdrawing from the market entirely.

Similarly, rules of origin can blunt the value of global standards. Even if a product complies technically, it may still fail to qualify for preferential access if its components are sourced from disfavored regions. Political volatility adds another layer of uncertainty. The back-and-forth implementation of the U.S. Corporate Transparency Act illustrates how compliance obligations can change rapidly, leaving firms unable to plan long-term around standards incentives.

These realities underline a sad reality that incentives alone cannot overcome every cost. Standards must be paired with trade policies, recognition agreements, and regulatory stability if they are to deliver meaningful relief. Technology is not enough.

How standards bodies must adapt

It’s easy enough to say “standards still matter.” What’s harder is figuring out how the institutions that make those standards need to change. The pressures of a fractured Internet aren’t just technical. They’re geopolitical, economic, and regulatory. That means standards bodies can’t keep doing business as usual. They need to adapt on two fronts: process and scope.

Process: speed, modularity, and incentives

The traditional model of consensus-driven standards development assumes time and patience are plentiful. Groups grind away until they’ve achieved broad agreement. In today’s climate, that often translates to deadlock. Standards bodies need to recalibrate toward “minimum viable consensus” that offer enough agreement to set a global baseline, even if some regions add overlays later.

Speed also matters. When tariffs or export controls can be announced on a Friday and reshape supply chains by Monday, five-year standards cycles are untenable. Bodies need mechanisms for lighter-weight deliverables: profiles, living documents, and updates that track closer to regulatory timelines.

And then there’s participation. Costs to attend international meetings are rising, both financially and politically. Without intervention, only the biggest vendors and wealthiest governments will show up. That’s why initiatives like the U.S. Enduring Security Framework explicitly recommend funding travel, streamlining visa access, and rotating meetings to more accessible locations. If the goal is to keep global baselines legitimate, the doors have to stay open to more than a handful of actors.

Scope: from universality to layering

Just as important as process is deciding what actually belongs in a global standard. The instinct to solve every problem universally is no longer realistic. Instead, standards bodies need to embrace layering. At the global level, focus on the minimums: secure routing, baseline cryptography, credential formats. At the regional level, let overlays handle sovereignty concerns like privacy, lawful access, or labor requirements.

This shift also means expanding scope beyond “pure technology.” Standards aren’t just about APIs and message formats anymore; they’re tied directly to procurement, liability, and compliance. If a standard can’t be mapped to how companies get through audits or how governments accept certifications, it won’t lower costs enough to be worth the trouble.

Finally, standards bodies must move closer to deployment. A glossy PDF isn’t sufficient if it doesn’t include reference implementations, test suites, and certification paths. Companies need ways to prove compliance that regulators and markets will accept. Otherwise, the promise of “interoperability” remains theoretical while costs keep mounting.

The balance

So is it process or scope? The answer is both. Process has to get faster, more modular, and more inclusive. Scope has to narrow to what can truly be global while expanding to reflect regulatory and economic realities. Miss one side of the equation, and the other can’t carry the weight. Get them both right, and standards bodies can still provide the bridges we desperately need in a fractured world.

A layered model for fractured times

So what might a sustainable approach look like? I expect the future will feature layered models rather than a universal one.

At the bottom of this new stack are the baseline standards for secure software development, routing, and digital credential formats. These don’t attempt to satisfy every national priority, but they keep the infrastructure interoperable enough to enable trade, communication, and research.

On top of that baseline are regional overlays. These extensions allow regions to encode sovereignty priorities, such as privacy protections in Europe, lawful access in the U.S., or data localization requirements in parts of Asia. The overlays are where politics and local control find their expression.

This design isn’t neat or elegant. But it’s pragmatic. The key is ensuring that overlays don’t erode the global baseline. The European Digital Identity Wallet is a good example: the baseline is cross-border recognition across EU states, while national governments can still add extensions that reflect their specific needs. The balance isn’t perfect, but it shows how interoperability and sovereignty can coexist if the model is layered thoughtfully.

What happens if standards fail

It’s tempting to imagine that if standards bodies stall, the market will simply route around them. But the reality of a fractured Internet is far messier. Without viable global baselines, companies retreat into regional silos, and the costs of compliance multiply. This section is the stick to go with the carrots of incentives.

If standards fail, cross-border trade slows as every shipment of software or hardware has to be retested for each jurisdiction. Innovation fragments as developers build for narrow markets instead of global ones, losing economies of scale. Security weakens as incompatible implementations open new cracks for attackers. And perhaps most damaging, trust erodes: governments stop believing that interoperable solutions can respect sovereignty, while enterprises stop believing that global participation is worth the cost.

The likely outcome is not resilience, but duplication and waste. Firms will maintain redundant product lines, governments will fund overlapping infrastructures, and users will pay the bill in the form of higher prices and poorer services. The Internet won’t collapse, but it will harden into a collection of barely connected islands.

That’s why standards bodies cannot afford to drift. The choice isn’t between universal consensus and nothing. The choice is between layered, adaptable standards that keep the floor intact or a slow grind into fragmentation that makes everyone poorer and less secure.

Closing thought

The incentives versus cost tradeoff is not a side issue in standards development. It is the issue. The technical community must accept that tariffs, sovereignty, and compliance aren’t temporary distractions but structural realities.

The key question to ask about any standard today is simple: Does this make it cheaper, faster, or less risky to operate across borders? If the answer is yes, the standard has a future. If not, it risks becoming another paper artifact, while fragmentation accelerates.

Now I have a question for you: in your market, do the incentives for adopting bridge standards outweigh the mounting costs of tariffs, export controls, and compliance regimes? Or are we headed for a world where regional overlays dominate and the global floor is paper-thin?

If you’d rather have a notification when a new blog is published rather than hoping to catch the announcement on social media, I have an option for you! Subscribe to get a notification when new blog posts go live. No spam, just announcements of new posts. [Subscribe here] 

Transcript

[00:00:29] Welcome back to A Digital Identity Digest.

Today, I’m asking a big question that’s especially relevant to those of us working in technical standards development:

Can standards survive trade wars and sovereignty battles?

For decades, the story of Internet standards seemed fairly simple — though never easy:
get the right people in the room, hammer out details, and eventually end up with rules that worked for everyone.

[00:00:58] The Internet was one global network, and standards reflected that vision.

[00:01:09] That story, however, is starting to fall apart.
We’re not watching the Internet collapse, but we are watching it fragment — and that fragmentation carries real consequences for how standards are made, adopted, and enforced.

[00:01:21] In this episode, we’ll explore:

Why the cost of participating in global standards has gone up How incentives can still make standards development worthwhile What happens when those incentives fall short And how standards bodies need to adapt to stay relevant

[00:01:36] So, let’s dive in.

The Fragmenting Internet

[00:01:39] When the Internet first spread globally, it seemed like one big network — or at least, one big concept.

[00:01:55] But that’s not quite true anymore.

Let’s take a few regional examples.

Europe has leaned heavily into digital sovereignty, with rules like GDPR, the AI Act, and the updated eIDAS regulation. Their focus is clear: privacy and sovereignty come first. The United States takes a different tack, using export controls and sanctions as tools of influence — with access to semiconductors and cloud services as leverage in its geopolitical strategy. China has gone further, building its own technical standards and asserting domestic control over traffic and infrastructure. Africa and Latin America are investing in local data centers and digital identity schemes, aiming to reduce dependency while keeping doors open for global trade and investment.

[00:02:46] When every region brings its own rulebook, global consensus doesn’t come easily.
Bodies like ISO, ITU, IETF, or W3C risk stalling out.

Yet splintering into incompatible systems is also costly:

It disrupts supply chains Slows research collaborations And fractures global communications

[00:03:31] So let’s start by looking at what all of this really costs.

The Rising Cost of Participation

[00:03:35] Historically, incentives for joining standards efforts were clear:

Influence technology direction Ensure interoperability Build goodwill as a responsible actor

[00:03:52] But that equation is changing.

Take tariffs, for example.

U.S. tariffs on imports from China and others now range from 10% to 41% on semiconductors and electronics. Export controls restrict the flow of advanced chips, reshaping entire markets. Companies face new costs: redesigning products, applying for licenses, and managing uncertainty.

[00:04:33] Add in supply chain rerouting — the so-called “China Plus One” strategy — and you get:

More complex logistics Longer delays Higher inventory buffers

Recent studies show these frictions cut industrial output by over 7% and add 0.5% to inflation.

[00:04:58] It’s not just the U.S. — tariffs are now a global trend.

Then there are transparency laws, like:

The U.S. Corporate Transparency Act Germany’s Transparency Register Norway’s Transparency Act, which even mandates human rights due diligence

[00:05:33] The result?
The baseline cost of cross-border operations is rising — forcing companies to ask if global standards participation is still worth it.

Why Standards Still Matter

[00:05:50] So, why bother with standards at all?

Because well-designed standards can offset many of these costs.

[00:05:56] Consider the power of recognition.
If one region accepts a product tested in another, companies save on duplicate testing and reach markets faster.

[00:06:07] A clear example is the European Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI Wallet).

In 2024, the EU updated eIDAS to:

Require each member state to issue a European Digital Identity Wallet Mandate mutual recognition between member states

This means:

A wallet verified in France also works in Germany or Spain Citizens gain convenience Businesses reduce onboarding friction Governments maintain a harmonized baseline with room for local adaptation

[00:06:56] Though rollout costs are high — covering legal alignment, wallet development, and security testing — the payoff is smoother digital trade.

Beyond recognition, strong standards also offer:

Regulatory fast lanes: Reduced legal risk when products follow recognized standards Procurement advantages: Interoperability requirements in public tenders Risk transfer: Accepted standards can serve as a partial defense after incidents

[00:07:34] In effect, standards can act as liability insurance.

[00:07:41] But not all incentives outweigh the costs.
When countries insist on unique local standards without mutual recognition, “one audit, many markets” collapses.

[00:08:05] Companies duplicate compliance, fork product lines, or leave markets.
Rules of origin and political volatility add further uncertainty.

[00:08:44] So yes — standards can tip the scales, but they can’t overcome every barrier.

The Changing Role of Standards Bodies

[00:08:54] Saying “standards still matter” is one thing — ensuring their institutions adapt is another.

[00:09:02] The pressures shaping today’s Internet are not just technical but geopolitical, economic, and regulatory.

That means standards bodies must evolve in two key ways:

Process adaptation Scope adaptation

[00:09:19] The old “everyone must agree” consensus model now risks deadlock.
Bodies need to move toward a minimum viable consensus — enough agreement to set a baseline, even if regional overlays come later.

[00:09:39] Increasingly, both state and corporate actors exploit the process to delay progress.
Meanwhile, when trade policies change in months, a five-year standards cycle is useless.

[00:10:16] Standards organizations must embrace:

Lighter deliverables Living documents Faster updates aligned with regulatory change

[00:10:32] Participation costs are another barrier.
If only the richest governments and companies can attend meetings, legitimacy suffers.

Efforts like the U.S. Enduring Security Framework, which supports broader participation, are essential.

[00:11:10] Remote participation helps — but it’s not enough.
In-person collaboration still matters because trust is built across tables, not screens.

Rethinking Scope and Relevance

[00:11:31] Scope matters too.

Standards bodies should embrace layering:

Global level: focus on secure routing, baseline cryptography, credential formats Regional level: handle sovereignty overlays — privacy, lawful access, labor rules

[00:11:55] Moreover, the scope must expand beyond technology to include:

Procurement Liability Compliance

If standards don’t reduce costs in these areas, they won’t gain traction — no matter how elegant they look in PDF form.

[00:12:12] Standards also need to move closer to deployment:

Include reference implementations Provide test suites Define certification paths that regulators will accept

Without these, interoperability remains theoretical while costs keep rising.

[00:12:53] Ultimately, this is both a process problem and a scope problem.
Processes must be faster and more inclusive.
Scopes must be realistic and economically relevant.

The Risk of Fragmentation

[00:13:11] Some argue that if standards bodies stall, the market will route around them.
But a fractured Internet is messy:

Cross-border trade slows under multiple testing regimes Innovation fragments into narrow regional silos Security weakens as incompatible implementations open new vulnerabilities

[00:13:45] And perhaps worst of all, trust erodes.
Governments lose faith in interoperability; companies question the value of participation.

[00:13:55] The outcome isn’t resilience — it’s duplication, waste, and higher costs.

[00:14:07] The Internet won’t disappear, but it risks hardening into isolated digital islands.
That’s why standards bodies can’t afford drift.

[00:14:26] The real choice is between:

Layered, adaptable standards that maintain a shared baseline Or a slow grind into fragmentation that makes everyone poorer and less secure Wrapping Up

[00:14:38] The incentives-versus-cost trade-off is no longer a side note in standards work — it’s the core issue.

Tariffs, sovereignty, and compliance regimes aren’t temporary distractions.
They’re structural realities shaping the future of interoperability.

[00:14:52] The key question for any new standard is:

Does this make it cheaper, faster, or less risky to operate across borders?

If yes — that standard has a future.
If no — it risks becoming another PDF gathering dust while fragmentation accelerates.

[00:15:03] With that thought — thank you for listening.

I’d love to hear your perspective:

Do incentives for adopting bridge standards outweigh the rising costs of sovereignty battles? Or are we headed toward a world of purely regional overlays?

[00:15:37] Share your thoughts, and let’s keep this conversation going.

[00:15:48] That’s it for this week’s Digital Identity Digest.

If this episode helped clarify or inspire your thinking, please:

Share it with a friend or colleague Connect with me on LinkedIn @hlflanagan Subscribe and leave a rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen

[00:16:00] You can also find the full written post at sphericalcowconsulting.com.

Stay curious, stay engaged — and let’s keep the dialogue alive.

The post Can Standards Survive Trade Wars and Sovereignty Battles? appeared first on Spherical Cow Consulting.

Part of Series : Dismantling False Allegations, One Claim at a Time By: Bruce Pon

Sheikh has claimed that the splitting of the Ocean community treasury across 30 wallets was somehow wrongful. He said this despite knowing that the act of splitting was entirely legitimate, as I explain below.

Source: X Spaces — Oct 9, 2025

@BubbleMaps has made this very helpful diagram to identify the flows of $FET from the Ocean community wallet (give them a follow):

https://x.com/bubblemaps/status/1980601840388723064

So, what’s the truth behind the distribution of $FET out of a single wallet and into 30 wallets?

Was it, as Sheikh claims, an ill-intentioned action to obfuscate the token flows and “dump” on the ASI community? Absolutely not.

First, it was done out of prudence. Given that a significant number of tokens were held in a single wallet, it was to reduce the risk of having the community treasury tokens hacked or otherwise vulnerable to bad actors. Clearly, spreading the tokens across 30 wallets greatly reduces the risk of their being hacked or forcefully taken compared to tokens being held in a single wallet.

Second, the spreading of the community treasury tokens across many wallets was something that Fetch and Singularity had themselves requested we do, to avoid causing problems with ETF deals which they had decided to enter into using $FET.

As presented in the previous “ASI Alliance from Ocean Perspective” blogpost, on Aug 13, 2025, Casigrahi, SingularityNet’s CFO, wrote an email to Ocean Directors, cc’ing Dr. Goertzel and Lake:

In it, he references 8 ETF deals in progress that were underway with institutional investors and the concerns that “the window — is open now” to close these deals.

Immediately after this email, Casigrahi reached out to a member of the Ocean community, explaining that such a large sum of $FET in the Ocean community wallet, which is not controlled by either Fetch or SingularityNET, would raise difficult questions from ETF issuers. Recall that Ocean did not participate in these side deals promoted by Fetch, and was often kept out of the loop, e.g. the TRNR deal.

Casiraghi requested (on behalf of Fetch and SingularityNET) that if the $FET in the Ocean community wallet could not be frozen, whether arrangements could be made to split the $FET tokens across multiple wallets?

Casiraghi explained that if this could be done with the $FET in the Ocean community wallet, Fetch and SingularityNET could plausibly deny the existence of a very large token holder which they had no control over. They could sweep it under the rug and avoid uncomfortable due diligence questions.

On Aug 16 2025, David Levy of Fetch called me with the same arguments, reasoning and plea, whether Ocean could obfuscate the tokens and split them across more wallets?

Incidentally, in this call Levy also for the first time, shared with me the details of the TRNR deal which alarmed me once I understood the implications (“TRNR” Section §12).

At this juncture, it should be recalled that the Ocean community wallet is under the control of Ocean Expeditions. The Ocean community member who spoke with Casiraghi, as well as myself, informed the Ocean Expeditions trustees of this request and reasoning. Thereafter a decision was made by the Ocean Expedition’s trustees, as an act of goodwill, to distribute the $FET across 30 wallets as requested by Fetch and SingularityNet.

Turning back to the bigger picture, as a pioneer in the blockchain space, I am obviously well aware that all token movements are absolutely transparent to the world. Any transfers are recorded immutably forever and can be traced easily by anyone with a modicum of basic knowledge. I build blockchains for a living. It is ridiculous to suggest that I or anyone in Ocean could have hoped to “conceal” tokens in this public manner.

A simple act of goodwill and cooperation that was requested by both Fetch and SingularityNET has instead been deliberately blown up by Sheikh, and painted as a malicious act to harm the ASI community.

Sheikh has now used the wallet distribution to launch an all-out assault on Ocean Expeditions and start a manhunt to identify the trustees of the Ocean Expeditions wallet.

Sheikh has wantonly spread lies, libel and misinformation to muddy the waters, construct a false narrative accusing Ocean and its founders of misappropriation, and to incite community sentiment against us.

Sheikh’s accusations and his twisting of the facts to mislead the community are so absurd that they would be laughable, if they were not so dangerous and harmful to the whole community.

Claim 1: The movement of $FET to 30 Different Wallets was allegedly “not right” — Disproven was originally published in Ocean Protocol on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Architecting a Data-Centric Identity Security Infrastructure 

As organizations build more interconnected digital ecosystems, securing identity is no longer just a component of cybersecurity—it is the foundation of protecting everything from data to devices. We are now seeing an unprecedented proliferation of machine identities, which frequently outnumber human identities. Yet traditional identity systems struggle to manage these effectively.  

Organizations grapple with fragmented, siloed identity data sources and IAM solutions leave blind spots and inefficiencies. The flexibility of using AI and mobile or personal devices for business operations further aggravates this issue.  

These security concerns become a critical pain point for larger enterprises that want to scale. Mergers and acquisitions complicate matters by combining disparate identity systems and policies. It frequently leads to conflicting identity data and compromised access management, posing severe security risks.  

What is the solution to making an organization’s identity security practices more effective and resilient, not just for the current threat landscape but also for next-gen risks?

The answer is to architect a data-centric identity security infrastructure, making identity data the cornerstone of all security decisions.

The Need for a Data-Centric Identity Security Infrastructure 

Traditionally, enterprises have addressed identity security problems individually, implementing separate solutions for Identity Governance and Administration (IGA), Privileged Access Management (PAM), access management, and SaaS-native systems like Microsoft Entra and Okta. Although individually functional, these tools collectively create fragmented identity data silos. As identity and application counts grow, these silos generate significant security gaps due to inconsistent data visibility and management. 

The solution lies in making identity data foundational. Identity data must be positioned at the core of every security decision, ensuring consistency, accuracy, and completeness across all processes related to authentication, authorization, and lifecycle management. 

The goal is to perfectly align with Gartner’s definition of identity-first security—an approach positioning identity-based access control as the cornerstone of cybersecurity. 

Implementing Gartner’s VIA Model 

To achieve data-centric identity security, Gartner’s VIA model (Visibility, Intelligence, Action) provides a clear and structured roadmap: 

Visibility: Establishing unified identity data visibility Intelligence: Analyzing data for actionable insights  Action: Executing real-time remediation based on intelligence

Each component is crucial for successful deployment. 

Visibility: Consolidating Fragmented Identity Data 

Organizations must first tackle fragmented identity data scattered across various sources—Active Directory, HR systems, PAM solutions, and cloud identity solutions. Consolidating these into an identity data lake is critical. This data lake must be data-agnostic, scalable, real-time, event-driven, and capable of handling vast volumes of data, both structured and unstructured. 

Once consolidated, raw identity data needs to be transformed into actionable information via a semantic layer. A semantic layer is a structured representation or model that organizes identity data into meaningful relationships and context. It turns fragmented, raw data into unified, easily understood information. 

In short, this semantic layer maps identity data into a coherent model providing unified visibility across human and non-human identities, entitlements, and actual usage. It must: 

Ensure that diverse identity data is standardized and unified  Break data silos by treating access uniformly, regardless of its source  Leverage a graph-based structure for intuitive, multi-dimensional navigation  Maintain data lineage for precise traceability and remediation  Intelligence: Identifying and Observing Anomalies 

The semantic layer significantly improves data coherence but often results in large volumes of information that are challenging to analyze manually. For this reason, the Intelligence layer’s role is crucial. It continuously observes identity data, focusing specifically on detecting: 

Deviations  Discrepancies  Unauthorized or abnormal changes  Risky behavior 

Organizations benefit less from routine events than from abnormal situations requiring immediate attention. Intelligence leverages queries, usage analysis, change detection, peer group baselining, and correlation techniques.  

Observations enrich the semantic layer, enhancing decision-making in downstream systems such as PAM, IGA, and access management platforms by providing crucial context around potential risks and anomalies. 

Action: Executing Flexible Remediation 

The Action layer addresses identified issues based on intelligence. This step requires a flexible approach, capable of adapting to different scenarios. Some actions may be straightforward, such as directly writing corrections back to endpoint systems. Others require interaction with existing cybersecurity tools—IGA, PAM, or ticketing systems—emphasizing the importance of well-maintained connectors and integrations. 

Remediation often critically requires consensus from stakeholders beyond IT security teams. Engaging the business stakeholders—the first line of defense, such as line managers and resource owners—is essential to distinguish legitimate threats from false positives. This engagement transforms the security system into a collaborative “security cockpit,” amplifying the cybersecurity team’s capabilities. 

Effective collaboration requires clear roles and responsibilities across all stakeholders, ensuring that ownership and accountability are well defined when addressing identity security risks. Additionally, seamless integration with everyday digital workplace tools like Slack or Microsoft Teams, possibly enhanced by LLM-based conversational interfaces, can significantly streamline interactions, enabling quick confirmations and decisions from non-technical stakeholders. 

Strengthening Identity Security with a Data-Centric Approach 

Building a data-centric identity security infrastructure using Gartner’s VIA model provides comprehensive benefits: 

Unified Visibility: Eliminates fragmented silos, creating a coherent identity view Actionable Intelligence: Proactively identifies risks and anomalies, enhancing threat detection Real-time Remediation: Ensures quick, precise actions tailored to diverse cybersecurity scenarios Collaborative Remediation: Actively involves non-technical stakeholders, significantly improving accuracy and response effectiveness

Ultimately, by placing identity data at the heart of security infrastructure, organizations significantly strengthen their security posture, achieving genuine, identity-first security. 

How RadiantOne Implements a Data-Centric Identity Security Infrastructure 

The RadiantOne platform simplifies and accelerates the transition to a data-centric identity security model. The solution consolidates identity data from legacy on-premises and cloud-based sources into a unified, standards-based, vendor-neutral identity data lake. This consolidation eliminates identity data silos and provides a global IAM data catalog with rich, attribute-enhanced user profiles. 

With RadiantOne, organizations can efficiently build unlimited virtual views of identity data that are unified across various protocols (LDAP, SQL, REST, SCIM, Web Service APIs). Its low-code/no-code transformation logic enables seamless data mapping, ensuring quick adaptability to changing business and security requirements without disrupting existing systems. 

RadiantOne scales to support hundreds of millions of identities, adding resilience and speed through a highly available, near real-time identity service. The solution automates identity data management, streamlines user and group management, rationalizes group memberships, and dynamically controls access rights. 

Its visibility capability provides a real-time, unified view of the situation for all human and non-human identities down to a permission level. Coupled with its observability capabilities, it spots misconfiguration and detects anomalies or abnormal changes to keep the identity landscape under control. 

Most notably, the platform’s AI-powered assistant, AIDA, simplifies user access reviews, swiftly identifying anomalies and providing actionable remediation suggestions. By automating tedious manual reviews, AIDA drastically reduces administrative effort and improves decision accuracy, making it easier to enforce a least-privilege approach and continuous compliance. 

The post Architecting a Data-Centric Identity Security Infrastructure appeared first on Radiant Logic | Unify, Observe, and Act on ALL Identity Data.

Make world-class protection accessible. Fastly’s new Managed Security Professional delivers 24/7 expert defense for your most critical apps and APIs.

We are launching a Liquidity Incentive Program (LIP) to reward Liquidity Providors (LPs) in the KILT:ETH Uniswap pool on Base.

The portal can be accessed here: liq.kilt.io

For the best experience, desktop/browser use is recommended.

Key Features The LIP offers rewards in KILT for contributing to the pool. Rewards are calculated according to the size of your LP and the time for which you have been part of the program. Your liquidity is not locked in any way; you can add or remove liquidity at any time. The portal does not take custody of your KILT or ETH; positions remain on Uniswap under your direct control. Rewards can be claimed after 24hrs, and then at any time of your choosing. You will need KILT (0x5D0DD05bB095fdD6Af4865A1AdF97c39C85ad2d8) on Base ETH or wETH on Base An EVM wallet (e.g. MetaMask etc.) Joining the LIP Overview

There are two steps to joining the LIP:

Add KILT and ETH/wETH to the Uniswap pool in a full-range position. The correct pool is v3 with 0.3% fees. Note that whilst part of the LIP you will continue to earn the usual Uniswap pool fees as well. Register this position on the Liquidity Portal. Your rewards will start automatically. 1) Adding Liquidity

Positions may be created either on Uniswap in the usual way, or directly via the portal. If you choose to create positions on Uniswap then return to the portal afterwards to register them.

To create a position via the portal:

Go to liq.kilt.io and connect your wallet. Under the Overview tab, you may use the Quick Add Liquidity function. For more features, go to the Add Liquidity tab where you can choose how much KILT and ETH to contribute. 2) Registering Positions

Once you have created a position, either on Uniswap or via the portal, return to the Overview tab

Your KILT:ETH positions will be displayed under Eligible Positions. Select your positions and Register them to enroll in the LIP. Monitoring your Positions and Rewards

Once registered, you can find your positions in the Positions tab. The Analytics tab provides more information, for example your time bonuses and details about each position’s contribution towards your rewards.

Claiming Rewards

Your rewards start accumulating from the moment you register, but the portal may not reflect this immediately. Go to the Rewards tab to view and claim your rewards. Rewards are locked for the first 24hrs, after which you may claim at any time.

Removing Liquidity

Your LP remains 100% under your control; there are no locks or other restrictions and you may remove liquidity at any time. This can be done in the usual way directly on Uniswap. Removing LP will not in any way affect rewards accumulated up to that time, but if you later re-join the program then any time bonuses will have been reset.

How are my Rewards Calculated?

Rewards are based on:

The value of your KILT/ETH position(s). The total combined value of the pool as a whole. The number of days your position(s) have been registered.

Rewards are calculated from the moment you register a position, but the portal may not reflect them right away.

Need Help?

Support is available in our telegram group: https://t.me/KILTProtocolChat

-The KILT Foundation

KILT Liquidity Incentive Program was originally published in kilt-protocol on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

 

Build a secure Python AI Agent with Microsoft Agent Framework and FastAPI and learn to use Auth0 Token Vault to securely connect to the Gmail API.

Remember when “seeing is believing” used to be the rule? Not anymore. The world is now facing an identity crisis, digital identity that is. As artificial intelligence advances, so do the fraudsters who use it. Deepfakes have gone from internet curiosities to boardroom threats, putting reputations, finances, and trust at risk.

Businesses worldwide are waking up to the danger of manipulated media and turning toward deepfake detection tools as a line of defense. These systems are becoming the business equivalent of a truth serum, helping companies verify authenticity before deception costs them dearly.

 

What Makes Deepfakes So Dangerous

A deepfake is an AI-generated video, image, or audio clip that convincingly mimics a real person. Using neural networks, these fakes can replicate facial movements, voice tones, and gestures so accurately that even experts struggle to tell them apart.

The technology itself isn’t inherently bad. In entertainment, it helps de-age actors or create realistic video games. The problem arises when it’s used for fraud, misinformation, or identity theft. A 2024 report by cybersecurity analysts revealed that over 40% of businesses had encountered at least one deepfake-related fraud attempt in the last year.

Common use cases that keep executives awake at night include:

Fake video calls where “executives” instruct employees to transfer money Synthetic job interviews where fraudsters impersonate real candidates False political or corporate statements are circulated to damage reputations

 

How Deepfake Detection Technology Works

The idea behind deepfake detection technology is simple: spot what looks real but isn’t. The execution, however, is complex. Detection systems use advanced machine learning and biometrics to analyze videos, images, and audio clips at a microscopic level.

Here’s a breakdown of common detection methods:

Technique What It Detects Purpose Pixel Analysis Lighting, shadows, unnatural edges Identifies visual manipulation Audio-Visual Sync Lip and speech mismatches Flags voice-over imposters Facial Geometry Mapping Eye movement, micro-expressions Validates natural human patterns Metadata Forensics Hidden file data Detects tampering or file regeneration

These methods form the core of most deepfake detection software. They look for details invisible to the human eye, like the way light reflects in a person’s eyes or how facial muscles move during speech. Even the slightest irregularity can trigger a red flag.

 

Deepfake Detection in Corporate Security

For organizations, adopting a deepfake detector isn’t just a security upgrade, it’s a necessity. Financial institutions, identity verification providers, and digital platforms are integrating these solutions to prevent fraud in real time.

A growing number of companies have fallen prey to AI-generated fraud, with criminals using fabricated voices or videos to trick employees into approving transactions. One European company reportedly lost 25 million dollars after a convincing fake video call with their “CFO.” That’s not a Hollywood plot, it’s a real-world case.

Businesses now use deepfake facial recognition and deepfake image detection tools to verify faces during high-risk transactions, onboarding, and identity verification. By combining biometric data with behavioral analytics, these tools make it nearly impossible for fakes to pass undetected.

 

Real-World Examples of Deepfake Fraud

 

Finance: A multinational bank used a deepfake detection tool to validate executive communications. Within six months, it blocked three fraudulent video call attempts that mimicked senior leaders. Recruitment: HR departments now use deepfake detection software to confirm job candidates are who they claim to be. AI-generated interviews have become a growing issue in remote hiring. Social Media: Platforms like Facebook and TikTok rely on deepfake face recognition systems to automatically flag and remove fake celebrity or political videos before they go viral.

Each case reinforces a key truth: deepfakes aren’t just a cybersecurity issue, they’re a trust issue.

 

 

Challenges in Detecting Deepfakes

Even with cutting-edge tools, detecting deepfakes remains a technological tug-of-war. Every time detection systems advance, generative AI models evolve to bypass them, creating an ongoing race between innovation and deception. Businesses face several persistent challenges in this fight.

One major issue is evolving algorithms, as AI models constantly learn new tricks that make fake content appear more authentic. Another key challenge is data bias, where systems trained on limited datasets may struggle to perform accurately across different ethnicities or under varied lighting conditions.

Additionally, high processing costs remain a concern, as real-time deepfake detection requires powerful hardware and highly optimized algorithms. On top of that, privacy concerns also play a role, since collecting facial data for analysis must align with global data protection laws such as the GDPR.

To address these challenges, open-source initiatives like Recognito Vision GitHub are fostering transparency and collaboration in AI-based identity verification research, helping bridge the gap between innovation and ethical implementation.

 

 

Integrating Deepfake Detection Into Identity Verification

Deepfakes pose the greatest risk to identity verification systems. Fraudsters use synthetic faces and voice clips to bypass onboarding checks and exploit weak verification processes.

To counter this, many companies integrate deepfake detect models with liveness detection, systems that determine if a face belongs to a live human being or a static image. By tracking subtle movements like blinking, breathing, or pupil dilation, these systems make it much harder for fake identities to pass.

If you’re interested in testing how liveness verification works, explore Recognito’s face liveness detection SDK and face recognition SDK. Both provide tools to identify fraud attempts during digital onboarding or biometric verification.

 

The Business Case for Deepfake Detection Tools

So why are companies investing heavily in this technology? Because it directly protects their money, reputation, and compliance status.

 

1. Fraud Prevention

Deepfakes enable social engineering attacks that traditional security systems can’t catch. Detection tools provide a safeguard against voice and video scams that target executives or employees.

2. Compliance with Data Regulations

Laws like GDPR and other digital identity regulations require companies to verify authenticity. Using deepfake detection technology supports compliance by ensuring every identity is legitimate.

3. Brand Integrity

One fake video can cause irreversible PR damage. Detection systems help safeguard brand image by filtering manipulated media before it spreads.

4. Consumer Confidence

Customers feel safer when they know your brand can identify real users from digital imposters. Trust is the new currency of business.

 

 

Popular Deepfake Detection Solutions in 2025 Tool Name Main Feature Ideal Use Case Reality Defender Multi-layer AI detection Financial institutions Deepware Scanner Video and image verification Cybersecurity firms Sensity AI Online content monitoring Social platforms Microsoft Video Authenticator Frame-by-frame confidence scoring Government and enterprise use

For businesses that want to experiment with AI-based face authentication, the Face biometric playground provides an interactive environment to test and understand how facial recognition and deepfake facial recognition systems perform under real-world conditions.

 

What’s Next for Deepfake Detection

The war between creation and detection is far from over. As generative AI improves, the line between real and fake will blur further. However, one thing remains certain, businesses that invest early in deepfake detection tools will be better prepared.

Future systems will likely combine blockchain validation, biometric encryption, and AI-powered forensics to ensure content authenticity. Collaboration between regulators, researchers, and businesses will be crucial to staying ahead of fraudsters.

 

Staying Real in a World of Fakes

The rise of deepfakes is rewriting the rules of digital trust. Businesses can no longer rely on human judgment alone. They need technology that looks beneath the surface, into the data itself.

Recognito is one of the pioneers helping organizations build that trust through reliable and ethical deepfake detection solutions, ensuring businesses stay one step ahead in an AI-powered world where reality itself can be rewritten.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

1. How can deepfake detection protect businesses from fraud?

Deepfake detection identifies fake videos or audio before they cause financial or reputational damage, protecting companies from scams and impersonation attempts.

 

2. What is the most accurate deepfake detection technology?

The most accurate systems combine biometric analysis, facial geometry mapping, and liveness detection to verify real human behavior.

 

3. Can deepfake detection software identify audio fakes too?

Yes, modern tools analyze pitch, tone, and rhythm to detect audio deepfakes along with visual ones.

 

4. Is deepfake detection compliant with data protection laws like GDPR?

Yes, when implemented responsibly. Businesses must process biometric data securely and follow data protection regulations.

 

5. How can companies start using deepfake detection tools?

Organizations can integrate off-the-shelf detection and liveness solutions into their existing identity verification systems to enhance security and prevent fraud.

oceanDAO (now Ocean Expeditions) is not a party to the ASI Alliance Token Merger Agreement and Ocean community tokens are not the property of the ASI Alliance By: Ocean Protocol Foundation

On Oct 9, 2025 in an X Space in response to the withdrawal of the Ocean Protocol Foundation from the ASI Alliance, Sheikh said:

“You don’t try and steal from the community and get away with it that quickly, because we’re not going to just let it go, right? In the sense that, if you didn’t want to be part of the community, why did you then go into the token which belonged to the community, or which belonged to the alliance?”

This statement is false, misleading, and libelous, and this blogpost will demonstrate why.

The only three parties to the ASI Alliance are Fetch.ai Foundation (Singapore), Ocean Protocol Foundation (Singapore) and SingularityNET Foundation (Switzerland).

Neither the oceanDAO, nor Ocean Expeditions, are a party to the ASI Alliance Token Merger Agreement.

This fact, that oceanDAO (now Ocean Expeditions) is a wholly independent 3rd party from Ocean, was disclosed (Section §6) to Fetch and SingularityNET in May 2024 as part of the merger discussions.

Sheikh appears to deliberately conflate the Ocean Protocol Foundation with oceanDAO, as a tactic to mislead the community. To be clear, oceanDAO is a separate organisation that was formed in 2021 and then incorporated as Ocean Expeditions in June 2025. The reasons for this incorporation have been set out in an earlier blog post here: (https://blog.oceanprotocol.com/the-asi-alliance-from-oceans-perspective-f7848b2ad61f)

The Ocean community treasury remains in the custodianship of Ocean Expeditions guardians via a duly established, wholly legal trust in the Cayman Islands.

Every $FET token holder has sovereign property rights over its own tokens and is not answerable to the ASI Alliance as to what it does with its tokens.

Ocean Expeditions has no legal obligations to the ASI Alliance. Rather, the ASI Alliance has a clear obligation towards Ocean Expeditions as a token holder.

As a reminder relating to Fetch.ai obligations under the Token Merger Agreement, Fetch.ai is under a legally binding obligation to inject the remaining 110.9 million $FET into the $OCEAN:$FET token bridge and migration contract, and keep them available for any $OCEAN token holder who wishes to exercise their right to convert to $FET. To date, this obligation remains unmet. Fetch.ai must immediately execute this legally mandated action.

Any published information regarding this matter, unless confirmed officially by Ocean Protocol Foundation, should be assumed false.

We also request that Fetch.ai, Sheikh and all other ASI Alliance spokesmen refrain from confusing the public with false, misleading and libelous allegations that any tokens have been in any way “stolen”.

The $FET tokens Sheikh refers to are safely with Ocean Expeditions, for the sole benefit of the Ocean community.

Q&A

Q: There has recently been talk of Ocean “returning” tokens to ASI Alliance, through negotiated agreement. What’s that about?

A: This is complete nonsense. There are no tokens to return because no tokens were “stolen” or “taken”. Accordingly, it would make no sense to “return” any such tokens.

Ocean Community Tokens are the Property of Ocean Expeditions was originally published in Ocean Protocol on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Learn how to secure your AI agents to prevent Excessive Agency, a top OWASP LLM vulnerability, by implementing a Zero Trust model.

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State IT modernization is a perpetual challenge. For new technologies like verifiable digital credentials (secure, digital versions of physical IDs), this presents a classic "chicken and egg" problem: widespread adoption by residents and businesses is necessary to justify the investment, but that adoption won't happen without a robust ecosystem of places to use them. How can states ensure the significant investments they make today will build a foundation for a resilient and trusted digital future?

State IT leaders face increasing pressure to modernize aging infrastructure, combat rising security threats, and overcome stubborn data silos. These challenges are magnified by tight budgets and the pervasive risk of vendor lock-in. With a complex landscape of competing standards, making the right strategic decision is more difficult than ever. This uncertainty stifles the growth needed for a thriving digital identity ecosystem. The drive for modernization is clear, with over 65% of state and local governments, according to industry research, on a digital transformation journey.

Here, we'll offer a clear, actionable framework for state technology decision-makers: a practical checklist to evaluate technologies on their adherence to open standards. By embracing these principles, states can make informed choices that foster sustainable innovation and avoid costly pitfalls, aligning with a broader vision for open, secure, and interoperable digital systems that empower citizens and governments alike.

The Risks of Niche Technology

Choosing proprietary or niche technologies can seem like a shortcut, but it often leads to a dead end. These systems create hidden costs that drain resources and limit a state's ability to adapt. The financial drain extends beyond initial procurement to include escalating licensing fees, expensive custom integrations, and unpredictable upgrade paths that leave little room for innovation.

Operationally, these systems create digital islands. When a new platform doesn't speak the same language as existing infrastructure, it reinforces the data silos that effective government aims to eliminate. This lack of interoperability complicates everything from inter-agency collaboration to delivering seamless services to residents. For digital identity credentials, the consequences are even more direct. If a citizen's new digital ID isn't supported across jurisdictions or by key private sector partners, its utility plummets, undermining the entire rationale for the program.

Perhaps the greatest risk is vendor lock-in. Dependence on a single provider for maintenance, upgrades, and support strips a state of its negotiating power and agility. As a key driver for government IT leaders, avoiding vendor lock-in is a strategic priority. Niche systems also lack the broad, transparent community review that strengthens security. Unsupported or obscure software can harbor unaddressed vulnerabilities, a risk highlighted by data showing organizations running end-of-life systems are three times more likely to fail a compliance audit.

Embracing the Power of Open Standards for State IT

The most effective way to mitigate these risks is to build on a foundation of open standards. In the context of IT, an open standard is a publicly accessible specification developed and maintained through a collaborative and consensus-driven process. It ensures non-discriminatory usage rights, community-driven governance, and long-term viability. For verifiable digital credentials, this includes critical specifications like the ISO mDL standard for mobile driver's licenses (ISO 18013-5 and 18013-7), W3C Verifiable Credentials, and IETF SD-JWTs. The principles of open standards, however, extend far beyond digital credentials to all critical IT infrastructure decisions.

Adopting this approach delivers many core benefits for State government. First is enhanced interoperability, which allows disparate systems to communicate seamlessly. This breaks down data silos and improves service delivery, a principle demonstrated by the U.S. Department of State's Open Data Plan, which prioritizes open formats to ensure portability. Second, open standards foster robust security. The transparent development process allows for broad community review, which leads to faster identification of vulnerabilities and more secure, vetted protocols.

Third, they provide exceptional adaptability and future-proofing. By reducing vendor lock-in, open standards enable states to easily upgrade systems and integrate new technologies without costly overhauls. This was the goal of Massachusetts' pioneering 2003 initiative to ensure long-term control over its public records. Fourth is significant cost-effectiveness. Open standards foster competitive markets, reducing reliance on expensive proprietary licenses and enabling the reuse of components. For government agencies, cost reduction is a primary driver for adoption.

Finally, this approach accelerates innovation. With 96% of organizations maintaining or increasing their use of open-source software, it is clear that shared, stable foundations create a fertile ground for a broader ecosystem of tools and expertise.

The State IT Open Standards Checklist

This actionable checklist provides clear criteria for state IT leaders, procurement officers, and policymakers to evaluate any new digital identity technology or system. Use this framework to ensure technology investments are resilient, secure, and future-proof.

Ability to Support Privacy Controls: Does the technology inherently support all state privacy controls, or can a suitable privacy profile be readily created and enforced? Technologies that enable privacy-preserving techniques like selective disclosure and zero-knowledge proofs are critical for building public trust. Alignment with Use Cases: Does the standard enable real-world transactions that are critical to residents and relying parties? This includes everything from proof-of-age for controlled purchases and access to government benefits to streamlined Know Your Customer (KYC) checks that support Bank Secrecy Act modernization. Ecosystem Size and Maturity: Does the standard have a healthy base of adopters? Look for active participation from multiple vendors and demonstrated investment from both public and private sectors. A mature ecosystem includes support from major platforms like Apple Wallet and Google Wallet, indicating broad market acceptance. Number of Vendors: Are there multiple independent vendors supporting the standard? A competitive marketplace fosters innovation, drives down costs, and is a powerful defense against vendor lock-in. Level of Investment: Is there clear evidence of sustained investment in tools, reference implementations, and commercial deployments? This indicates long-term viability and a commitment from the community to support and evolve the standard. A strong identity governance framework depends on this long-term stability. Standards Body Support: Is the standard governed by a credible and recognized standards development organization? Bodies like ISO, W3C, IETF, and the OpenID Foundation ensure a neutral, globally-vetted process that builds consensus and promotes stability. Interoperability Implementations: Has the standard demonstrated successful cross-vendor and cross-jurisdiction implementations? Look for evidence of conformance testing or a digital ID certification program that validates wallet interoperability and ensures a consistent user experience. Account/Credential Compromise and Recovery: How does the technology handle worst-case scenarios like stolen private keys or lost devices? Prioritize standards that support a robust VDC lifecycle, including credential revocation. A clear process for credential revocation, such as using credential status lists, is essential for maintaining trust. Scalability: Has the technology been proven in scaled, production use cases? Assess whether scaling requires custom infrastructure, which increases operational risk, or if it relies on standard, well-understood techniques. Technologies that align with established standards like NIST SP 800-63A digital identity at IAL2 or IAL3, and leverage proven cloud architectures, offer a more reliable path to large-scale deployment. Building for tomorrow, today

The strategic shift towards globally supported open standards is not just a technological choice; it is a critical imperative for states committed to modernizing responsibly and sustainably. It is the difference between building disposable applications and investing in durable digital infrastructure.

By adopting this forward-thinking mindset and leveraging the provided checklist, state IT leaders can confidently navigate the complexities of digital identity procurement. This approach empowers states to build resilient, secure, and adaptable IT infrastructure that truly future-proofs public services.

About SpruceID: SpruceID is building a future where users control their identity and data across all digital interactions. We build privacy-preserving digital identity infrastructure that empowers people and organizations to control their data. Governments, financial institutions, and enterprises use SpruceID’s technology to issue, verify, and manage digital credentials based on open standards.

INNOPAY Sponsors GLEIF’s Global Forum on Digital Organisational Identity & vLEI Hackathon 2025 from 02 Dec 2025 till 02 Dec 2025 Trudy Zomer 24 October 2025 - 16:11 Frankfurt, Germany

On 2 December 2025, the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) will host its Global Forum on Digital Organizational Identity in Frankfurt, featuring the Grand Finale of the vLEI Hackathon. INNOPAY is proud to sponsor this initiative.

The Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) invites developers, entrepreneurs, and innovators worldwide to harness the power of digital organizational identity and redefine how trust is established in the digital economy.

As industries accelerate their digital transformation, the demand for digital organisational identity is greater than ever. Spanning machine-to-machine interactions and next-generation business wallets, the verifiable Legal Entity Identifier (vLEI) unlocks new opportunities for transparency, automation, and compliance.

On the event day, the finalists of the second theme of the vLEI Hackathon, which focuses on Industry 4.0, will present their technical solution. At the end of the event, the winner and runner-up will be officially announced.

More information about the vLEI Hackathon can be found on the GLEIF website: https://www.gleif.org/en/newsroom/events/gleif-vlei-hackathon-2025

The post Enhancing Risk Insights by Integrating KYC Data with Transaction Monitoring appeared first on uqudo.

Fraud today is a work of gangs that operate across borders. Worth more than $1 trillion, this industry doesn’t just steal money – it destroys lives. In the first part of our fraud series, we explore who is behind the fastest-growing schemes today, where are the hubs of so-called scam compounds and what financial organizations must understand about their opponent. 

For decades, pop culture painted fraudsters as solitary figures hunched over laptops in darkened rooms. That stereotype is not only wrong, it is dangerously outdated. Today’s most damaging scams are orchestrated by global crime syndicates spanning every continent. These networks build tens of thousands-strong operations, traffic people, train their “staff” and basically operate like Fortune 100 companies, but their product is deception, and the victims pay the cost. 

Their scale is staggering: global fraud reached over $1 trillion in 2024. The numbers, however, tell only part of the story. The fastest-growing schemes today are app-based and social engineering scams, which are also the most common types of fraud affecting banks and financial institutions, causing record losses from reimbursements and compliance costs. 

These attacks not only target systems, but exploit people, undermining trust in financial institutions, regulators, and courts, while also supporting human trafficking and forced labor. Behind every fake investment ad or romance scam lies a darker reality: compounds where people are held captive and forced to defraud strangers across the world. 

Global scam centres: Where to find them 

When most people think of criminal gangs, they imagine shadowy figures operating from jungles or remote hideouts. But the criminals behind the world’s largest fraud rings work very differently. These aren’t small-time operations running in the dark, they’re industrial-scale enterprises operating in plain sight. 

Their structure closely mirrors those of legitimate businesses with executives overseeing operations, middle managers coaching employees and tracking KPIs and frontline workers executing scams via phone, social media or messaging apps.  

Their facilities are not hidden in basements. They are large, purpose-built sites, often converted from former hotels, casinos or business parks. Located primarily in Southeast Asia – in Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam, and the Philippines – but increasingly also in Africa and Eastern Europe, these complexes can be vast. Investigators have uncovered huge compounds where hundreds of people work in rotating shifts, day and night. Some sites are so large they have been described as “villages,” covering dozens of acres, with syndicates often running multiple locations across regions. At scale, this means a single network can control thousands of people. 

However, not all people who work for syndicates on site, are there voluntarily. In fact, most of the front-line workers and call centre agents are victims of human trafficking. Lured by the promise of big money and escape from poverty, they travel across borders, only to find themselves kidnapped, captured and coerced into deceiving others.  

Life inside scam compounds: A prison disguised as an office 

On-site structure is designed to sustain a captive workforce. They include dormitories, shops, entertainment rooms, kitchens and even small clinics. On the surface, these facilities might resemble employee perks, and for vulnerable recruits from poorer backgrounds, they can even sound appealing, but the reality is dark: rows of desks, bunkrooms stacked with beds, CCTV cameras monitoring every corner, kitchens feeding hundreds. With razor-wire fences and armed guards at the gates, these compounds look more like prisons rather than offices. And in many ways, that is exactly what they are. 

The “masterminds” of the crime ecosystem 

Behind the compounds lies a web of transnational operators and a shadow service economy. The organisers of these operations come in many forms – from criminal entrepreneurs diversifying from drugs to online scams, to networks linked with regional crime groups such as Southeast Asian gangs, Chinese or Eastern European syndicates, and illicit operators tied to South American cartels. In some places, politically connected actors or local elites profit from – and even protect – these operations, ensuring they continue with little interference. 

Another layer consists of companies that appear legitimate on paper but in reality, supply the infrastructure that keeps the fraud industry running: phone numbers, fake identity documents, shell firms and payment processors willing to handle high-risk transactions. Investigations have uncovered, how underground service providers and proxy accounts help scammers move victims’ money through banks and into crypto using fake invoices and front companies as cover.  

It’s an industrial-scale business model: acquisition channels built on fake ads, call centres with scripts and a laundering pipeline powered by mules, shell companies and crypto gateways. The setup is remarkably resilient – shut down one centre or payment route, and the network simply reroutes through another provider or jurisdiction. 

How fraud hurts banks and other financial companies  

For banks and financial firms, the impact is severe. Direct financial losses and costs to financial institutions are significant and rising. Banks, fintechs and credit unions report substantial direct fraud losses: nearly 60% reported losing over $500k in direct fraud in a 12-month period and a large share reported losses over $1m. These trends force firms to allocate budget away from growth into loss-prevention and remediation.  

Payment fraud at scale also increases operational and compliance costs. For example, in 2022, payment fraud was reported at €4.3 billion in European Economic Area and consumer-reported losses in other jurisdictions show multi-billion-dollar annual impacts that increase every year – all of which ripple into higher Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) volumes, Anti-Money Laundering (AML) investigations and strained dispute and reimbursement processes for banks. These costs are both direct (reimbursed losses) and indirect (investigation time, compliance staffing, fines, customer churn and reputational damage). 

Banks face a daily balancing act: tighten controls and risk frustrating customers or loosen them and risk becoming a target. Either way, regulators demand ever-stronger safeguards. And even though stronger authentication and checks can increase drop-offs during onboarding or transactions, failure to comply risks exposure to legal and regulatory trouble (recent cases tied to payment rails illustrate how banks can face large remediation obligations and lawsuits if controls are perceived as inadequate). 

The long-term consequences, however, go beyond operational complexity. Fraud undermines customer trust, which is the foundation of finance. It increases costs, slows innovation and forces financial institutions to redesign products with restrictions that customers feel but rarely understand. And this can lead to a long-term loss of market share. 

What financial institutions must understand about the opponent 

Banks are not fighting individual perpetrators. They are facing industrialized criminal organizations. To defeat them, defensive measures must also be organized accordingly. 

This means moving beyond isolated controls toward systemic resilience: robust fraud checks, stronger identity verification, continuous monitoring, transaction orchestration and faster coordination with law enforcement. But technology alone is not enough. Collaboration across institutions and industries is crucial to disrupt fraud networks that operate globally. 

How financial organizations can protect themselves against financial crime 

Financial firms should invest in multi-layered identity checks combining document, liveness and behavioral signals (like the ones offered by IDnow); integrate real-time AML orchestration to flag mule activity early (like the soon-to-be-launched IDnow Trust Platform); and participate in intelligence-sharing networks that connect patterns across borders.  

Fraud is no longer a fringe crime. It’s a billion-dollar corporate machine. To dismantle it, financial institutions must shift from investigating fraud after it happens to preventing it before it strikes, stopping both criminals and socially engineered victims before any loss occurs. 

By

Nikita Rybová
Customer & Product Marketing Manager at IDnow
Connect with Nikita on LinkedIn

Thales Alenia Space strengthens Spanish space industry leadership through its participation in SpainSat NG II satellite tas Fri, 10/24/2025 - 08:42 Space

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Facebook X Whatsapp Linkedin Email URL copied to clipboard 24 Oct 2025 The Spanish secure communications satellite SpainSat NG II, successfully launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, will provide services to the Armed Forces and international organizations such as the European Commission and NATO, as well as to the governments of allied countries. Thales Alenia Space, together with Airbus Defence and Space, has led the development and construction of the SpainSat NG satellites. The company, involved in different areas of the project, has been responsible for the integration of the Communication Module for both satellites along with Airbus in a dedicated clean room built for this purpose at its Tres Cantos facilities in Madrid, making it the largest satellite system ever assembled in Spain to date.

 

Madrid, October 24, 2025 - The secure communications satellite SpainSat NG II has successfully been launched by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The SPAINSAT NG system will ensure secure communications for the Spanish Armed Forces and allied countries for decades to come.

SPAINSAT NG, a program led, owned and operated by Hisdesat Servicios Estratégicos S.A., is considered to be the most ambitious space project in Spain’s history, both due to its performance and the outstanding involvement of the national industry. The SpainSat NG satellites are among the most advanced telecommunications birds in the world. They operate from geostationary orbit in X, military Ka and UHF frequency bands, used for high throughput secure communications, enabling to provide dual, secure and resilient services to the Spanish Armed Forces, as well as to international organizations such as the European Commission, NATO, and allied countries.

 

© Airbus

Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), together with Airbus Defence and Space, has led the execution and construction of the satellites. In Spain, the company has been responsible for the UHF and military Ka-band payloads and, together with Airbus, for the integration of the communication Modules, which embark the communication payloads and forms the core of their advanced technological capabilities.

 

Ismael López, CEO of Thales Alenia Space in Spain, said: “This launch marks the culmination of a transformative project for the Spanish space industry. We thank Hisdesat and the Ministry of Defense for the trust placed in our company to lead, for the first time in Spain, the development of the communications payloads for the SPAINSAT NG geostationary satellites. For our teams in Madrid, successfully overcoming a challenge of this magnitude places the national space industry on a higher level.”

 

State-of-the-art satellite technology in Madrid

To carry out this mission, the company built a satellite assembly and integration clean room at its Tres Cantos site in Madrid, inaugurated in 2021, and specifically designed to integrate the communication modules of both satellites. These advanced and cutting-edge facilities make it possible to integrate and test large-scale, highly complex satellite systems, capabilities that until now were only within the reach of a few space powers worldwide.

For the first time in Spain, these facilities have enabled the integration of a module weighting more than 2 tons and measuring 6 meters in height, fully equipped with cutting-edge space communications technology and comprising hundreds of sophisticated electronic units.

Additionally, Thales Alenia Space has designed and manufactured in Spain, France, Italy, and Belgium over 200 electronic and radiofrequency units that are an integral part of the communications payloads and the satellite's telecommand and telemetry system. Among them are the UHF processor, the core of the UHF payload; the Digital Transparent Processor (DTP) that interconnects the payloads in the X and military Ka bands; and the Hilink unit, responsible for providing a high-speed service link that will facilitate a quick reconfiguration of the payloads.
 

About Thales Alenia Space

Drawing on over 40 years of experience and a unique combination of skills, expertise and cultures, Thales Alenia Space delivers cost-effective solutions for telecommunications, navigation, Earth observation, environmental monitoring, exploration, science and orbital infrastructures. Governments and private industry alike count on Thales Alenia Space to design satellite-based systems that provide anytime, anywhere connections and positioning, monitor our planet, enhance management of its resources and explore our Solar System and beyond. Thales Alenia Space sees space as a new horizon, helping build a better, more sustainable life on Earth. A joint venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), Thales Alenia Space also teams up with Telespazio to form the Space Alliance, which offers a complete range of solutions including services. Thales Alenia Space posted consolidated revenues of €2.23 billion in 2024 and has more than 8,100 employees in 7 countries with 14 sites in Europe.

View PDF market_segment : Space thales-alenia-space-strengthens-spanish-space-industry-leadership-through-its-participation-spainsat On

Thales named Frost & Sullivan’s 2025 company of the year in Automated Border Control prezly Fri, 10/24/2025 - 07:00 Public Security National security Civil Aviation

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Facebook X Whatsapp Linkedin Email URL copied to clipboard 24 Oct 2025 Thales, a global leader in cybersecurity and identity management, has been recognized by Frost & Sullivan as Company of the Year 2025 in the Automated Border Control (ABC) eGates industry. This award underscores Thales’s ability to consistently innovate, deliver scalable and sustainable solutions, and set new standards for border security and passenger experience worldwide. Frost & Sullivan emphasized Thales’s proven ability to deliver at scale, its close collaboration with ministries of interior and airport operators, and its forward-looking strategy that integrates regulatory compliance, digital identity, and sustainability.

As governments and airports face rising passenger volumes, new regulatory requirements such as the European Entry Exit System (EES), and evolving security threats, Thales’s solutions help strike the right balance between strong security and traveller convenience. Frost & Sullivan praised Thales’s end-to-end expertise, customer focus, and ability to design systems that are modular, eco-conscious, and powered by advanced biometrics and artificial intelligence.

At the heart of Thales’s innovation is the traveller experience. Crossing a border that once meant long queues and stressful procedures can now be completed in less than 15 seconds. A passenger simply presents their passport, looks briefly at a camera, and passes through an automated gate thanks to biometric verification and real-time checks.

This simplicity is supported by advanced technology:

Cybersecurity by design, embedding data protection, privacy by default, and role-based access control to ensure secure, compliant and resilient identity verification. Multi-modal biometrics (face, fingerprint, iris) with AI-driven accuracy and liveness detection. Flexible, modular eGates adaptable to any border or airport environment. Digital identity frameworks aligned with international standards. Sustainable engineering, using lightweight, recycled materials and designs that extend product life.

From a deployment perspective, Thales strengthens its leadership in border security with a diversified global footprint, operating across numerous border points worldwide. The company’s expansive presence spans Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, and North America, with landmark projects including the deployment of hundreds of eGates and self-service kiosks in countries such as France, Spain, and Belgium.

These deployments highlight the positive impact on citizens: smoother journeys, less time waiting, and greater trust in border security. For governments and border agencies, the result is higher throughput, enhanced resilience, and full regulatory compliance. For airports, it means more efficient operations and stronger passenger satisfaction.

We are honored to receive this recognition from Frost & Sullivan. At Thales, we believe that security and passenger experience must go hand in hand. From France to India, our border control solutions allow millions of travellers to cross borders every day with greater speed, trust, and confidence. This award reflects the dedication of our teams and our commitment to helping governments and airports around the world shape the future of secure, seamless travel” commented Emmanuel Wang, Border & Travel Director at Thales.

About Thales

Thales (Euronext Paris: HO) is a global leader in advanced technologies for the Defence, Aerospace, and Cyber & Digital sectors. Its portfolio of innovative products and services addresses several major challenges: sovereignty, security, sustainability and inclusion.

The Group invests more than €4 billion per year in Research & Development in key areas, particularly for critical environments, such as Artificial Intelligence, cybersecurity, quantum and cloud technologies.

Thales has more than 83,000 employees in 68 countries. In 2024, the Group generated sales of €20.6 billion.

View PDF market_segment : Enterprise + Public Security > National security + Civil Aviation > Airports https://thales-group.prezly.com/thales-named-frost--sullivans-2025-company-of-the-year-in-automated-border-control thales-named-frost-sullivans-2025-company-year-automated-border-control On Thales named Frost & Sullivan’s 2025 company of the year in Automated Border Control

After months of preparation, the HPP mainnet is live, our core technologies are stable, and we are now entering the most exciting phase of our journey — growth and adoption.

1. Technical Milestones Achieved

All major technical roadmaps have been met and are now production-ready. This includes the mainnet launch and multiple project integrations across the HPP ecosystem. The network is built for scale, equipped for cross-chain connectivity, and ready for full activation.

2. Migration and Market Readiness

The migration infrastructure, which includes the official bridge and migration portal, is complete and fully tested. Legacy Aergo and AQT token holders will be able to transition seamlessly into HPP through a secure, verifiable process designed to ensure accuracy and transparency across chains.

With the full network framework in place, HPP is now entering the growth and liquidity phase. We are in coordination with several major exchanges to align token listings, update technical integrations, and synchronize branding across trading platforms. These efforts aim to create a strong, sustainable market structure that supports institutional participation, community accessibility, and long-term ecosystem stability.

3. Building a Real-World Breakthrough

We are developing one of the most significant blockchain real-world use cases to date. This initiative combines a large user base, mission-critical data, and enterprise-grade requirements. It will demonstrate how our L2 infrastructure can power high-value, data-driven applications that go beyond typical blockchain use cases.

At the same time, we are working with enterprise partners, including early Aergo collaborators, to adopt HPP’s advanced features through the Noosphere layer.

4. Keeping You Updated

To ensure full transparency, we are continuously updating our HPP Living Roadmap, a real-time tracker that shows ongoing technical progress, upcoming milestones, and partner developments as they happen.

The technology is ready, the ecosystem is forming, and the next phase is set to begin. HPP is moving from readiness to execution, and the wait is almost over.

HPP Update: Technology Ready, Market Expansion Underway was originally published in Aergo (HPP) on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Read the first installment in our series on The Future of Digital Identity in America here and the second installment here.

If policy sets the rules of the road, technology lays the pavement. Without strong technical foundations, decentralized identity would remain an inspiring vision but little more. What makes it real are the advances in cryptography, open standards, and system design that let people carry credentials in their own wallets, present them securely, and protect their privacy along the way. These technologies aren’t abstract: they are already running in production, powering mobile driver’s licenses, digital immigration pilots, and cross-border banking use cases.

Why Technology Matters for Identity

Identity is the trust layer of the digital world. Every interaction - logging into a platform, applying for a loan, proving eligibility for benefits - depends on it. Yet today, that trust layer is fractured. We scatter our identity across countless accounts and passwords. We rely on federated logins controlled by Big Tech platforms. Businesses pour money into fraud prevention while governments struggle to verify citizens securely.

The costs of this fragmentation are staggering. In 2024 alone, Americans reported record losses of $16.6 billion to internet crime (FBI IC3) and $12.5 billion to consumer fraud (FTC). At the institutional level, the average cost of a U.S. data breach hit $10.22 million in 2025 (IBM). And the risks are accelerating: synthetic identity fraud drained an estimated $35 billion in 2023 (Federal Reserve), while FinCEN has warned that criminals are now using deepfakes, synthetic documents, and AI-generated audio to bypass traditional checks at scale.

Decentralized identity offers a way forward; but, only if the technology can make it reliable, usable, and interoperable. That’s where verifiable credentials, decentralized identifiers, cryptography, and open standards come in.

The Standards that Make it Work

Every successful infrastructure layer in technology—whether it was TCP/IP for the internet or HTTPS for secure web traffic—has been built on standards. Decentralized identity is no different. Standards ensure that issuers, holders, and verifiers can interact without building one-off integrations or relying on proprietary systems.

Here are the key ones shaping today’s decentralized identity landscape:

W3C Verifiable Credentials (VCs): This is the universal data model for digital credentials. A VC is essentially a cryptographically signed digital version of something like a driver’s license, diploma, or membership card. It defines how the credential is structured (with attributes, metadata, and signatures) so that anyone who receives it knows how to parse and verify it. Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs): DIDs are globally unique identifiers that are cryptographically verifiable and not tied to any single registry. Unlike email addresses or usernames, which depend on central providers, a DID is self-sovereign. For example, a university might issue a credential to did:example:university12345. The DID resolves to metadata (such as public keys) that allows verifiers to check signatures and authenticity. OID4VCI and OID4VP (OpenID for Verifiable Credential Issuance and Presentation): These protocols define how credentials move between systems. They extend OAuth2 and OpenID Connect, the same standards that handle billions of secure logins each day. With OID4VCI, you can request and receive a credential securely from an issuer. With OID4VP, you can present that credential to a verifier. This reuse of familiar login plumbing makes adoption easier for developers and enterprises. SD-JWT (Selective Disclosure JWTs): A new extension of JSON Web Tokens that enables selective disclosure directly within a familiar JWT format. Instead of revealing all fields in a token, SD-JWTs let the holder decide which claims to disclose, while still allowing the verifier to check the issuer’s signature. This bridges modern privacy-preserving features with the widespread JWT ecosystem already in use across industries. ISO/IEC 18013-5 and 18013-7: These international standards define how mobile driver’s licenses (mDLs) are presented both in person and online. For example, 18013-5 specifies the NFC and QR code mechanisms for proving your identity at a checkpoint without handing over your phone. 18013-7 expands these definitions to online use cases—critical for remote verification scenarios. ISO/IEC 23220-4 (mdocs): A broader framework for mobile documents (mdocs), extending beyond driver’s licenses to other government-issued credentials like passports, resident permits, or voter IDs. This standard provides a consistent way to issue and verify digital documents across multiple contexts, supporting both offline and online verification. NIST SP 800-63-4: The National Institute of Standards and Technology publishes the “Digital Identity Guidelines,” setting out levels of assurance (LOAs) for identity proofing and authentication. The latest revision reflects the shift toward verifiable credentials and modern assurance methods. U.S. federal agencies and financial institutions often rely on NIST guidance as their baseline for compliance.

Reading the list above, you may realize that one challenge in following this space is the sheer number of credential formats in play—W3C Verifiable Credentials, ISO mDLs, ISO 23220 mdocs, and SD-JWTs, among others. Each has its strengths: VCs offer flexibility across industries, ISO standards are backed by governments and transportation regulators, and SD-JWTs connect privacy-preserving features with the massive JWT ecosystem already used in enterprise systems. The key recommendation for anyone trying to make sense of “what’s best” is not to pick a single winner, but to look for interoperability.

Wallets, issuers, and verifiers should be designed to support multiple formats, since different industries and jurisdictions will inevitably favor different standards. In practice, the safest bet is to align with open standards bodies (W3C, ISO, IETF, OpenID Foundation) and ensure your implementation can bridge formats rather than being locked into just one.

The following sections detail (in a vastly oversimplified way, some may argue) the strengths, weaknesses, and best fit by credential format type.

W3C Verifiable Credentials (VCs)

A flexible, standards-based data model for any kind of digital credential, maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

Strengths: Broadly applicable across industries, highly extensible, and supports advanced privacy techniques like selective disclosure and zero-knowledge proofs. Limitations: Still maturing; ecosystem flexibility can lead to fragmentation without a specific implementation profile; certification programs are less mature than ISO-based approaches; requires investment in verifier readiness. Best fit: Used by universities, employers, financial institutions, and governments experimenting with general-purpose digital identity. ISO/IEC 18013-5 & 18013-7 (Mobile Driver’s Licenses, or mDLs)

International standards defining how mobile driver’s licenses are issued, stored, and verified.

Strengths: Mature international standards already deployed in U.S. state pilots; supported by TSA TSIF testing for federal checkpoint acceptance; backed by significant TSA investment in CAT-2 readers nationwide; privacy-preserving offline verification. Limitations: Narrow scope (focused on driver’s licenses); complex implementation; limited support outside government and DMV contexts. Best fit: State DMVs, airports, traffic enforcement, and retail environments handling age-restricted sales. ISO/IEC 23220-4 (“Mobile Documents,” or mdocs)

A broader ISO definition expanding mDL principles to other official credentials such as passports, residence permits, and social security cards.

Strengths: Extends interoperability to a broader range of credentials; supports both offline and online presentation; aligned with existing ISO frameworks. Limitations: Still early in deployment; adoption and vendor support are limited compared to mDLs. Best fit: Immigration, cross-border travel, and civil registry systems. SD-JWT (Selective Disclosure JSON Web Tokens)

A privacy-preserving evolution of JSON Web Tokens (JWTs), adding selective disclosure capabilities to an already widely used web and enterprise identity format.

Strengths: Easy to adopt within existing JWT ecosystems; enables selective disclosure without requiring new infrastructure or wallets. Limitations: Less flexible than VCs; focused on direct issuer-to-verifier interactions; limited for long-term portability or offline use. Best fit: Enterprise identity, healthcare, and fintech environments already built around JWT-based authentication and access systems.

Together, these standards create the backbone of interoperability. They ensure that a credential issued by the California DMV can be recognized at TSA, or that a diploma issued by a European university can be trusted by a U.S. employer. Without them, decentralized identity would splinter into silos. With them, it has the potential to scale globally.

How Trust Flows Between Issuers, Holders, and Verifiers

Decentralized identity works through a triangular relationship between issuers, holders, and verifiers. Issuers (such as DMVs, universities, or employers) create credentials. Holders (the individuals) store them in their wallets. Verifiers (such as banks, retailers, or government agencies) request proofs.

What makes this model revolutionary is that issuers and verifiers don’t need to know each other directly. Trust doesn’t come from an integration between the DMV and the bank, for example. It comes from the credential itself. The DMV signs a driver’s license credential. You carry it. When you present it to a bank, the bank simply checks the DMV’s digital signature.

Think about going to a bar. Today, you hand over a plastic driver’s license with far more information than the bartender needs. With decentralized identity, you would simply present a cryptographic proof that says, “I am over 21,” without revealing your name or address. The bartender’s system verifies the DMV’s signature and that’s it - proof without oversharing.

Cryptography at Work

To make this work, at the core of decentralized identity lies one deceptively simple but immensely powerful concept: the digital signature.

A digital signature is created when an issuer (say, a DMV or a university) uses its private key to sign a credential. This cryptographic signature is attached to the credential itself. When a holder later presents the credential to a verifier, the verifier checks the signature using the issuer’s public key.

If the credential has been altered in any way—even by a single character—the signature will no longer match. If the credential is valid, the verifier has instant assurance that it really came from the claimed issuer.

This creates trust without intermediaries.

Imagine a university issues a digital diploma as a verifiable credential. Ten years later, you apply for a job. The employer asks for proof of your degree. Instead of calling the university registrar or requesting a PDF, you simply send the credential from your wallet. The employer’s system checks the digital signature against the university’s public key. Within seconds, it knows the credential is genuine.

This removes bottlenecks and central databases of verification services. It also shifts the trust anchor from phone calls or PDFs—which can be forged—to mathematics. Digital signatures are unforgeable without the private key, and the public key can be widely distributed to anyone who needs to verify.

Digital signatures also make revocation possible. If a credential is suspended or withdrawn, the issuer can publish a revocation list. When a verifier checks the credential, it not only validates the signature but also checks whether it’s still active.

Without digital signatures, decentralized identity wouldn’t work. With them, credentials become tamper-proof, portable, and verifiable anywhere.

Selective Disclosure: Sharing Just Enough

One of the major problems with physical IDs is oversharing. As we detailed in the scenario earlier, you only want to show a bartender that you are over 21, without revealing your name, home address, or exact date of birth. That information is far more than the bartender needs—and far more than you should have to give.

Selective disclosure, one of the other major features underpinning decentralized identity, fixes this. It allows a credential holder to reveal only the specific attributes needed for a transaction, while keeping everything else hidden.

Example in Practice: Proving Age A DMV issues you a credential with multiple attributes: name, address, date of birth, license number. At a bar, a bartender verifies if your age is over 21 by scanning your digital credential QR code. The verifier checks the DMV’s signature on the proof and confirms it matches the original credential. The bartender sees only a confirmation that you are over 21. They never see your name, address, or full birthdate. Example in Practice: Proving Residency A city issues residents a digital credential for municipal benefits. A service provider asks for proof of residency. You present your digital credential and the service provider verifies that your “Zip code is within city limits” without exposing your full street address.

Selective disclosure enforces the principle of data minimization. Verifiers get what they need, nothing more. Holders retain privacy. And because the cryptography ensures the disclosed attribute is tied to the original issuer’s signature, verifiers can trust the result without seeing the full credential.

This flips the identity model from “all or nothing” to “just enough.”

Example in Practice: Sanctions Compliance

Under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and OFAC requirements, financial institutions must verify that customers are not on the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list before opening or maintaining accounts. Today, this process often involves collecting and storing excessive personal data—full identity documents, addresses, and transaction histories—simply to prove a negative.

In our U.S. Treasury RFC response, we outlined how verifiable credentials and zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) can modernize this process. Instead of transmitting complete personal data, a customer could present a cryptographically signed credential from a trusted issuer attesting that they have already been screened against the SDN list. A ZKP allows the verifier (e.g., a bank) to confirm that the check was performed and that the customer is not on the list—without ever seeing or storing the underlying personal details. This approach satisfies regulatory intent, strengthens auditability, and dramatically reduces the risks of overcollection, breaches, and identity theft.

ZKPs are particularly important for compliance-heavy industries like finance, healthcare, and government services. They allow institutions to meet regulatory requirements without creating data honeypots vulnerable to breaches.

They also open the door to new forms of digital interaction. Imagine a voting system where you can prove you’re eligible to vote without revealing your identity, or a cross-border trade platform where businesses prove compliance with customs requirements without exposing their full supply chain data.

ZKPs represent the cutting edge of privacy-preserving technology. They transform the old equation, “to prove something, you must reveal everything,” into one where trust is established without unnecessary exposure.

Challenges and the Path Forward

Decentralized identity isn’t just a lofty principle about autonomy and privacy. At its core, it is a set of technologies that make those values real.

Standards ensure interoperability across issuers, wallets, and verifiers. Digital signatures anchor credentials in cryptographic trust. Selective disclosure prevents oversharing, giving people control of what they reveal. Zero-knowledge proofs allow compliance and verification without sacrificing privacy.

These aren’t abstract concepts. They are already protecting millions of people from fraud, reducing compliance costs, and embedding privacy into everyday transactions.

However, there are still hurdles. Interoperability across borders and industries is not guaranteed. Wallets must become as easy to use as a boarding pass on your phone. Verifiers need incentives to integrate credential checks into their systems. And standards need governance frameworks that help verifiers decide which issuers to trust.

None of these challenges are insurmountable, but they require careful collaboration between policymakers, technologists, and businesses. Without alignment, decentralized identity risks becoming fragmented—ironically recreating the silos it aims to replace.

SpruceID’s Role

SpruceID works at this intersection, building the tooling and standards that make decentralized identity practical. Our SDKs help developers issue and verify credentials. Our projects with states, like California and Utah, have proven that privacy and usability can go hand in hand. And our contributions to W3C, ISO, and the OpenID Foundation help ensure that the ecosystem remains open and interoperable.

Our objective is to make identity something you own—not something you rent from a platform. The technology is here. The challenge now is scaling it responsibly, with privacy and democracy at the center.

The trajectory is clear. Decentralized identity is evolving from a promising technology into the infrastructure of trust for the digital age. Like HTTPS, it will become invisible. Unlike many systems that came before it, it is being designed with people at the center from the very start.

This article is part of SpruceID’s series on the future of digital identity in America. Read more in the series:

SpruceID Digital Identity in America Series

Foundations of Decentralized Identity Digital Identity Policy Momentum The Technology of Digital Identity (this article) Privacy and User Control (coming soon) Practical Digital Identity in America (coming soon) Enabling U.S. Identity Issuers (coming soon) Verifiers at the Point of Use (coming soon) Holders and the User Experience (coming soon)

The post Key Lessons in Digital Identity Verification appeared first on 1Kosmos.

This is the second in a three-part series of articles looking at the critical need to take a data-centric approach to identity. The first article conveyed why identity and access management in general is rapidly becoming a “big data” problem – and what that means and what benefits can be gained by taking such an approach. 

In this article, we will apply our data-centric approach and understanding to delivering identity security posture management (ISPM). 

The Rise of ISPM  IGA in Distress  ISPM as Evolution  Continuous Compliance 

It is important to define some constraints and capabilities surrounding ISPM and how this relates to both existing IAM infrastructure and to IGA.

ISPM focuses on the preventative and pre-breach control set. This means that it is important to consider that the controls being applied to IAM are being done on the data layer – which often focuses upon identity assurance, data hygiene and permissions life cycle management.

These controls can make a material difference as they pertain to risk impact and things like blast radius. 

The cousin to ISPM in recent years is identity threat detection and response (ITDR). While intricately related –  they are both focused on end-to-end identity, identity risk reduction and holistic protection – ITDR is often more focused on detection and post-breach, using response and controls that often influence in-flight attacks before they are completed. The remediation options available to ITDR and ISPM are often different, too. 

ISPM has emerged in the past 3 years as both an extension and potentially an alternative design pattern to the traditional identity governance and administration (IGA) functions that emerged in the early 2000s. On the back of regulation such as Sarbanes Oxley and the Gramm Leach Bliley act, the US and more recently global financial institutions look to document and automate the “Who has access to what?” question. However, many IGA programs ended up in distress. 

Source: The Cyber Hut Community Poll, April 2024, n=65

The causes are likely to vary depending on project size, sector and requirements, but some consistencies do emerge. Slow deployments, poor connectivity to integrated systems and costly and complex requirements to alter existing business processes all contribute to IGA capabilities that cover only a subset of systems. 

The movement to a more continuous compliance initiative – one that places less emphasis on time consuming periodic reviews – sees ISPM aiming to leverage existing and evolving best practices around data hygiene with the application of both static and dynamic controls.  

The benefits increase as more systems become part of the strategy – whether they be downstream managed applications or orthogonal systems that can provide information that helps deliver more context and insight. 

 

These economies of scale not only help deliver value by improving identity hygiene, access management and permissions clean-up for more systems, but they also help deliver analytics and insights. These insights are likely to support different stakeholders across the business in their pursuit of productivity improvements, faster application and identity onboarding, risk reduction and security improvements. 

Improving with a Data-Centric View Data Fabric  Insights for Pre-Breach  Prevention as a Strategy 

As we start to imagine a more data-centric approach to both IGA improvements and a strategic ISPM capability, we immediately begin to see both data sources and data consumers across our IAM landscape. As discussed in the first article in this series, a connected data fabric provides a bi-directional set of touch points that supports a conjoined and multiplying effect with respect to understanding how our identities are created, updated, used and managed. Identities (for both humans and non-humans) do not exist in a vacuum and are tightly coupled to business process and task completion.  

However, numerous natural blind spots often exist within this life cycle in many organizations today. For example, this could include a lack of context during access requests, insufficient clarity during access reviews, or uncertainty when removing excessive permissions. Individually, these concerns are significant, but they often result in a cascading set of issues, as downstream systems and reactive detective controls are frequently built on false security assumptions. These false assumptions are implicitly built into relying on party systems, detective controls, and monitoring systems.

For example, assuming all identities have originated from an authoritative source often removes the secondary validation that helps identify ghost, orphaned, shared and redundant accounts. Downstream systems do not always provide ways of analyzing and questioning permission associations – they are more focused on whether a permission is present against an account in an access control entry. How that permission got there is assumed to be accurate. There is an assumption that removals and changes upstream are to be “automagically” relayed to a host of downstream systems. This is rarely the case. 

These false assumptions and resulting failings in security posture are just some examples of the blind spots that are manifesting on the IAM life cycle management plane. Informed decision making is now possible by leveraging existing data sources across the technology landscape. This data-centric approach can help move organizations to a pre-breach way of reducing identity risk.  

While detective, behavioral, and post-breach (and ideally, real-time breach) capabilities are critical, they must be grounded in strong, reliable identity data. 

Getting Started  Architecture and Concepts  Start Small  Process and Metrics 

Delivering a data-centric IAM framework is a journey. While that may sound like a technological cliché, it is important to realize the factors involved in delivering success here. IAM is gaining in significance from being an operational and tactical component (which is often reactionary) to a strategic fulcrum that delivers productivity, security and revenue-generating opportunities. To that end, people, processes and technology must all change – and often that change will come at different times.  

It is important to deliver each component of this journey in a way that aligns with the business’s current state and needs. This means that processes, workflows, job-specific tasks and ways of working have evolved over a considerable period of time and are inherently optimized based on effort, skill, and knowledge.  

The IAM data foundation must integrate with these factors initially without change. Asking organizations to immediately alter onboarding or application access functions will simply inhibit adoption. Over time, those processes can be altered and optimized once managed within the system. 

The journey for adoption will cover two main aspects: systems coverage and maturity, but also capability maturity. The integration of more systems is crucial – with some of those systems not having an IAM-centric background such as ISTM or CMDB.  

Secondarily, the maturity of data-centric capabilities in these systems will also grow over time – from an initial reading and correlation of data sources to concepts like predictive analytics and human-in-the-loop, guided clean-up and remediation. The rise of AI is rapid and ever-changing, and organizations are quickly learning how to consume and leverage this new autonomous way of working through agentic AI and RAG-based querying. However, it still takes time to alter governance, operations, and accountability frameworks. 

As with any journey through change, it is also important to quickly and clearly communicate success and metrics to a range of audiences. This will include non-technical stakeholders focused on improving productivity, reducing costs, and enhancing collaboration, as well as those interested in metrics related to risk reduction, connectivity, and overall performance. 

The final article in this series will look at best practices and critical capabilities needed to succeed in this area. 

 

 

The post Migrating to Data-Centric ISPM appeared first on Radiant Logic | Unify, Observe, and Act on ALL Identity Data.

California has returned to the Zero-Trust front line. When Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin re-introduced the mandate this year as AB 869, she rewound the clock only far enough to give agencies a fighting chance: every executive-branch department must show a mature Zero-Trust architecture by June 1, 2026.  

The bill sailed through the Assembly without a dissenting vote and now sits in the Senate Governmental Organization Committee with its first hearing queued for early July. Momentum looks strong: the measure already carries public endorsement from major players in the security space such as Okta, Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft, TechNet, Zscaler and a unanimous fiscal-committee green light.  

The text itself is straightforward. It lifts the same three pillars that the White House spelled out in Executive Order 14028—multi factor authentication everywhere, enterprise-class endpoint detection and response and forensic-grade logging—and stamps a date on each pillar. Agencies that fail will be out of statutory compliance, but, as the committee’s analysis warns, the real price tag is the downtime, ransom and public-trust loss that follow a breach.  

Why the Hardest Part Isn’t Technology 

California has spent four years laying technical groundwork. The Cal-Secure roadmap already calls for continuous monitoring, identity lifecycle discipline and tight access controls. Yet progress has stalled because most departments still lack a single, authoritative view of who and what is touching their systems. Identity data lives in overlapping Active Directory forests, SaaS directories, HR databases and contractor spreadsheets. When job titles lag three weeks behind reality or an account persists after its owner leaves, even the best MFA prompt or EDR sensor can’t make an accurate determination.

Identity Data Fabric and the RadiantOne Platform 

Radiant Logic solves the obstacle at its root. The platform connects to every identity store—on-prem, cloud, legacy or modern—then correlates, cleans and serves a real-time global profile for every person and device. That fabric becomes the single source of truth that each Zero-Trust control needs and consumes: 

MFA tokens draw fresh role and device attributes, so “adaptive” policies really do adapt.  EDR and SIEM events carry one immutable user + device ID, letting analysts trace lateral movement in minutes instead of days.  Log files share the same identifier, turning post-incident forensics into a straight line instead of a spider web. 

The system’s built-in hygiene analytics spotlight dormant accounts, stale entitlements and toxic combinations—precisely the gaps auditors test when they judge “least-privilege” maturity. 

A Concrete, 12-Month Playbook 

Map and connect every authoritative and shadow identity source to RadiantOne. No production system needs to stop; the platform operates as an overlay.  Redirect authentication flows—IdPs, VPNs, ZTNA gateways—so their policy engines read from the new identity fabric.  Legacy applications gain modern, attribute-driven authorization without code changes.  Stream enriched context into existing EDR and SIEM pipelines.  Alerts now include the who, what and where information that incident responders crave.  Run hygiene dashboards to purge inactive or over-privileged accounts.  The same reports double as proof of progress for the annual OIS maturity survey. 

Teams that follow the sequence typically see two wins long before the statutory deadline, one being faster mean-time-to-detect during adversarial red-teaming exercises and, secondly, a dramatic cut in audit questions that start with, “How do you know…?” 

Beyond Compliance 

AB 869 may be the nudge, but the destination is bigger than a check box. When de facto identity is the new perimeter—and when that identity is always current, complete and trustworthy—California’s digital services stay open even on the worst cyber day. Radiant Logic provides the identity fabric that makes Zero-Trust controls smarter, cheaper and easier to prove. 

The countdown ends June 1, 2026. The journey can start with a single connection to your first directory. 

REFERENCES 

https://cdt.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Cybersecurity_Strategy_Plan_FINAL.pdf

https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab869

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Gartner’s 2025 Hype Cycle for Digital Identity and Hype Cycle for Zero-Trust Technology, 2025 highlights AI for Access Administration as an emerging innovation with high potential, or as it is called by Gartner, an “Innovation trigger.” The promise to automate entitlement reviews, streamline least-privilege enforcement and replace months of manual cleanup with intelligent, adaptive identity governance is very compelling.

But as Gartner cautions, “AI is no better than human intelligence at dealing with data that doesn’t exist.” 

When it comes to AI, the limiting factor is not the algorithms: it’s the data. Fragmented directories, inconsistent entitlement models, and dormant accounts create blind spots that undermine any attempt at automation. Without a reliable identity foundation, AI has little to work with and what it does work with is riddled with flaws and problems.  

 

Why This Matters Now 

Identity-driven attacks continue to outpace traditional IAM processes. Verizon’s 2025 DBIR confirms credential misuse as the leading breach vector, with attackers increasingly exploiting valid accounts rather than brute-forcing their way in. IBM X-Force highlights that the complexity of responding to identity-driven incidents nearly doubles compared to other attack types. Trend Micro adds that risky cloud app access and stale accounts remain among the most common exposure points. These are just three out of many prominent organizations voicing their concern. To break this down and put it simply, static certifications and spreadsheet-based entitlement reviews cannot keep pace with adversaries who are already automating their side of the equation. 

 Making Identity Data AI-Ready 

Radiant Logic is recognized in Gartner’s Hype Cycle for enabling AI for Access Administration as a Sample Vendor. Our role is foundational—we provide the trustworthy identity data layer that AI systems require to function effectively. 

The RadiantOne Platform unifies identity information from directories, HR systems, cloud services, and databases into one semantic identity layer. This layer ensures that access intelligence operates on clean, normalized, and correlated data. The result is an explainable and auditable basis for AI-driven recommendations and automation. 

With this in place, AI can shift access administration from episodic to continuous monitoring, detecting entitlement drift, rationalizing excessive access, and adapting policies in near real time. 

Enabling Agentic AI in Access Governance 

Radiant Logic is investing deeply in advancing the field of Agentic AI and has already delivered tangible innovations for customers through AIDA and fastWorkflow. 

 AIDA (AI Data Assistant) is a core capability of the platform. It is presented as a virtual assistant to simplify user interactions, improve operational efficiency and help to make more informed decisions. 

For example, AIDA is used to address one of the most resource-heavy processes in IAM: user access reviews. Instead of overwhelming reviewers with raw data, AIDA highlights isolated access, surfaces over-privileged or dormant accounts, and proposes remediations in plain language. Each suggestion is linked to the underlying identity relationships, ensuring decisions remain auditable and defensible.  

 

 

The result is a faster review cycle with less fatigue for reviewers, while giving compliance teams confidence that AI assistance does not compromise accountability. At its core, AIDA leverages fastWorkflow—A reliable Agentic Python Framework.  

fastWorkflow aims to address common challenges in AI agent development such as intent misunderstanding, incorrect tool calling, parameter extraction hallucinations, and difficulties in scaling. 

The outcome is much faster agent development, providing deterministic results even when leveraging smaller (and cheaper) AI models. 

Radiant Logic has released fastWorkflow to the open-source community under the permissive Apache 2.0 license, enabling developers to accelerate their AI initiatives with a flexible and proven framework. 

If you are interested in knowing more about fastWorfklow, this article series is available. You can access the project and code for fastWorkflow on GitHub.

These capabilities are the first public expressions of our broader Agentic AI strategy, moving AI beyond theoretical promise into operational reality. These innovations are part of a larger roadmap exploring how intelligent agents can fundamentally transform the way enterprises secure and govern identity data. 

Our recognition in Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Digital Identity reflects why this matters: most AI initiatives in IAM fail not because of algorithms, but because of poor data quality and unreliable execution. By unifying identity data, enabling explainable guidance through AIDA, and ensuring safe, reliable execution with fastWorkflow, we are making Agentic AI practical for access governance today—while laying the foundation for what comes next.

The Business Impact 

For CISOs, this means reducing exposure by closing gaps before they are exploited. For CIOs, it delivers modernization without breaking legacy systems. For compliance leaders, it simplifies audits with data-backed, explainable decisions. 

AI for Access Administration will not replace governance programs, but it will change their tempo. What was once a quarterly campaign becomes a continuous process. What was once a compliance checkbox becomes a dynamic part of security posture. This is closely in line with regulatory initiatives where a continuous risk-based security posture is critical.  

Radiant Logic provides the missing foundation: unified, governed, and observable identity data.  

See how you can shift from a reactive identity security posture to a proactive, data-centric, AI-driven approach: contact us today. 

The post AI for Access Administration: From Promise to Practice appeared first on Radiant Logic | Unify, Observe, and Act on ALL Identity Data.

 

Today’s CISOs agree that there is a growing challenge from identity-driven threats due to complex environments with a growing technical debt combined with cloud adoption and sprawling identity ecosystems. This is confirmed by the various breach reports by third parties such as research from Verizon and IBM who point out identity as a primary attack vector. This is also recognized by Gartner who explicitly warns: 

“Organizations lacking comprehensive visibility into identity data face significant security vulnerabilities and operational inefficiencies.” — Gartner 

In this second blog of our three-part series on Gartner’s 2025 Digital Identity Hype Cycle, we explore the critical category of Identity Visibility and Intelligence Platforms, where Radiant Logic is recognized for its leadership as a Sample Vendor. This recognition affirms our strategic commitment to helping organizations secure and operationalize identity through real-time observability. 

 

The Missing Piece in IAM Maturity 

Despite years of investment, many IAM programs remain stuck at the operational layer, focused on provisioning, password management, and compliance reporting. What they are missing is observability. 

“Identity Visibility and Intelligence platforms are essential in navigating complex identity environments, enabling proactive identity risk management and consistent security policy enforcement.” — Gartner 

Why Identity Visibility and Observability 

Radiant Logic addresses identity sprawl at its root by delivering a unified identity data fabric that allows for authoritative, real-time visibility across your entire identity ecosystem. This eliminates blind spots and resolves inconsistencies across fragmented systems. Unlike legacy tools, RadiantOne offers a single, trusted source of truth for both human and non-human identities and their access relationships. 

But visibility alone is not enough. Radiant Logic further provides near real-time event detection through active observability of changes, controls, and processes at the identity data layer. Proactive detection and intervention are foundational to shrinking the attack surface and stopping compromise attempts before they start. 

Security operations teams gain instant visibility, accelerated threat detection, and proactive risk management. 

Cleaning Up the Identity Foundation 

Identity observability is the connective tissue between your existing controls and the proactive, intelligent security posture demanded by today’s threat landscape. It is worth pointing out that Identity Observability is not just another feature; it is what allows organizations to mature their Identity and Access Management architecture. 

Modern IAM controls are only as resilient as the data that feeds them. As Gartner underscores, effective IAM starts with visibility into every account, access relationship, and policy. RadiantOne strengthens identity hygiene at the data layer by detecting orphaned or misaligned accounts, redundant entitlements, incorrectly provisioned users, and unmanaged users and groups. This ensures that SSO, IGA, PAM, Zero Trust, and SIEM tools ingest complete, accurate, and actionable data. 

With the rise of Agentic AI, the stakes are higher than ever. LLMs increasingly consume and act on enterprise identity data, making its integrity and continuous monitoring both a compliance obligation (from frameworks such as DORA) and a security imperative against data poisoning, drift, and misconfigurations. By unifying and securing identity data at the source, RadiantOne reduces technical debt, enforces consistent policy, and strengthens risk-based decisions, all actions that effectively shrink the attack surface while enabling AI-powered security operations. 

The Business Impact of Identity Visibility 

For most enterprises, the identity layer is now the largest and most dynamic attack surface. Every new SaaS subscription, every contractor onboarded, and every micro-service deployed creates new accounts, credentials, and entitlements. Increasingly, this also includes AI agents. Without observability, these changes accumulate, silently introducing risk, eroding compliance, and slowing down transformation programs. 

Identity Visibility and Intelligence platforms like RadiantOne directly impact three critical dimensions: 

Reduced Risk – Shrink the window of exposure by surfacing dormant accounts, excessive entitlements, and anomalous activity before adversaries exploit them Streamlined Compliance – Optimize certifications, audits, and regulatory reporting (e.g., DORA, NIS2, SOX) by automating lineage and reconciliation at the identity data layer Increased Agility – Enable faster M&A integration, smoother cloud adoption, and more resilient Zero Trust enforcement by providing a single, unified source of truth for identity

When identity data is unified, observable, and continuously governed, organizations can accelerate digital initiatives without sacrificing security. That is the true value of being recognized in Gartner’s Hype Cycle: it validates that Identity Visibility is not only a technical enabler but also a business imperative. 

The Path Forward 

As Gartner’s 2025 Digital Identity Hype Cycle confirms, Identity Visibility and Intelligence is no longer optional — it is foundational. Observability is not a standalone feature or a bolt-on product: it is the critical layer that sits atop your identity fabric, transforming fragmented data into actionable intelligence. 

By adding observability to the identity fabric, organizations mature their IAM stack from reactive operations to proactive defense, equipping SSO, IGA, PAM, ZTA, and SIEM tools with the clean, real-time insights they need to act decisively. 

Learn More 

Explore how Radiant Logic’s RadiantOne platform can strengthen your organization’s security and mature your IAM program. Contact us today.  

Disclaimers: 

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. 

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner and Hype Cycle is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved. 

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In many places in the world, Zero Trust has shifted from being a security philosophy to a mandate by regulators, including the U.S., as discussed in California’s Countdown to Zero Trust—A Practical Path Through Radiant Logic. Gartner’s 2025 Hype Cycle for Zero Trust Technology highlights identity as the foundation for Zero Trust success and names Radiant Logic as a Sample Vendor enabling that foundation in the AI for Access Administration category. 

Across both public and private sectors, the push for implementing Zero Trust is accelerating. California’s Assembly Bill 869, for example, requires every executive-branch agency to demonstrate a mature Zero Trust architecture by June 2026. This is one example of how regulations are putting firm dates on adoption. Gartner’s recognition underscores why Radiant Logic matters in this context.

Zero Trust depends not only on reliable identity data but also on making that data accessible. The challenge for most organizations is not the lack of Zero Trust tools but the difficulty of getting the right identity data. Attributes, context, and relationships all need to be provided to the tools in a format and way that these can be used.

Without that foundation, Zero Trust efforts typically stall.  

 

Why Identity is Central to Zero Trust 

The National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST) defines Zero Trust around a simple idea: never trust, always verify. Every request must be authenticated and authorized in its context. Yet in most enterprises, identity data is fragmented across directories, cloud services, HR systems, and contractor databases. This is the reality of what we call identity sprawl. When accounts linger after employees leave or when attributes are out of date, even the best MFA solutions or EDR policies falter. 

Gartner cautions that organizations lacking visibility into their identity data face both elevated security risks and operational inefficiencies. Zero Trust controls cannot deliver on their promise if they operate on incomplete or inconsistent input. That means that the result is only as good as the underlying identity data.  

Radiant Logic’s Role 

RadiantOne unifies identity data from every source into a single, correlated view of every identity, whether human or non-human. That fabric becomes the authoritative context that Zero Trust controls require and need to be successful. This foundation lets MFA policies adapt dynamically to current identity and device signals while, at the same time, unifying log files under a single identifier and enabling Zero Trust access, network segmentation, and more. So why is this important? Many regulatory initiatives are tightening up the reporting should a breach occur; therefore, correlating identities into a single view streamlines forensic work and ultimately allows for swift signaling or reporting to a competent authority.  

The importance of identity data hygiene is that it allows organizations to detect dormant accounts, stale entitlements, and toxic combinations before auditors or adversaries find them.

Maintaining this hygiene is critical to mitigating risk and ensuring that Zero Trust policies are enforced on accurate, trustworthy data. By ensuring Zero Trust policies run on clean, governed identity data, Radiant Logic enables organizations to enforce least privilege, reduce the attack surface, and meet compliance obligations in a timely fashion. 

The Business Impact 

For CISOs, this reduces risk by closing identity gaps before attackers exploit them. 

For CIOs, it modernizes access controls without disrupting legacy systems. 

For compliance leaders, it provides defensible evidence for regulatory audits and mandates and, in case of a breach, a swift response to regulators signaling and reporting requirements. 

Zero Trust is no longer an academic philosophic idea — it is operational to modern security. Gartner’s recognition of Radiant Logic validates our role in making it achievable, practical, and provable. 

Learn More

The full report can be downloaded here. Discover how Radiant Logic strengthens Zero Trust initiatives with unified, real-time identity data and intelligence. To discuss with an identity and Zero Trust expert, contact us today.  

 

The post Gartner® Recognizes Radiant Logic in the 2025 Hype Cycle™ for Zero Trust appeared first on Radiant Logic | Unify, Observe, and Act on ALL Identity Data.

In today’s healthcare ecosystem, seconds can mean the difference between life and death. Clinicians need instant access to systems, patient records, and tools that guide treatment decisions. But too often, identity and access management (IAM) becomes a silent bottleneck—slowing workflows, increasing frustration, and opening new avenues for attackers. 

Identity is not just an IT function. It is the connective tissue between operational efficiency and strong security. When access works seamlessly, clinicians focus on patients. When it falters, care delivery stalls. The stakes are that high.

 

Healthcare organizations carry a legacy burden that includes identity infrastructures stitched together from mergers, acquisitions, and outdated systems. The results are familiar and painful: 

Slow onboarding: Clinicians wait days or weeks to access EHRs, e-prescribing platforms, or HR systems  Siloed systems: Contractors, vendors, and students are often tracked manually or inconsistently, creating blind spots  Fragmented logins: Multiple usernames and passwords drain productivity, encourage weak credential practices, and create security risks 

Each inefficiency cascades into operational and security problems. In a shared workstation environment where multiple staff members rotate across terminals, the friction of multiple logins is more than inconvenient—it is unsafe. 

Modern clinicians often wear many hats: surgeon, professor, and clinic practitioner. Each role demands different entitlements, application views, and permissions. Legacy IAM systems struggle to keep pace, forcing clinicians into frustrating workarounds that compromise both care and compliance. 

A modern identity data foundation solves this “persona problem” by enabling: 

multi-persona profiles: A unified identity that captures every role under one credential  contextual access: Role-specific entitlements delivered at the point of authorization  streamlined governance: Fewer duplicates, cleaner oversight, and enforced least privilege 

The result? Clinicians move seamlessly across their responsibilities without juggling multiple logins, and security teams gain a clearer, more manageable access model. 

 

 

Identity is also the frontline of healthcare cybersecurity. Disconnected directories, inconsistent access records, and orphaned accounts create fertile ground for attackers. The 2024 Change Healthcare ransomware incident, traced back to compromised remote access credentials, highlighted the catastrophic impact that a single identity failure can unleash. 

Poor IAM hygiene doesn’t just slow down care—it invites compliance nightmares. Regulations like HIPAA require clear evidence of least-privilege access and timely de-provisioning, but piecing that evidence together from fractured systems is a losing battle. 

Temporary fixes and one-off integrations won’t cure healthcare’s identity problem. What is needed is a modern identity data foundation that: 

unifies identity data from HR systems, AD domains, credentialing databases, cloud apps, and more rationalizes and correlates records into a single, authoritative profile for each user delivers tailored views to each consuming system—EHR, tele-health, billing, scheduling—through standard protocols like LDAP, SCIM, and REST strengthens ISPM by ensuring security policies, risk analytics, and compliance reporting all act on the same high-quality identity data

RadiantOne provides that foundation. Acting as a universal adapter and central nervous system, it abstracts away complexity, enables day-one M&A integration, supports multi-tenant models for affiliated clinics, and reduces costly manual cleanup. 

Healthcare’s identity challenge is not theoretical. It is visible every day in delayed access, clinician frustration, regulatory fines, and high-profile breaches. But it doesn’t have to be this way. 

With a unified identity data foundation, healthcare organizations can: 

accelerate clinician onboarding  reduce operational bottlenecks  strengthen identity security posture  simplify compliance  empower caregivers with seamless, secure access 

The question is no longer whether identity impacts care delivery and security: it is whether your identity infrastructure is helping or holding you back. 

Download the white paper, The Unified Identity Prescription: Securing Modern Healthcare & Empowering Caregivers, to explore how a unified identity data foundation can power better care and stronger security.

The post Identity: The Lifeline of Modern Healthcare appeared first on Radiant Logic | Unify, Observe, and Act on ALL Identity Data.

Thales strengthens airspace surveillance with Aeronáutica Civil de Colombia with advanced ATC system prezly Thu, 10/23/2025 - 15:00 Civil Aviation Colombia

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Facebook X Whatsapp Linkedin Email URL copied to clipboard 23 Oct 2025 Thales supplies a co-mounted Air Traffic Control radar station, featuring its next generation primary and secondary approach radars, STAR NG and RSM NG, located at the Picacho station, to improve air surveillance of the Bucaramanga terminal manoeuvring area (TMA) in Colombia. This contract is part of a countrywide modernisation project initiated by Aeronáutica Civil de Colombia, to improve airspace management and reinforce collaboration with the Colombian Air Force. The unique design and optimised performance of the two radars will enable increased civil and military collaboration in the country.

STAR NG primary surveillance radar & RSM NG Secondary radar © Thales

Thales is modernizing the current Picacho radar station, operated by Colombia’s civil aviation authority, Aeronáutica Civil de Colombia, in partnership with local company GyC to provide new capabilities for airspace surveillance. With its combined set of STAR NG and RSM NG radars, there will now be six Thales radars in operation in the country, allowing air traffic controllers to continuously track the position of aircraft, regardless of the conditions.

The 16-month project, which is already well underway, sees Thales manufacture, deliver and install the co-mounted radars STAR NG (approach Primary Surveillance Radar) and RSM NG (Mode S Secondary Surveillance Radar), while its local partner, GyC, renews the existing infrastructure. This technologically advanced radar station, supported by additional four stand-alone ADS-B ground stations, will strengthen continuous air surveillance in the approach area, in particular the North-Eastern part of Bucaramanga, Colombia.

To date, Thales has successfully completed the Factory Acceptance Tests (FAT) in coordination with Aeronáutica Civil. The required structural reinforcement studies for the tower have been approved, and progress is proceeding on schedule to ensure the radar becomes operational within the timeline. ​ The new system will bring many benefits, including:

Enhanced airspace surveillance and sovereignty: The STAR NG will deliver real-time information on both cooperative and non-cooperative aircraft to strengthen Colombia’s ability to monitor and protect its national airspace. Greater reliability and resilience in aircraft identification: The RSM NG meta-sensor provides more accurate identification and tracking, ensuring continuity of information even in cases of jamming or spoofing attempts. Robust cybersecurity protection: Both radars are equipped with the latest cybersecurity updates, safeguarding critical surveillance data against evolving digital threats.

With over 50 years’ experience in Air Traffic Control and Surveillance, and more than 1,200 radars operating around the globe, Thales is the trusted leader in this domain worldwide. In Colombia, Thales radars already equip sites in Flandes, Cerro Verde, Santa Ana, Villavicencio and Carimagua, and soon in Picacho. Thales also supplied the APP control centre in San Andrés, and the ATC and Tower simulator in Bogota to support Air Traffic Controller training. The Group has also provided navigation aids in various key sites all over the country.

“Thales is proud to strengthen its 25-year partnership with the Civil Aviation Authority of Colombia. This new contract will enhance the country’s airspace surveillance capabilities by combining the strengths of its primary and secondary radars. It highlights the versatility of Thales’ ATC radars in meeting the needs of both civilian and military operators, and demonstrates our long-term commitment to ensuring excellence in surveillance and air safety systems." Lionel de CASTELLANE, Vice President Air Traffic Radars, Thales.

About Thales

Thales (Euronext Paris: HO) is a global leader in advanced technologies in advanced for the Defence, Aerospace and Cyber & Digital sectors. Its portfolio of innovative products and services addresses several major challenges: sovereignty, security, sustainability and inclusion.

The Group invests more than €4 billion per year in Research & Development in key areas, particularly for critical environments, such as Artificial Intelligence, cybersecurity, quantum and cloud technologies.

Thales has more than 83,000 employees in 68 countries. In 2024, the Group generated sales of €20.6 billion.

About Thales in Latin America

With six decades of presence in Latin America, Thales, a global tech leader for the Defence, Aerospace, Cyber & Digital sectors. The Group is investing in digital and “deep tech” innovations – Big Data, artificial intelligence, connectivity, cybersecurity and quantum technology – to build a future we can all trust.

The company has 2,500 employees in the region, across 7 countries - Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Panama - with ten offices, five manufacturing plants, and engineering and service centres in all the sectors in which it operates.

Through strategic partnerships and innovative projects, Thales in Latin America drives sustainable growth and strengthens its ties with governments, public and private institutions, as well as airports, airlines, banks, telecommunications and technology companies.

View PDF market_segment : Civil Aviation ; countries : Americas > Colombia https://thales-group.prezly.com/thales-strengthens-airspace-surveillance-with-aeronautica-civil-de-colombia-with-advanced-atc-system-c7rr2j thales-strengthens-airspace-surveillance-aeronautica-civil-de-colombia-advanced-atc-system On Thales strengthens airspace surveillance with Aeronáutica Civil de Colombia with advanced ATC system

Indicio was the first to recognize the importance of secure authentication to AI agents by launching Indicio ProvenAI, recently recognized by Gartner. With NVIDIA Inception, we’re going to take this to a new level — a secure authentication and decentralized governance solution for autonomous systems and the internet of AI.

By Trevor Butterworth

Indicio has officially joined the NVIDIA Inception Program, a global initiative that supports startups advancing artificial intelligence and high-performance computing. Indicio will focus on applying decentralized identity and Verifiable Credential technology — in the form of Indicio ProvenAI — to AI systems.

ProvenAI enables AI agents and their users to authenticate each other using decentralized identifiers and Verifiable Credentials. This means an AI agent can cryptographically prove who it is interacting with and that entity can do the same  — all before any data is shared.

Once identified, a person or organization can give permission to the AI agent to access their data and can delegate authority to the agent to act on behalf of the person or organization.

To monetize AI, agents and users need to be able to trust each other

Agentic AI and AI agents cannot fulfill their mission without accessing data. The more data they can access, the easier it is to execute a task. But this exposes the companies that use them to significant risk.

How can they be sure their agent is interacting with a real person, an authentic user or customer? And how can that user, similarly, verify the authenticity of the agent?

The simplest way is to issue each with a Verifiable Credential, a cryptographic way to authenticate not only an identity but the data that is being shared. Importantly, this cryptography is AI-resistant, meaning it can’t be reengineered by people using AI to try and alter the underlying information.

The critical benefit to using Verifiable Credentials for this task is that there is no need for either party to phone home to crosscheck a database during authentication or authorization. Because a Verifiable Credential is digitally signed, the original credential issuer can be verified without having to contact the issuer. The information in the credential can also be cryptographically checked to see if it has been altered. As a result, if you know the identity of the credential issuer and you trust that issuer, you can trust the contents of the credential to instantly act on them.

With Verifiable Credentials, AI’s GDPR nightmare goes away

For AI agents to be useful, they must be able to access personal data — lots of it. For this to be compliant with data privacy regulations such as GDPR, a person must be able to consent to share their data. There’s just no way of getting around this.

Verifiable Credentials makes consent easy because the person or organization holds their data in a credential or can provide a credential to a party containing permission to access data. Once a user consents to share their data, you’ve met a critical requirement of GDPR, and that decision can be recorded for audit.

But Verifiable Credentials — or at least some credential formats — also allow for selective disclosure or zero-knowledge proofs, which means that the data and purpose for which it is being used can be minimized, thereby fulfilling other GDPR requirements.

As AI Agents will also need to access large amounts of data held belonging to people and organizations that are held elsewhere,  a Verifiable Credential can be used by a person or organization to delegate authority to access that data, with the rock-solid assurance that this permission has been given by the legitimate data subject.

Decentralized governance, the engine for autonomous systems

These features create a seamless way for AI agents to operate. But things get even more exciting when we look at the way Verifiable Credentials are governed.

With Indicio Proven and ProvenAI, a network is governed by machine-readable files sent to the software of each participant in the network (i.e., the credential issuer(s), holders and verifiers). This software tells each participant who is a trusted issuer, who is a trusted verifier, and which information needs to be presented for which use case in what order.

Indicio DEGov enables the natural authority for a network or use case to orchestrate interaction by publishing a machine-readable governance file. And this orchestration can be configured to respect hierarchical levels of authority. The result is seamless interaction driven by automated trust.

Now think about autonomous systems where each connected element has a Verifiable Identity that can be orchestrated to interact with an AI agent. You have a very powerful way to apply authentication and information sharing to very complex systems in a highly secure way. Every element of this system can be known, can authenticate another element, and can share data in complex workflows. Each interaction can be made secure and element-to-element.

Indicio is making a safe, secure, trusted AI future possible

Secure and trustworthy authentication is foundational to unlocking the market benefits of AI and enabling AI networks to interoperate and scale. This is why we were the first decentralized identity company to connect Verifiable Credentials to AI and the first to offer a Verifiable Credential AI solution — Indicio ProvenAI — recognized by Gartner in its latest report on decentralized identity.

We’re tremendously excited to be a part of the NVIDIA Inception Program. We see decentralized identity as a catalytic technology to AI, one that can quickly unlock market opportunities, and support AI agents and agentic AI.

Learn how Indicio ProvenAI can help your organization build secure, verifiable AI systems. Contact Indicio to schedule a demo or explore integration options for your enterprise.

The post Indicio joins NVIDIA Inception Program to bring Verifiable Credentials to AI systems appeared first on Indicio.

Messaging isn’t broken because of encryption. It’s broken because no one can prove who’s on the other side.

Spam, scams, and impersonation because every “encrypted” app still depends on centralized identity. Phone numbers, emails, usernames. The same systems that made spam a trillion-dollar industry now anchor your private chats.

A new wave of decentralized messengers wants to fix that. But it’s already fragmenting.

Right now, four different philosophies are battling to define “trust” in the next generation of messaging.

DID-based agents: trust built in

A serious effort is happening around DIDComm, a messaging protocol from the Decentralized Identity Foundation. It’s not a chat app. It’s a framework where messages carry cryptographic proof of identity, not a phone number or email.

DIDComm v2.1 formalizes this idea: secure, encrypted, and transport-agnostic messages exchanged between agents, within wallets, servers, or IoT devices, each anchored to a Decentralized Identifier (DID).

It’s programmable trust. Machines and humans can exchange verified credentials in real time. A supplier can prove a shipment is certified. A user can verify a customer support agent without revealing their ID card.

The downside: UX. DIDComm is infrastructure. Most people won’t see it; they’ll feel it… if developers get it right.

Wallet messaging: your address is your inbox

The second camp lives inside wallets. XMTP is doing great work here. Your crypto address doubles as a messaging endpoint. Coinbase Wallet now supports XMTP chats, pushing the idea of “wallet = identity = communication channel.”

Wallet-based messaging fits perfectly for Web3 commerce. You can receive DAO votes, marketplace updates, or direct messages tied to verified wallets. You know the sender because their address and on-chain record prove it.

It’s not free from issues. Spam and Sybil attacks follow open systems. But the framework makes portable identity possible. You can leave one app and take your chat history and reputation with you.

P2P relays: censorship-proof, messy, alive

Waku, Nostr, and SimpleX occupy the third camp: decentralized relays and gossip networks. These protocols trade convenience for censorship resistance.

Waku v2 is a cleaned-up successor to Whisper. It stores, forwards, and routes messages across peers with no servers, and no central discovery. Nostr’s new NIP-17 spec adds encrypted DMs to its social relay system. SimpleX leans even harder on privacy, routing messages through one-time relays and Tor channels.

It’s the purest form of decentralization, and as such the hardest to scale. No account recovery, no global discovery, and little spam control. These networks will matter most where freedom matters most.

MLS and the RCS landgrab

While the crypto world argues about decentralization, the telecom giants are quietly shipping end-to-end encryption to billions.

The Message Layer Security (MLS) protocol, an IETF standard, will soon power RCS, the default chat layer across Android and iOS. Apple finally joined Google and the GSMA alliance to support it.

This isn’t decentralized, but it’s historic. MLS brings group E2EE to carrier messaging for the first time. Billions of phones will suddenly be encrypted by default.

What it doesn’t solve: identity and portability. Your phone number remains your passport. You can’t take your reputation with you when you switch apps.

The X factor

Then there’s X.

After killing off its previous encryption scheme, Elon Musk’s platform is rebuilding DMs as “XChat.” The marketing talks about “Bitcoin-style encryption.” The code doesn’t.

It’s not decentralized. It’s still a closed, centralized system with an uncertain cryptographic base. The value lies in the user base, not the trust model.

X proves a point: big platforms can bolt on crypto, but they can’t decentralize identity. The DNA doesn’t match.

The next layer: identity, reputation, portability

Every messaging system now faces the same three questions:

Who are you?: Centralized apps rely on phone numbers. Decentralized systems use DIDs and verifiable credentials. Can I trust you?: That’s the spam problem. Without portable reputation, decentralized networks drown in noise. Systems like Orange Protocol can assign on-chain reputation scores that follow you across apps. Good behavior and bad. Can I leave?: Real decentralization means you can take your messages, graph, and identity elsewhere. Wallet-based and DID-based protocols are getting close. How Ontology fits

Ontology has spent years building the rails for these questions.

ONT ID gives users a verifiable, self-controlled digital identity. Orange Protocol builds portable reputation and trust scoring across platforms. ONTO Wallet connects both: a messenger, identity agent, and asset hub in one. Ontology Network provides the reliable and low-cost infrastructure, designed for identity-centric use. Reality check

Decentralized messaging isn’t utopia.

Matrix, the biggest federated network, recently broke compatibility to fix protocol-level flaws. Privacy-first tools like SimpleX attract both activists and abuse. Wallet UX remains fragile.

Still, the direction is clear. The next messaging war won’t be fought over stickers or features. It’ll be fought over trust without dependency.

The takeaway

Encryption is table stakes.

Identity and reputation are the new moat.

The protocol that nails both, without locking you in, wins.

And when that happens, messaging stops being an app.

It becomes an ecosystem of verifiable relationships.

That’s the real revolution.

Decentralized Messaging Just Forked Four Ways was originally published in OntologyNetwork on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

FNBC has been fined $601,139.80 for five AML violations. FINTRAC discovered that the firm did not meet AML standards, including submitting suspicious activity reports, updating client information, and performing due diligence.

The post Canada Bank Fined $601,139.80 for Five Major AML Breaches first appeared on ComplyCube.

By: Bruce Pon

People are rightly angry and frustrated. No one is a winner in this current state of unease, lack of information and transparency, and mudslinging. Ocean doesn’t see the benefit of throwing around unfounded and false allegations or the attempts to sully the reputations of the projects and people — it just damages both the ASI and Ocean communities unnecessarily.

Ocean has chosen to remain silent until now, out of respect for the ongoing legal processes. But given so many flagrant violations of decency, Ocean would like to take an opportunity to rebut many publicly voiced false allegations, libels, and baseless claims being irresponsibly directed towards the Ocean Protocol project. The false and misleading statements serve only to further inflame our community, while inciting anger and causing even more harm to the ASI and Ocean communities than is necessary.

There are former $OCEAN token holders who converted to $FET and who now face the dilemma of whether to stay with $FET, return to $OCEAN, or to liquidate and be completely done with the drama.

Rather than throw unsubstantiated jabs, I would like to provide a full context with supporting evidence and links, to address many of the questions around the ASI Alliance, Ocean’s participation, and the many incorrect allegations thrown out to muddy the waters and sow confusion among our community.

This blogpost will be followed up with a claim-by-claim rebuttal of all the allegations that have been directed towards Ocean since October 9, 2025 but for now, this blog gives the context and Ocean’s perspective.

I encourage you to read it all, as it reflects months of conversations that reveal the context and progression of events, so that you can best understand why Ocean took steps to chart a separate course from the ASI Alliance. We hope the ASI Alliance can continue its work and we wish them well. Meanwhile, Ocean will go its own way, as we have every right to do.

These are the core principles of decentralization — non-coercion, non-compulsion, individual agency, sovereign property ownership and the power of you, the individual, to own and control your life.

Table of Contents

∘ 1. The Builders
∘ 2. June 2014 — Audacious Goals
∘ 3. January 2024 — AI Revolution in Full Swing
∘ 4. March 2024 — ASI Alliance
∘ 5. April 2024 — A Very Short Honeymoon
∘ 6. May 2024 — Legal Dispute Delays the ASI Launch
∘ 7. June 2024 — Re-Cap Contractual Obligations of the ASI Alliance
∘ 8. August 2024 — Cudos Admittance into ASI Alliance
∘ 9. December 2024 — SingularityNET’s Spending, Declining $FET Token Price and the Ocean community treasury
∘ 10. January 2025 — oceanDAO Shifts from a Passive to an Active Token Holder
∘ 11. May 2025 — oceanDAO Establishes in Cayman
∘ 12. June 2025 — Fetch’s TRNR “ISI” Deal
∘ 13. June 2025 — oceanDAO becomes Ocean Expeditions
∘ 14. June 2025 — ASI Alliance Financials
∘ 15. July 2025 — Ocean Expeditions Sets Out to Diversify the Ocean community Treasury
∘ 16. August 2025 — Ocean Requests for a Refill of the $OCEAN/$FET Token Migration Contract
∘ 17. August 2025 — A Conspiracy To Force Ocean to Submit
∘ 18. October 2025 — Ocean Exits the ASI Alliance
∘ 19. Summary

The Builders

Trent and I are dreamers with a pragmatic builder ethos. We have done multiple startups together and what unifies us is an unquenchable belief in human potential and technological progress.

To live our beliefs, we’ve started multiple companies between us. One of the most rewarding things I’ve done in my life is to join forces with, and have the honor to work with Trent.

Builders create an inordinate amount of value for society. Look at any free and open society where capital is allowed to be deployed to launch new ideas — they thrive by leveraging the imagination, brainpower and hard work needed to bring about technological progress. These builders attract an ecosystem of supporters and services, but also as is natural, those who seek to earn easy money.

Builders also start projects with good faith, forthrightness and a respect for the truth, since everyone who has played this game knows that the easiest person to lie to is yourself. So, it’s best to constantly check assumptions and stand grounded on truth, even if wildly uncomfortable. Truth is always the best policy, sometimes because it is the hardest path. It also means that one doesn’t need to live a web of lies, in a toxic environment and constantly wondering when the lie catches up with you.

Builders focus on Win-Win outcomes, seeking to maximize value for everyone in the game, and make the best of bad situations by building our way through it. No one wants to waste time, with what limited time one has on Earth, least of all, to leave the world worse off for being in it. We all want to have a positive impact, however small, so that our existence has meaning in the void of the cosmic whole.

June 2014 — Set Audacious Goals

Twelve years ago, Trent and I decided to try something audacious — to build a global, decentralized network for data and AI that serves as a viable alternative to the centralized, corrupted and captured platforms. We had been inspired by Snowden, Assange and Manning, and horrified to learn what lies we’d been told. If successful, we could impact the lives of millions of developers, who in turn, could touch the lives of everyone on earth. It could be our technology that powered the revolution.

Trent had pulled this off before. In a prior startup, Trent was a pioneer at deploying AI at scale. His knowledge and the software he’d built helped to drive Moore’s Law for two decades. Every single device you hold or use has a small piece of Trent’s intellect, embedded in at the atomic level to make your device run so you can keep in touch with loved ones, scroll memes, and do business globally.

We’d learnt from the builders of the Domain Name System (DNS), Jim Rutt and David Holtzman who are legends in their own right, that the most valuable services on earth are registries — Facebook for your social graph, Amazon for purchases, and, surprisingly, governments with all the registry services they provide. We delved into the early foundations of the Internet and corresponded with Ted Nelson, one of the architects of our modern internet in the early 1960’s. Ted was convinced that the original sin of the internet was to strip away the “ownership” part of information and intellectual property.

Blockchains restored this missing connection. As knowledge and transactions were all to be ported to blockchains over the next 30 years, these blockchain registries would serve as the most powerful and valuable databases on earth. They were also public, free and open to anyone. A magical epiphany was then made by Trent. It wouldn’t be humans that drew intelligence and insight, it would be AI. The logical users of the eventual thousands of blockchains are AI algorithms, bots and agents.

After 3.5 years on ascribe and then BigchainDB, Ocean was the culmination of work as pioneers in the crypto and blockchain space. Trent saw that the logical endpoint for all these L0 and L1 blockchains was a set of powerful registries for data and transactions. Ocean was our project to build this bridging technology between the existing world (which was 2017 by now) and the future world where LLMs, agents and other AI tools could scour the world and make sense for humans.

January 2024 — AI Revolution in Full Swing

ChatGPT had been released 14 months prior, in November 2022, launching the AI revolution for consumers and businesses. Internet companies committed hundreds of billions to buy server farms, AI talent was getting scooped up for seven-to-nine figure sums and the pace was accelerating fast. Ocean had been at the forefront on a lonely one-lane road and overnight the highway expanded to an eight-lane freeway with traffic zooming past us.

By that time, Trent and I had been at it for 10 years. We’d built some amazing technologies and moved the space forward with fundamental insights on blockchains, consensus algorithms, token design, and AI primitives on blockchains, with brilliant teammates along the way. We’d launched multiple initiatives with varying degrees of adoption and success. We’d seen a small, vibrant community, “The Ocean Navy,” led by Captain Donnie “BigBags”, emerge around data and AI, bound with a cryptotoken — the $OCEAN token.

We were also feeling the fatigue of managing a large community that incessantly wanted the token price to go up, with expectations of constant product updates, competitions, and future product roadmaps. I myself had been on the startup grind since 2008, having unwisely jumped into blockchain to join Trent immediately after exiting my first startup, without taking any break to reflect and recover. By the beginning of 2024, I was coming out of a deep 2-year burnout where it had been a struggle to just get out of bed and accomplish one or two things of value in a day. After 17 years of unrelenting adrenaline and stress, my body and mind shut down and the spirit demanded payment. The Ocean core team was fabulous, they stepped in and led a lot of the efforts of Ocean.

When January 2024 came around, both Trent and I were in reasonable shape. He and I had a discussion on “What’s next?” with Ocean. We wanted to reconcile the competing demands of product development and the expectations of the Ocean community for the $OCEAN token. Trent and I felt that the AI space was going to be fine with unbridled momentum kicked off with ChatGPT, and that we should consider how Ocean could adapt.

Trent wanted to build hardcore products and services that could have a high impact on the lives of hundreds of people to start — a narrow but deep product, rather than aim for the entire world — broad but shallower. The rest of the Ocean team had been working on several viable hypotheses at varying scales of impact. For me, after 12 years of relentless focus in blockchain, I wanted to explore emerging technologies and novel concepts with less day-to-day operational pressure.

Trent and I looked at supporting the launch of 2–5 person teams as their own self-contained “startups” and then carving out 20% of revenue to plow back into $OCEAN token buybacks. We also bandied about the idea of joining up with another mature project in the crypto-space, where we could merge our token into theirs or vice versa. This had the elegant outcome where both Trent and I could be relieved of the day-to-day pressures, offloading the token and community management, and growing with a larger community.

March 2024 — ASI Alliance

In mid-March, Humayun Sheikh (“Sheikh”) reached out to Trent with an offer to join forces. Fetch and SingularityNet had been in discussions for several months on merging their projects, led and driven by Sheikh.

Even though Fetch and SingularityNet were not Ocean’s first choice for a partnership, and the offer came seemingly out of the blue, I was brought in the next day. Within 5 days, all three parties announced a shotgun marriage between Fetch, SingularityNet and Ocean. To put it bluntly, we, Ocean, had short-circuited our slow-brain with our fast-brain, because we had prepped ourselves for this type of outcome when it appeared, even with candidates that we hadn’t previously considered, and we rationalized it.

24 Mar 2024 Call between Dr. Goertzel & Bruce Pon

The terms for Ocean to join the ASI Alliance were the following:

The Alliance members will be working towards building decentralized AI Foundations retain absolute control over their treasuries and wallets It is a tokenomic merger only and all other collaborations or activities would be decided by the independent Foundations.

Sovereign ownership over property is THE core principle of crypto and it was the primary condition of Ocean joining the ASI Alliance. Given that there were two treasuries for the benefit of the Ocean community, a hot wallet managed by Ocean Protocol Foundation for operational expenses and a cold wallet, owned and controlled by oceanDAO (the independent 3rd party collective charged with holding $OCEAN passively,), we wanted to make sure that sovereign property and autonomy would be respected. In these very first discussions, SingularityNet also acknowledged the existence of the oceanDAO as a separate entity from Ocean. With this understanding for ownership of treasuries in place, Ocean felt comfortable to move forward. Ocean announced that it was joining the ASI Alliance on 27 March 2024.

April 2024 — A Very Short Honeymoon

Immediately after the announcement, cracks started to appear and the commercial understandings that had induced Ocean to enter into the deal started to be violated or proven untrue.

SingularityNet confided in us that they were very grateful that Ocean could join since their own community would balk at a merger solely with Fetch, citing the SingularityNet community skepticism of Mr. Sheikh and Fetch.

Ben Goertzel of SingularityNet spoke of how Sheikh would change his position on various issues, and of Sheikh’s desire to “pump and dump” a lot of $FET tokens. Ben confided in us that they were very grateful that Ocean could join since their own SingularityNet community would balk at a merger solely with Fetch, citing the strong community skepticism about Sheikh and Fetch.

Immediately after the ASI Alliance was announced, SingularityNet implemented a community vote to mint $100 million worth of $AGIX with the clear intent on selling them down via the token bridge and migration contract, in our newly shared $ASI/$FET liquidity pools.

The community governance voting process was a farce. Fetch is 100% owned and controlled by Sheikh who holds over 1.2 billion $FET, so any “community” vote was guaranteed to pass. For SingularityNet, the voting was more uncertain, so SingularityNet was forced to massage the messages to convince major token holders to get on board. Ocean took its own pragmatic approach to community voting with the position, if $OCEAN holders don’t want $FET, they can sell their $OCEAN and move on. Ocean wanted to keep the “voting” as thin as possible so that declared preferences matched actual preferences.

Mr. David Lake (“Lake”), Board Member of SingularityNet also disclosed that Sheikh treated network decentralization as an inconvenient detail that he didn’t particularly care about and only paid “lip service” to it.

In hindsight this should have been a major red flag.

April 3, 2024 — Lake to Pon

Ocean discovered that the token migration contracts, which SingularityNet had represented as being finished and security audited, were nowhere near finished or security audited.

A combined technology roadmap assessment showed little overlap, and any joint initiatives for Ocean would be “for show” and expediency rather than serving a practical, useful purpose.

The vision of bringing multiple new projects on-board, the vision sold to Ocean for ASI, hit the Wall when Fetch asserted that their L1 chain would retain primacy, so they could keep their $FET token. This meant that only ERC20 tokens could be incorporated into ASI in the future. ASI would not be able to integrate any other L1 chain into the Alliance.

This presented a dilemma for Ocean. Ocean was working closely with Oasis ($ROSE) and had planned on deeper technical integrations on multiple projects. If Ocean’s token was going to become $FET but Ocean’s technology and incentives were on $ROSE, there was an obvious mismatch.

Ocean worked feverishly for three weeks to develop integration plans, migration plans and technology roadmaps that could bridge the mismatch but, in the end, the options were rejected outright.

Summary of Ocean’s Proposal and Technical Analysis that was presented to Fetch and SingularityNET

Outside of technology, the Ocean core team were being dragged into meeting-hell with 4–6 meetings a day, sucking up all our capacity to focus on delivering value to the Ocean community. ASI assumed the shape of SingularityNet, which was very administratively heavy and slow.

No one had done proper due diligence. We’d all made a mistake of jumping quickly into a deal.

At the end of April 2024, 1 month after signing the ASI Token Merger Agreement, Ocean asked to be let out of the ASI Alliance. Ocean had ignored the red flags for long enough and wanted to part ways amicably with minimal damage. Ocean drafted a departure announcement that was shared in good faith with Fetch and SingularityNet.

April 25/26 — Sheikh and Pon

The next day emails were exchanged, starting with one from Sheikh to myself, threatening Ocean and myself with a lawsuit that would result in “significant damages.”

Believing that Sheikh shared a commitment to the principles of non-coercion and non-compulsion, I responded to say that the escalation path of Sheikh went immediately towards a lawsuit.

Sheikh then accused Ocean of being guilty of compelling and coercing the other parties against their will, and made clear that any public statement about Ocean leaving the ASI Alliance would be met with a lawsuit.

I re-asserted Ocean’s right to join or not join ASI, and asked that the least destructive path be chosen to minimize harm on the Fetch, SingularityNet and Ocean communities.

For Ocean, it was regrettable that we’d jumped into a deal haphazardly. At the same time, Ocean had signed a contract and we valued our word and our promises. We knew that it was a mistake to join ASI, but we’d gotten ourselves into a dilemma. We decided to ask to be let out of the ASI contract.

May 2024 — Legal Dispute Delays the ASI Launch

Ocean’s request to be let out of the ASI Alliance was met with fury, aggression, and legal action was initiated immediately on Ocean. Sheikh was apparently petrified of the market reaction and refused to entertain anything other than a full merger.

Over the month of May 2024, with the residual goodwill from initial March merger discussions, I negotiated with David Levy who was representing Fetch, with SingularityNet stuck in the middle trying to play referee and keep everyone happy.

May 2, 2024 — Lake and Pon

Trent put together an extensive set of technical analyses exploring possible options for all parties to get what they wanted. Fetch wanted a merger while keeping their $FET token. Ocean needed a pathway that wouldn’t obstruct us to integrate with Oasis. SingularityNet wanted everyone to just get along.

By mid-May sufficient progress had been made so that I could lay down a proposal for Ocean to rejoin the ASI initiative.

May 12, 2024 — Pon to Sheikh

By May 24, 2024 we were coming close to an agreement.

Given our residual reluctance to continue with the ASI Alliance, Ocean argued for minority rights so that we would not be bullied with administrative resolutions at the ASI level that compelled us to do anything that did not align with our values or priorities.

May 24, 2024 — Pon to Levy

Despite Fetch and SingularityNET each (separately) expressing to Ocean concerns that each of the other was liquidating too many tokens too quickly (or had the intention to do so), we strongly reiterated the sacrosanct principle of all crypto, that property in your wallet is Yours. SingularityNet agreed, wanting the option to execute airdrops on the legacy Singularity community if they deemed it useful.

In short:

· Ocean would not interfere with Fetch’s or SingularityNet’s treasury, nor should they interfere with Ocean (or any other token holder).

· Fetch’s, SingularityNET’s and Ocean’s treasuries were sole property of the Foundation entities, and the owning entities had unencumbered, unrestricted rights to do as they wish with their tokens.

oceanDAO, the Ocean community treasury DAO which had been previously acknowledged by SingularityNET in March at the commencement of merger discussions, then came up over multiple discussions with Mr. Levy.

A sticking point in the negotiations appeared when Fetch placed significant pressure to compel Ocean (and oceanDAO) to convert all $OCEAN to $FET immediately after the token bridge was opened. Ocean did not control oceanDAO, and Ocean reiterated forcefully that oceanDAO would make their own decision on the token swap. No one could compel a 3rd party to act one way or the other, but Ocean would give best efforts to socialize the token swap benefits.

In keeping with an ethos of decentralization, Ocean would support any exchange choosing to de-list $OCEAN but Ocean would not forcefully advocate it. Ocean believed that every actor — exchange, token holder, Foundation — should retain their sovereign rights to do as they wish unless contractually obligated.

May 24, 2024 — Pon to Levy

As part of this discussion, Ocean disclosed to Fetch all wallets that it was aware of for both Ocean and the oceanDAO collective. What is clearly notable is that Ocean clearly highlighted to Fetch that OceanDAO was a separate entity, independent from Ocean (i.e. Ocean Protocol Foundation) and that it is not in any way controlled by Ocean.

May 24, 2024 — Pon to Levy (Full disclosure of all Ocean Protocol Foundation and oceanDAO wallets)

Fetch applied intense pressure on Ocean to convert all $OCEAN treasury tokens (including oceanDAO treasury tokens) into $FET. In fact, Fetch sought to contractually compel Ocean to do so in the terms of the ASI deal. Ocean refused to agree to this, since, as already made known to Fetch, the oceanDAO was an independent 3rd party.

Finally acknowledging the reality of the oceanDAO as a 3rd party, Fetch.ai agreed to the following term into the ASI deal:

Ocean “endeavors on best efforts to urge the oceanDAO collective to swap tokens in their custody” into $FET/$ASI as soon as the token bridge was opened, acknowledging that Ocean could not be compelled to force a 3rd party to act.

Being close to a deal, we moved on to the Constitution of the ASI entity (Superintelligence Alliance Ltd). As was clear from the Constitution, the only role of the ASI entity was the assessment and admittance of new Members, and the follow-on instruction to Fetch to mint the necessary tokens to swap out the entire token supply of the newly admitted party.

This negotiated agreement allowed Ocean to preserve its full independence within the ASI Alliance so that it could pursue its own product roadmap based on pragmatism and market demand, rather than fake collaborations within ASI Alliance for marketing “show.” Ocean had fought, over and over again, for the core principle of crypto — each wallet holder has a sole, unencumbered right to their property and tokens to use as they saw fit.

It also allowed Ocean to reject any cost sharing on spending proposals which did not align to Ocean’s needs or priorities, to the significant dismay of Fetch and SingularityNet. They desired that Ocean would pay 1/3 of all ASI expenses that were proposed, even those that were nonsensical or absurd. Ocean’s market cap made up 20% of ASI’s total market cap, so whatever costs were commonly agreed, Ocean would still be paying “more than its fair share” relative to the other two members.

May 24, 2024 — Pon to Levy

In early-June, Ocean, Fetch and SingularityNet struck a deal and agreed to proceed. Fetch made an announcement of the ASI merger moving forward for July 15, 2024.

Ocean reasoned that a protracted legal case would not have helped anyone, $OCEAN holders would have a good home with $FET, that there were worse outcomes than joining $FET and that it would relieve the entire Ocean organization from the day-to-day management of community expectations, freeing the Ocean core team to focus on technology and product.

From June 2024, the Ocean team dove in to execute, in support of the ASI Alliance merger. Ocean had technical, marketing and community teams aligned across all three projects. The merger went according to plan, in spite of the earlier hiccups.

Seeing that there would potentially be technology integration amongst the parties moving forward, the oceanDAO announced through a series of blogposts that all $OCEAN rewards programs would be sun-downed in an orderly manner and that the use of Ocean community rewards would be re-assessed at a later date.

51% treasury for the Ocean community

It’s possible that it was at this juncture that Sheikh mistakenly assumed that the Ocean treasury would be relinquished solely for ASI Alliance purposes. This is what may have led to Sheikh’s many false allegations, libelous claims and misleading statements that Ocean somehow “stole” ASI community funds when, throughout the entire process, Ocean has made forceful, consistent assertions for treasury sovereignty.

Meanwhile, the operational delay had somewhat dampened the enthusiasm in the market for the merger. SingularityNet conveyed to Ocean that this had likely prevented Sheikh from using the originally anticipated hype and increased liquidity to exit large portions of his $FET position with a huge profit for himself. As it turned out, Ocean’s hesitation, driven by valid commercial concerns, may have inadvertently protected the entire ASI community by taking Sheikh’s planned liquidation window away.

In spite of any earlier bad blood, I sent Sheikh a private note immediately upon hearing that his father was gravely ill.

June 10, 2024 — Pon to Sheikh June 2024 — Re-Cap Contractual Obligations of the ASI Alliance

To take a quick step back, the obligations for the ASI Alliance were the following:

Fetch would mint 610.8m $FET to swap out all Ocean holders at a rate of 0.433226 $FET / $OCEAN Fetch would inject 610.8m $FET into the token bridge and migration contract so every $OCEAN token holder could swap their $OCEAN for $FET.

In exchange, Ocean would:

Swap a minimum of 4m $OCEAN to $FET (Ocean Protocol Foundation only had 25m $OCEAN, of which 20m $OCEAN were locked with GSR) Support exchanges in the swap from $OCEAN to $FET Join the to-be established ASI Alliance entity (Superintelligence Alliance Ltd).

When the merger happened in July 2024, Fetch.ai injected 500m $FET each into the migration contracts for $AGIX and $OCEAN, leaving a shortfall of 110.8m $FET which Ocean assumed would be injected later when the migration contract ran low.

With the merger completed, Ocean set about to focus on product development and technology, eschewing many of the outrageous marketing and administrative initiatives proposed by Fetch and SingularityNet.

July 17, 2024 — Pon to Lake and Levy

This singular product focus continued until Ocean’s eventual departure from the ASI Alliance in October 2025.

August 2024 — Cudos Admittance into ASI Alliance

In August 2024, Fetch had prepared a dossier to admit Cudos into the ASI Alliance. The dossier was relatively sparse and missed many key pertinent technical details. Trent had many questions about Cudos’ level of decentralization, which was supposedly one of the key objectives of the ASI Alliance, and whether Cudos’ service was both a cultural and technical fit within the Alliance. During the 2h Board meeting, it got heated when Sheikh made clear that he regarded decentralization as some “rubbish, unknown concept”.

The vote on Cudos proceeded. I voted for Cudos to try to maintain good relations with the others while Trent rightfully voiced his dissatisfaction with the compromise on decentralization principles. The resolution passed 5 of 6 when Fetch and Singularity both unanimously voted “Yes” for entry of Cudos.

The Cudos community “vote” proceeded. Even before the results had been publicly announced on 27 Sep 2024, Fetch.ai had minted the Cudos token allotment, and then sent the $FET to the migration contract to swap out $CUDOS token holders.

December 2024 — SingularityNET’s Spending, Declining $FET Token Price and the Ocean community treasury

By December 2024, many of the ASI and Ocean communities had identified large flows of $AGIX and $FET tokens from the SingularityNet treasury wallets. At the start of the ASI Alliance, Ocean ignored the red flag signals from SingularityNet on their undisciplined spending that was untethered to reality.

Dr. Goertzel was hellbent on competing with the big boys of AI who were deploying $1 Trillion in CapEx. Meanwhile Dr. Goertzel apparently thought that a $100m buy of GPUs could make a difference. As part of this desire to “keep up” with OpenAI, X and others, SingularityNet had a headcount over 300 people. Their monthly fixed burn rate of $6 million per month exceeded the annual burn rate of both the Fetch and Ocean teams combined. This was, in Ocean’s view, unsustainable.

The results were clear as day in the $FET token price chart. From a peak of $3.22/$FET when the ASI Alliance was announced, the token price had dropped to $1.25 by end December 2024. Ocean had not sold, or caused to be sold, any $FET tokens.

Based on independent research, it appears that Fetch.ai also sold or distributed tokens to the tune of 390 million $FET worth $314 million from March 2024 until October 2025:

Further research shows a strong correlation between Fetch liquidations and injections into companies controlled by Sheikh in the UK.

All excess liquidity and buy-demand for $FET was sucked out through SingularityNet’s $6 million per month (or more) burn rate and Fetch’s liquidations with a large portion likely going into Sheikh controlled companies. As a result, the entire ASI community suffered, as $FET underperformed virtually every other AI-crypto token, save one. $PAAL had the unfortunate luck to get tangled up with the ASI Alliance, and through the failed token merger attempt, lost their community’s trust and support, earning the unenviable honour of the worst performing AI-crypto token this past year.

SingularityNet was harming all of ASI due to their out-of-control spending and Fetch’s massive sell-downs compounded the strong negative price pressure.

As painful as it was, Ocean held back from castigating SingularityNet, as one of the core principles of crypto is that a wallet holder fully controls their assets. Ocean kept to that principle, believing that it would likewise apply to any assets controlled by Ocean or oceanDAO. We kept our heads down and maintained strict fiscal discipline.

For the record, from March 2024 until July 2025, a period of 16 months, neither Ocean nor oceanDAO liquidated ANY $FET or $OCEAN into the market, other than for the issuance of community grants, operational obligations and market making to ensure liquid and functioning markets. Ocean had lived through too many bear markets to be undisciplined in spending. Ocean kept budgets tight, assessed every expense regularly and gave respect to the liquidity pools generated by organic demand from token holders and traders.

Contrast this financial discipline with the records which now seem to be coming out. Between SingularityNet and Fetch, approximately $500 million was sent to exchange accounts on the Ethereum, BSC and Cardano blockchains, with huge amounts apparently being liquidated for injection into Sheikh’s personal companies or being sent for custody as part of the TRNR deal (see below). This was money coming from the pockets of all the ASI token holders.

January 2025 — oceanDAO Shifts from a Passive to an Active Token Holder

In January 2025, questions arose from the oceanDAO, whether it would be prudent to explore options to preserve the Ocean community treasury’s value. In light of a $FET price that was clearly declining at a faster rate relative to other AI-crypto tokens, something had to be done.

Since 2021, when the custodianship of oceanDAO had been formally and legally transferred from the Ocean Protocol Foundation, the oceanDAO had held all assets passively. In June 2023, the oceanDAO minted the remaining 51% of the $OCEAN supply and kept them fully under control of a multisig without any activity until July 2025, to minimize any potential tax liabilities on the collective. I was one of seven keyholders.

To put to bed any false allegations, the $OCEAN held by oceanDAO are for the sole benefit of the Ocean community and no one else. It doesn’t matter if Sheikh makes claims based on an alternative reality hundreds of times or that these claims are repeated by his sycophants — the truth is that the $OCEAN / $FET owned by oceanDAO is for the benefit of the Ocean community.

May 2025 — oceanDAO Establishes in Cayman

The realization that SingularityNet (and, as it now turns out, Fetch) was draining liquidity and creating a consistent negative price impact on the community spurred the oceanDAO to investigate what could be done to diversify the Ocean community treasury out of the passively held $OCEAN which was pegged to $FET.

The oceanDAO collective realized it had to actively manage the Ocean community treasury to protect Ocean community interests, especially as the DeFi landscape had matured significantly over the years and now offered attractive yields. Lawyers, accountants and auditors were engaged to survey suitable jurisdictions for this purpose — Singapore, Dubai, Switzerland, offshore Islands. In the end, the oceanDAO decided on Cayman.

Cayman offered several unique advantages for DAOs. Cayman law permits the creation of entities which could avoid giving Founders or those close to the project any legal claim on community assets, ensuring that the work of the entity would be solely deployed for the Ocean community. One quarter of all DAOs choose Cayman as their place to establish, including SingularityNet.

By June 2025, a Cayman trust was established on behalf of the oceanDAO collective for the benefit of the Ocean community. This new entity became known as Ocean Expeditions (OE). oceanDAO transferred its assets to the OE entity and the passively held $OCEAN were converted to $FET. OE could now execute an active management of the treasury. As it happened, Fetch.ai had in fact gotten what it wanted, namely, for oceanDAO to convert its entire treasury of 661 million $OCEAN into $FET tokens.

Contrary to what Sheikh has been insinuating, Ocean does not control OE. Whilst I am the sole director of OE, I remain only one of several keyholders, all of whom entered into a legally binding instrument to act for the collective benefit of the Ocean community.

June 2025 — Fetch’s TRNR “ISI” Deal

Unbeknownst to Ocean or oceanDAO, in parallel, Fetch.ai UK had been working on an ETF deal with Interactive Strength Inc (ISI), aka the “TRNR Deal”.

Neither Ocean nor oceanDAO (or subsequently OE) had any prior knowledge, involvement or awareness of this. In fact, “Ocean” is not mentioned even once in the SEC filings. Consistent with the original understanding that each Foundation had sole control of their treasuries, Ocean was not consulted by Fetch.

I don’t have the full details and I encourage the ASI community to inquire further but the mid-June TRNR deal seems to have committed Fetch to supply $50 million in a cash loan for DWF and ISI, and $100 million in tokens (125m $FET) for a backstop to be custodied with BitGo.

SingularityNet told Ocean that they were strong-armed by Fetch.ai to put in $15 million in cash for this deal, but were not named in any of the filings. The strike price for the deal was around $0.80 per $FET and the backstop would kick-in if $FET dropped to $0.45, essentially betting that $FET would never drop -45%.

However, this ignored the fact that crypto can fall 90% in bear markets or flash crashes. The TRNR deal not only put Fetch.ai’s assets at risk if the collateral was called, the 125m $FET would be liquidated as well, causing significant harm to the entire ASI community.

Well, four months later, that’s exactly what happened. On the night of Oct 10, 2025, Trump announced tariffs on China sending the crypto market into chaos. Many tokens saw a temporary drawdown of 95% before recovering with 2/3 of their valuation from the day before. One week later on Oct 17, further crypto-market aftershocks occurred with another round of smaller liquidations.

Again, I don’t have all the details, but it appears that large portions of the $FET custodied with BitGo were liquidated causing a drop in $FET price from $0.40 down to $0.32.

Oct 12, 2025 — Artificial Superintelligence Alliance Telegram Chat

The ASI and Fetch community should be asking Fetch.ai some hard questions such as why Fetch.ai would sign such a reckless and disastrous deal? They should ask for full transparency on the TRNR deal with clear numbers on the amounts loaned, $FET used as collateral, and the risk assessment on the negative price impact to $FET if the collateral was called and liquidated by force.

June 2025 — oceanDAO becomes Ocean Expeditions

Two weeks after the TRNR deal was announced, OE received its business incorporation papers in Cayman and assets from oceanDAO could be immediately transferred over to the OE entity.

The timing of OE’s incorporation was totally unrelated to Fetch’s TRNR deal, and had in fact been in the works long before the TRNR deal was announced. OE’s strategy to actively manage the Ocean community treasury was developed completely independently from Fetch’s TRNR deal, because remember, Ocean was never informed of anything except for a head’s up on the main press release a few days before publication.

OE had few options with the $OCEAN it held because (contrary to recent assertions) Fetch.ai had mandated a one-way transfer from $OCEAN to $FET in the June 2024 deal for Ocean to re-engage with the ASI Alliance. By this time, most exchanges had de-listed $OCEAN, which closed off virtually all liquidity avenues. As a result, $OCEAN lost 90% of its liquidity and exchange pairs.

OE had only one way out and that was to convert $OCEAN to $FET. This was consistent with the ASI deal. It was Fetch.ai that wanted Ocean to compel oceanDAO to convert $OCEAN to $FET as part of the ASI deal.

On July 1 2025, all 661m $OCEAN held by OE in the Ocean community wallet were converted.

Completely unbeknownst to Ocean and to OE, Sheikh viewed OE’s treasury activities, not as support for his $FET token, rather as sabotage for his TRNR plans.

But recall, OE had no idea about the details of the deal. Neither OE, nor Ocean, was a party to the deal in any way. I found out like everyone else via a press release on June 11 that the deal had closed and I promptly ignored it to focus on Ocean’s strategy, products and technology.

Sticking to the principle that each Foundation works in its own manner for the benefit of the ASI community, Ocean didn’t feel the need to demand any restrictions on Fetch.ai nor to delve into any documents. Personally, I didn’t even read the SEC filings until September, in the course of the ongoing legal proceedings to understand the allegations being made against Ocean. The TRNR deal was solely a Fetch.ai matter.

June 2025 — ASI Alliance Financials

As an aside, I had been driving the effort to keep the books of the ASI Alliance properly up-to-date.

Sheikh was insistent that Fetch be reimbursed by the other Members for its financial outlays, assuming that other ASI members had spent less than Fetch.ai. When Sheikh found out that it was actually Ocean who had contributed the most money to commonly agreed expenditures, even though Ocean was the smallest member, and SingularityNet and Fetch.ai would owe Ocean money, the complaint was dropped.

Instead, Sheikh tried another tactic to offload expenses.

SingularityNet and Ocean had signed off on the 2024 financial statements for the ASI Alliance. However, the financials were delayed by Fetch.ai. Sheikh wanted to load up the balance sheet of the ASI Alliance with debt obligations based on the spendings of the member Foundations.

June 20, 2025 — Pon to Sheikh

Fetch’s insistence was against the agreement made at the founding of ASI, that each Member would spend and direct their efforts on ASI initiatives of their own choosing and volition, and the books of ASI Alliance would be kept clean and simple. This was especially prudent as the ASI Alliance had no income or assets.

After a 6-week delay and back and forth discussions, in mid-August we finally got Fetch.ai’s agreement to move forward by deferring the conversation on cost sharing to the following year.

This incident stuck in my mind as an enormous red flag, as these types of accounting practices hinted at the type of tactics that Sheikh may consider as a normal way of doing business. Ocean strongly disagrees and does not find such methods to be prudent.

July 2025 — Ocean Expeditions Sets Out to Diversify the Ocean community Treasury

On July 3, Ocean Expeditions (OE) sent 34 million $FET to a reputable market maker for mid-dated options with sell limits set to $0.75–0.95, so OE could earn premiums while allowing for the liquidation of $FET if the price was higher at option expiry.

This sort of option strategy is a standard approach to treasury management that is ethical, responsible and benefits token holders by maintaining relative price stability. The options only execute and trigger a sale if, upon maturity, the $FET price is higher than the strike price. If at maturity the $FET price is lower than the strike price, the options expire unexercised while still allowing OE to earn premiums, benefiting the Ocean community.

Insinuations that these transactions were a form of “token dumping” are nonsensical and misinformed. OE was simply managing the community treasury.

On July 14, a further 56 million $FET was sent out as part of the same treasury strategy with strikes set at $0.70-$1.05.

These option transactions did lead to a responsible liquidation of $18.2 million worth of $FET on July 21, one that accorded with market demand and did not depress the $FET price. Further, this was 6 weeks after the TRNR deal was announced. From July 21 until Ocean’s exit from the ASI Alliance on Oct 9, 2025, there were no further liquidations of $FET save for one small tranche that raised $2.2m.

In total, Ocean Expeditions raised $22.4 million for the Ocean community, a significantly smaller sum compared to the estimated $500 million of liquidations by the other ASI members.

August 2025 — Ocean Requests for a Refill of the $OCEAN/$FET Token Migration Contract

Around this time, Ocean realized that the $OCEAN/$FET token migration contract was running perilously low. The migration contract was supposed to cover over 270 million $OCEAN to be converted by 37,500 token holders, but only 7 million $FET were left in the migration contract.

On July 22, Ocean requested Fetch to top-up the migration contract with 50m $FET without response. Another email was sent to Sheikh on July 29 with a response from him of “will work on it.” Sheikh asked for a call on Aug 1, where he agreed to top up the migration contract with the remaining tokens. On Aug 5, I wrote an email to Fetch and Sheikh with a formal request for a top-up, while confirming that all wallets are secured for the Ocean community.

I sent a final note on August 12 to Sheikh with a request for information why the promised top-up had not yet occurred.

August 2025 — A Conspiracy To Force Ocean to Submit

Starting August 12, Fetch.ai and SingularityNet actively conspired against Ocean. Without allowing Ocean’s directors to vote on the matter (on the grounds that Ocean’s directors were purportedly “conflicted”), Fetch’s and SingularityNet’s directors on the ASI Alliance unilaterally attempted to pass a resolution to close the $OCEAN-$FET token bridge. This action clearly violated the ASI Constitution which mandated a unanimous agreement by all directors for any ASI Alliance actions.

On August 13, Mario Casiraghi, SingularityNET’s CFO, issued the following email:

The next day on August 14, I received this message from Lake:

(In this note, Lake acknowledged that Sheikh’s original plans to dump the ASI Alliance were still in place, albeit potentially at an accelerated pace).

Ocean objected forcefully, citing the need to protect the ASI and Ocean communities, and pleading to keep the matter private and contained.

August 19, 2025 — Pon, Dr. Goertzel, Mario Casiraghi

At this point, I highlighted the obvious hypocrisy of SingularityNet and Fetch.

SingularityNet and Fetch had moved $500 million worth of $FET, sucking out excess liquidity from all token holders. All the while, Ocean held its tongue and maintained fiscal discipline.

Yet, the very first instance that oceanDAO/ Ocean Expeditions actually liquidated any $FET tokens, Ocean was accused of malicious intent, exercising control over OceanDAO/OE and called to task. Fetch had accused the wrong entity, Ocean, for actions of a wholly separate 3rd party, and jumped to completely false conclusions about the motives.

The improper ASI Alliance Directors’ actions violated the core principle of the ASI Alliance that crypto-property was to be solely directed by each Foundation. Additional clauses with demands for transparency, something neither Fetch.ai nor SingularityNet had ever offered or provided themselves, were included to further try to hamper and limit Ocean Protocol Foundation.

The only authority of the ASI Alliance and the Board, as defined in the ASI Constitution, was to vote on accepting new members and then minting the appropriate tokens for a swap-out. There was no authority, power or mandate to sanction any Member Foundation.

Any and all other actions needed a unanimous decision from the Board and Member Foundations. This illegal action was exactly what Ocean was so concerned about in the May 2024 “re-joining” discussions — the potential for the bullying and harassment of Ocean as the weakest and smallest member of the ASI Alliance.

Finally, in seeing the clear intent on closing the token bridge and the active measures to harm 37,600 innocent $OCEAN token holders, Ocean needed to act.

Ocean immediately initiated legal action to protect Ocean and ASI users on August 15, 2025. This remains ongoing.

Within hours of Ocean’s filing, Fetch responded with a lengthy countersuit against Ocean accompanied with witness statements and voluminous exhibits. This showed that Fetch had for weeks been planning on commencing a lawsuit against Ocean and instructing lawyers behind the scenes. On August 19, Ocean also received a DocuSign from SingularityNet’s lawyer. This contained the resolution which Fetch and Singularity attempted to pass without the Ocean-appointed directors, i.e. myself and Trent.

On August 22, by consent, parties agreed to an order to maintain confidentiality during the legal process, and out of respect for the process, Ocean refrained from communicating with any 3rd parties, including OE who was not a party to the dispute or the proceedings. It is also the reason why Ocean has, until now, refrained from litigating this dispute in public.

October 2025 — Ocean Exits the ASI Alliance

As the legal proceedings carried on, and evidence was provided from August until late-September, it was clear that Ocean could no longer be a part of the ASI Alliance.

The only question was when to exit?

Ocean was confident that the evidence and facts presented to the adjudicator would prove its case and vindicate it, so Ocean wanted the adjudicator to forcefully make an assessment.

Once the adjudicator issued his findings (which Ocean has proposed to waive confidentiality over and release to the community so the community can see the truth for themselves, but which Fetch has refused to agree to), Ocean decided that it was time to leave the ASI Alliance.

The 18-month ordeal was too much to bear.

From the violation of the original agreements on the principles of decentralization, to the encroachment on both Ocean and Ocean Expedition treasuries, while watching SingularityNet and Fetch disregard and pilfer the community for their own priorities, Ocean knew that it needed out.

Ocean couldn’t save ASI, but could try to salvage something for the Ocean community.

SingularityNet and Fetch used their treasuries recklessly as they saw fit, without regard or consideration of the impacts to the ASI community.

From Fetch’s over-reaction the first time Ocean wanted to bow out amicably, Ocean knew that additional legal challenges and attempts to block Ocean from leaving could be expected.

Ocean has only tried to build decentralized AI products, exert strict fiscal discipline, collaborate in good faith and protect the ASI and Ocean communities as best as we can.

As of Oct. 9, Ocean Expeditions retained the vast majority of the $FET that were converted from $OCEAN. All tokens held by Ocean Expeditions are its property, and will be used solely for the benefit of the Ocean community. They are not controlled by Ocean, or by me.

Summary

$FET dropped from a peak of $3.22 at the time of the ASI Alliance announcement to $0.235 today, a -93% drop. Fetch and SingularityNet have tried to convince the community that this was all a result of Ocean leaving the ASI Alliance, but that is untrue.

Ocean announced its withdrawal on Oct 9 from the ASI Alliance in a fully amicable manner, without pointing fingers to minimize any potential fallout. Even after 8 hours of Ocean’s announcement, the price of $FET had only fallen marginally from $0.55 to $0.53. In other words, Sheikh is blaming Ocean for a problem that has little to do with anything Ocean has done.

Price Chart “1h-Candles” on $FET at the time of the Ocean withdrawal

The Oct 10/11 Crypto flash crash due to Trump’s China tariff announcement took the entire market down and $FET went down to $0.11 before it recovered to $0.40.

On the evening of Oct 12, a further decline in $FET came when the TRNR collateral was called on and started to be liquidated. This event brought $FET down to $0.32. This was the ill-conceived deal entered into by Fetch.ai which apparently ignored the extreme volatility of crypto-markets and caused unnecessary damage to the entire ASI community.

Meanwhile, in the general crypto market, a second aftershock of liquidations happened around Oct 17.

Combined with Fetch and Sheikh’s attempts to denigrate Ocean, and in the process causing damage to their own $FET token as the allegations became more and more ludicrous, and the narrative attacks started to contradict themselves.

In short, the -93% drop in $FET from 27 March 2024 until 19 October 2025 was due to the broader market sentiment and volatility, SingularityNet and Fetch’s draining of liquidity from the entire community by dumping upwards of $500 million worth of $FET tokens, a reckless TRNR deal that failed to anticipate crypto dropping more than 45% and wiping out $150 million in cash and tokens, and Fetch.ai’s FUDing of its own project, bringing disrepute on itself when Ocean decided that it could not in good conscience remain a part of the ASI Alliance.

X Post: @cryptorinweb3 — https://x.com/cryptorinweb3/status/1980644944256930202

I’m not going to say whose fault I think the drop in $FET’s price is, but I can with very high confidence say it has next to nothing to do with Ocean leaving the ASI Alliance.

I hope that the Fetch and SingularityNet communities ask for full financial transparency on the spendings of the respective Fetch.ai and SingularityNet Companies and Foundations.

I would also like to sincerely thank the Ocean community, trustees and the public for their patience and support during Ocean’s radio silence in respect of the legal processes.

The ASI Alliance from Ocean’s Perspective was originally published in Ocean Protocol on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Luxembourg & Zug – 23 October 2025 – AMINA Bank AG (“AMINA”), a Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA)-regulated crypto bank with global reach, has entered into a collaboration agreement with Tokeny, (an Apex Group company), the leading onchain finance operating system, to create a regulated banking bridge for institutional tokenisation. This strategic collaboration addresses critical institutional bottlenecks by applying Swiss banking standards to blockchain innovation.

Through this agreement, AMINA Bank will deliver regulated banking and custody for underlying assets such as government bonds, corporate securities, treasury bills, and other traditional financial instruments, while Tokeny provides the tokenisation platform. AMINA’s extensive crypto and stablecoin offering also enables clients to seamlessly move on and off chain.

Market demand for tokenisation is coming from the open blockchain ecosystems, and institutions need a compliant and scalable way to meet it. By integrating AMINA Bank's regulated banking and custody framework with Tokeny's orchestrated tokenisation infrastructure, we provide financial institutions with a fast, seamless, and secure path to market. Luc FalempinCEO of Tokeny, and Head of Product for Apex Digital

The tokenised assets market is experiencing explosive growth, with major institutions, including JP Morgan and BlackRock, leading adoption of blockchain-based financial products. This momentum is supported by accelerating regulatory clarity across the globe, from the US GENIUS Act to Hong Kong’s ASPIRe framework.

The collaboration leverages AMINA’s regulated banking infrastructure alongside Tokeny’s proven tokenisation expertise. AMINA provides Swiss banking-standard custody and compliance, while Tokeny contributes first-mover tokenisation technology and an enterprise-grade platform that has powered over 120 use cases and billions of dollars in assets. It has recently been acquired by Apex Group, a global financial services provider with $3.5 trillion in assets under administration.

In the past year, there’s been increased demand from our institutional clients for compliant access to tokenised assets on public blockchains. Tokenised entities still face critical challenges such as setting up banking and custody solutions. There’s a lack of orchestrated infrastructure that connects with legacy systems. My priority is delivering this innovation through the safest, most regulated pathway possible, and we’re excited to partner with Tokeny to make this happen. Myles HarrisonChief Product Officer at AMINA Bank

The combined solution offers financial institutions end-to-end tokenisation capability with fast time-to-market measured in weeks. Starting with traditional financial instruments where institutional demand is focused, the collaboration agreement establishes the regulated infrastructure foundation for future expansion into asset classes where tokenisation can deliver greater utility.

Tokeny’s platform leverages the ERC-3643 standard for compliant tokenisation, the standard is built on top of ERC-20 with a compliance layer to ensure interoperability with the broader DeFi ecosystem. This ensures that, even within an open blockchain ecosystem, only authorised investors can hold and transfer tokenised assets while maintaining issuer control and automated regulatory compliance.

“The future of finance is open, and institutions now have the tools to take full advantage, without compromising on compliance, security, or operational efficiency,” added Falempin.

About Tokeny

Tokeny is a leading onchain finance platform and part of Apex Group, a global financial services provider with $3.5 trillion in assets under administration and over 13,000 professionals across 52 countries. With seven years of proven experience, Tokeny provides financial institutions with the technical tools to represent assets on the blockchain securely and compliantly without facing complex technical hurdles.Institutions can issue, manage, and distribute securities fully onchain, benefiting from faster transfers, lower costs, and broader distribution. Investors enjoy instant settlement, peer-to-peer transferability, and access to a growing ecosystem of tokenized assets and DeFi services. From opening new distribution channels to reducing operational friction, Tokeny enables institutions to modernize how assets move and go to market faster, without needing to be blockchain experts.

Website | LinkedIn | X/Twitter

About AMINA – Crypto. Banking. Simplified.

Founded in April 2018 and established in Zug (Switzerland), AMINA Bank AG is a pioneer in the crypto banking industry. In August 2019, AMINA Bank AG received the Swiss Banking and Securities Dealer License from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (“FINMA”). In February 2022, AMINA Bank AG, Abu Dhabi Global Markets (“ADGM”) Branch received Financial Services Permission from the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (“FSRA”) of ADGM. In November 2023, AMINA (Hong Kong) Limited received its Type 1, Type 4 and Type 9 licenses from the Securities and Futures Commission (“SFC”).

To learn more about AMINA, visit aminagroup.com

The post Apex Group’s Tokeny & AMINA Bank combine tokenisation innovation with regulated banking appeared first on Tokeny.

Thales reports its order intake and sales as of September 30, 2025 prezly Thu, 10/23/2025 - 06:00 Group Investor relations

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Facebook X Whatsapp Linkedin Email URL copied to clipboard 23 Oct 2025 Order intake: €16.8 billion, up +8% (+9% on an organic basis1) Sales: €15.3 billion, up +8.4% (+9.1% on an organic basis) Confirmation of all 2025 financial targets2 Book-to-bill ratio above 1 Organic sales growth between +6% and +7%3 Adjusted EBIT margin: 12.2% to 12.4%

Thales (Euronext Paris: HO) today announced its order intake and sales for the period ending September 30, 2025.

Order intake

In € millions

9m 2025

9m 2024

Total

change

Organic change

Aerospace

3,919

3,639

+8%

+7%

Defence

9,943

8,951

+11%

+12%

Cyber & Digital

2,827

2,905

-3%

-0%

Total – operating segments

16,689

15,494

+8%

+8%

Other

73

56

Total

16,762

15,551

+8%

+9%

Of which mature markets4

12,342

11,413

+8%

+9%

Of which emerging markets4

4,419

4,137

+7%

+8%

Sales

In € millions

9m 2025

9m 2024

Total

change

Organic change

Aerospace

4,108

3,839

+7.0%

+6.9%

Defence

8,243

7,239

+13.9%

+14.0%

Cyber & Digital

2,803

2,914

-3.8%

-1.3%

Of which Cyber

1,059

1,140

-7.1%

-4.8%

Of which Digital

1,744

1,774

-1.7%

+1.0%

Total – operating segments

15,154

13,993

+8.3%

+8.9%

Other

101

76

Total

15,256

14,069

+8.4%

+9.1%

Of which mature markets4

12,053

11,220

+7.4%

+7.7%

Of which emerging markets4

3,203

2,849

+12.4%

+14.5%

“In the third quarter 2025, Thales delivered sustained organic growth in both order intake and sales, further confirming the Group's strong momentum since the beginning of the year. ​
​In this supportive environment, Thales confirms all its financial targets for 2025. I welcome the constant commitment of our teams to pursue this sustainable growth trajectory.”
​Patrice Caine, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Order intake

Over the first nine months of 2025, order intake amounted to €16,762 million, up +9% organically compared with the first nine months of 2024 (up +8% on a reported basis). The Group continues to benefit from strong commercial momentum in most of its activities, particularly in the Aerospace and Defence segments. ​

Over this period, Thales recorded 14 large orders with a unit value of more than €100 million, for a total amount of €5,331 million:

5 large orders recorded in Q1 2025: Contract signed with Space Norway, a Norwegian satellite operator, for the supply of the THOR 8 telecommunications satellite; Order by SKY Perfect JSAT to Thales Alenia Space of JSAT-32, a geostationary telecommunications satellite; Signing of a contract between Thales and the European Space Agency (ESA) to develop Argonaut, a future autonomous and versatile lunar lander designed to deliver cargo and scientific instruments to the Moon; Order from the Dutch Ministry of Defence for the modernization and support of vehicle tactical simulators; Order from the French Defence Procurement Agency (DGA) for the development, production, and maintenance of vetronics equipment for various Army vehicles as part of the SCORPION programme. 5 large orders recorded in Q2 2025: Contract related to the supply of 26 Rafale Marine to India to equip the Indian Navy; As part of the SDMM (Strategic Domestic Munition Manufacturing) contract signed in 2020 for the supply of ammunition to the Australian armed forces, entry into force of years 6 to 8. The continuation of the SDMM contract concerns the design, the development, manufacture and maintenance of a variety of ammunition; Contract for the delivery to Ukraine of 70 mm ammunition and the transfer of the final assembly line of certain components of this ammunition from Belgium to Ukraine; Order for the production and supply of AWWS (Above-Water Warfare System) combat systems intended for frigates equipment in Europe; Order by Sweden of compact multi-mission medium range Ground Master 200 radars. 4 large orders recorded in Q3 2025: Signing of the Initial Phase Contract between Thales Alenia Space and the SpaceRISE consortium of satellite operators to engineer the system and secured payload solutions for the future European constellation IRIS²; Order from the UK Ministry of Defence for the production and delivery of 5,000 air defence LMM missiles; Order from the German Ministry of Defence for the delivery to a third country of portable land surveillance radars; Order from a European country for the production and delivery of 70 mm ammunition.

At €11,431 million, order intake of a unit amount below €100 million was up +8% compared to the first nine months of 2024; meanwhile, those with a unit value of less than €10 million were slightly up at September 30, 2025.

Geographically5, order intake in mature markets recorded organic growth of +9%, at €12,342 million, driven notably by solid momentum in Europe (up organically by +13%). Order intake in emerging markets amounted to €4,419 million and showed an organic increase of +8% at 30 September 2025, notably benefiting from the strong dynamism in Asia (+39% organic growth).

Order intake in the Aerospace segment amounted to €3,919 million, up +7% over the first nine months of 2025. The Avionics market has enjoyed sustained commercial momentum in its various activities since the beginning of the year. The Space business, which recorded four orders with a unit value of more than €100 million in the first nine months of 2025, also saw its order intake increase over the period.

With an amount of €9,943 million compared to €8,951 million in the first nine months of 2024, order intake in the Defence segment recorded a strong organic increase of +12%. This growth reflects an excellent commercial dynamic, supported notably by the relevance of Thales’ portfolio of products and solutions in the current context. Nine orders with a unit amount exceeding €100 million have been recorded since the beginning of the year 2025. Among them, two orders in the field of air defence in the UK and Germany were recorded in the third quarter.

At €2,827 million, order intake in the Cyber & Digital segment was structurally very close to sales as most business lines in this segment operate on short sales cycles. The order book is therefore not significant.
​

Sales

Sales for the first nine months of 2025 amounted to €15,256 million, compared with €14,069 million in the same period of 2024, up +9.1%6 at constant scope and exchange rates (+8.4% on a reported basis).

Geographically7, sales recorded solid growth in mature markets (+7.7% in organic terms), notably in the United Kingdom (+12.3%). Emerging markets also recorded strong growth (+14.5% organically over the period), with double-digit organic growth in all regions.

In the Aerospace segment, sales reached €4,108 million, up +7.0% compared to the first nine months of 2024 (+6.9% at constant scope and exchange rates). This growth reflects the continued momentum in the Avionics market, with a solid performance in both civil and military domains. Sales in the Space business recorded growth in line with annual expectations over the first nine months of 2025.

Sales in the Defence segment reached €8,243 million, up +13.9% compared to the first nine months of 2024 (+14.0% at constant scope and exchange rates). This growth was driven by all activities in the Defence segment, which benefitted notably from production capacity expansion projects being deployed.

Cyber & Digital segment sales amounted to €2,803 million, down -3.8% compared to the first nine months of 2024 (-1.3% at constant scope and exchange rates), reflecting contrasted trends:

Cyber businesses reported a decrease over the first nine months of 2025 (-4.8% at constant scope and exchange rates): The Cyber Products business, down at September 30, 2025, has not yet returned to a normal level of activity after the disturbances recorded during the first half of the year. These disturbances, that still weighed on the third quarter, are linked to the merger of Imperva and Thales' sales teams, a key step in the integration that will allow to benefit from the full potential of the business; The Cyber Premium Services business also showed a decline over the first nine months of 2025, affected by soft market demand, particularly in Australia. The ongoing execution of the strategy aimed at refocusing the business on selective profitable growth segments shows encouraging signs. Digital activities recorded an increase of +1.0% at constant scope and exchange rates: Sales from Payment Services enjoyed a strong growth in digital banking solutions, but remained affected by still low volumes on payment cards; Secure Connectivity solutions recorded sustained growth, driven by digital solutions (including eSIM as well as on-demand connectivity platforms). Outlook

Thales, with its strong positioning in all of its major markets and the relevance of its products and solutions, benefits from a favorable medium and long-term outlook.

Assuming no new disruptions in the macroeconomic and geopolitical contexts, and no new tariffs developments8, Thales confirms all its targets for 2025:

A book-to-bill ratio above 1; An expected organic sales growth between +6% and +7%, corresponding to a sales range of €21.8 to €22.0 billion9; An Adjusted EBIT margin between 12.2% and 12.4%.

****

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements. Although Thales believes that its expectations are based on reasonable assumptions, actual results may differ significantly from the forward-looking statements due to various risks and uncertainties, as described in the Company's Universal Registration Document, which has been filed with the French financial markets authority (Autorité des marchés financiers – AMF).

UPCOMING EVENTS

Ex-interim dividend date

December 2, 2025

Interim dividend payment date

December 4, 2025

Full Year 2025 results

March 3, 2026 (before market)

Annual General Meeting

May 12, 2026

1 In this press release, “organic” means “at constant scope and exchange rates”.

2 Assuming no new disruptions of the macroeconomic and geopolitical context. Regarding tariffs, the Group’s guidance for the year 2025 is valid on the basis of 1) reciprocal tariffs of 15% from the EU, 10% from and the UK and 25% from Mexico, 2) the maintenance of the EU-US tariff exemption on Aeronautics and 3) consequently, the absence of European retaliatory measures.

3 ​ Corresponding to €21.8 to €22.0 billion and based on end of September 2025 scope, average exchange rates as at 30 September 2025 and the assumption of an average EUR/USD exchange rate of 1.17 in Q4 2025.

4 Mature markets: Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand; emerging markets: all other countries.

5 See table on page 7.

6 Considering a positive currency effect of -€164 million and a net scope effect of €90 million.

7 See table on page 7.

8 Regarding tariffs, the Group’s guidance for the year 2025 is valid on the basis of 1) reciprocal tariffs of 15% from the EU, 10% from the UK and 25% from Mexico, 2) the maintenance of the EU-US tariff exemption on Aeronautics and 3) consequently, the absence of European retaliatory measures.

9 Based on end of September 2025, average exchange rates as at 30 September 2025 and the assumption of an average EUR/USD exchange rate of 1.17 in Q4 2025.

About Thales

Thales (Euronext Paris: HO) is a global leader in advanced technologies for the Defence, Aerospace, and Cyber & Digital sectors. Its portfolio of innovative products and services addresses several major challenges: sovereignty, security, sustainability and inclusion.

The Group invests more than €4 billion per year in Research & Development in key areas, particularly for critical environments, such as Artificial Intelligence, cybersecurity, quantum and cloud technologies. Thales has more than 83,000 employees in 68 countries. In 2024, the Group generated sales of €20.6 billion.

View PDF Related Documents

Thales - Q3 2025 - slideshow

1.37 MB 29 Oct 2025 PDF Download corporate : Group + Investor relations https://thales-group.prezly.com/thales-reports-its-order-intake-and-sales-as-of-september-30-2025 thales-reports-its-order-intake-and-sales-september-30-2025 On Thales reports its order intake and sales as of September 30, 2025

Airbus, Leonardo and Thales sign Memorandum of Understanding to create a leading European player in space prezly Thu, 10/23/2025 - 06:00 Civil Aviation Defence Space

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Facebook X Whatsapp Linkedin Email URL copied to clipboard 23 Oct 2025 New European space player aims to unite and enhance capabilities by combining the three respective activities in satellite and space systems manufacturing and space services. Major milestone in strengthening the European space ecosystem, supporting strategic autonomy and competitiveness, to ensure Europe enhances its role as a key player in the space global market. New company could be operational in 2027, subject to regulatory approvals and satisfaction of other closing conditions. Project expected to generate significant synergies, foster innovation, and deliver added value to customers, shareholders and employees.

* * *

Airbus (stock exchange symbol: AIR), Leonardo (Borsa Italiana: LDO) and Thales (Euronext Paris: HO) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (“MoU”) aimed at combining their respective space activities into a new company.

By joining forces, Airbus, Leonardo and Thales aim to strengthen Europe’s strategic autonomy in space, a major sector that underpins critical infrastructure and services related to telecommunications, global navigation, earth observation, science, exploration and national security. This new company also intends to serve as the trusted partner for developing and implementing national sovereign space programmes.

This new company will pool, build and develop a comprehensive portfolio of complementary technologies and end-to-end solutions, from space infrastructure to services (excluding space launchers). It will accelerate innovation in this strategic market, in order to create a unified, integrated and resilient European space player, with the critical mass to compete globally and grow on the export markets.

This new player will be able to foster innovation, combine and strengthen investments in future space products and services, building on the complementary assets and world-class expertise of all three companies. The combination is expected to generate mid triple digit million euro of total annual synergies on operating income five years after closing. Associated costs to generate those synergies are expected to be in line with industry benchmark.

The project is expected to unlock incremental revenues, leveraging an expanded portfolio of end-to-end products and services leading to a more competitive offering, and greater global commercial reach. The combined capabilities also pave the way for even more innovative new programmes to enlarge the new company’s market positioning. Further operational synergies in, among others, engineering, manufacturing and project management, are anticipated to drive long-term efficiency and value creation. Upon conclusion of the transaction, this new company will encompass the following contributions:

Airbus will contribute with its Space Systems and Space Digital businesses, coming from Airbus Defence and Space. Leonardo will contribute with its Space Division, including its shares in Telespazio and Thales Alenia Space. Thales will mainly contribute with its shares in Thales Alenia Space, Telespazio, and Thales SESO.

The combined entity will employ around 25,000 people across Europe. With an annual turnover of about 6.5bn€ (end of 2024, pro-forma) and an order backlog representing more than three years of projected sales, this new company will form a robust and competitive entity worldwide.

Ownership of the new company will be shared among the parent companies, with Airbus, Leonardo and Thales owning respectively 35%, 32,5% and 32,5% stakes. It will operate under joint control, with a balanced governance structure among shareholders.

Accelerating European leadership in space and ensuring its strategic autonomy, the new company aims to:

Foster innovation and technological progress by harnessing joint R&D capabilities to be at the cutting edge of space missions in all domains, including services, and enhance operational efficiency, benefiting from economies of scale and optimized production processes. Increase competitiveness facing global players, reaching critical mass and ensuring Europe secures its role as a major player in the international space market. Lead innovative programmes to address evolving customer and European sovereign needs, national sovereign and military programmes, by providing integrated solutions for infrastructure & services in all major space domains, driving cooperation across nations and having the capability to invest. Strengthen the European space ecosystem by bringing more stability and predictability to the industrial landscape, amplifying opportunities for the benefit of European suppliers of all sizes. Create new opportunities for employee development through broader technical capabilities and the extensive multinational footprint of the new company.

Joint Statement

Guillaume Faury, Chief Executive Officer of Airbus, Roberto Cingolani, Chief Executive Officer and General Manager of Leonardo and Patrice Caine, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of Thales, declared:
​“This proposed new company marks a pivotal milestone for Europe’s space industry. It embodies our shared vision to build a stronger and more competitive European presence in an increasingly dynamic global space market. By pooling our talent, resources, expertise and R&D capabilities, we aim to generate growth, accelerate innovation and deliver greater value to our customers and stakeholders. This partnership aligns with the ambitions of European governments to strengthen their industrial and technological assets, ensuring Europe’s autonomy across the strategic space domain and its many applications. It offers employees the opportunity to be at the heart of this ambitious initiative, while benefiting from enhanced career prospects and the collective strength of the three industry leaders.”

Next steps

Employee representatives of Airbus, Leonardo and Thales will be informed and consulted on this project according to the laws of involved countries and the collective agreements applicable at each parent company.

Completion of the transaction is subject to customary conditions including regulatory clearances, with the new company expected to be operational in 2027.

About Thales

Thales (Euronext Paris: HO) is a global leader in advanced technologies for the Defence, Aerospace, and Cyber & Digital sectors. Its portfolio of innovative products and services addresses several major challenges: sovereignty, security, sustainability and inclusion. The Group invests more than €4 billion per year in Research & Development in key areas, particularly for critical environments, such as Artificial Intelligence, cybersecurity, quantum and cloud technologies. Thales has more than 83,000 employees in 68 countries. In 2024, the Group generated sales of €20.6 billion.

About Airbus

Airbus pioneers sustainable aerospace for a safe and united world. The Company constantly innovates to provide efficient and technologically-advanced solutions in aerospace, defence, and connected services. In commercial aircraft, Airbus designs and manufactures modern and fuel-efficient airliners and associated services. Airbus is also a European leader in space systems, defence and security. In helicopters, Airbus provides efficient civil and military rotorcraft solutions and services worldwide.

About Leonardo

Leonardo is an international industrial group, among the main global companies in Aerospace, Defence, and Security (AD&S). With 60,000 employees worldwide, the company approaches global security through the Helicopters, Electronics, Aeronautics, Cyber & Security and Space sectors, and is a partner on the most important international programmes such as Eurofighter, JSF, NH-90, FREMM, GCAP, and Eurodrone. Leonardo has significant production capabilities in Italy, the UK, Poland, and the USA. Leonardo utilises its subsidiaries, joint ventures, and shareholdings, which include Leonardo DRS (71.6%), MBDA (25%), ATR (50% ), Hensoldt (22.8%), Telespazio (67%), Thales Alenia Space (33%), and Avio (28.7%). Listed on the Milan Stock Exchange (LDO), in 2024 Leonardo recorded new orders for €20.9 billion, with an order book of €44.2 billion and consolidated revenues of €17.8 billion. Included in the MIB ESG index, the company has also been part of the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI) since 2010.

View PDF market_segment : Civil Aviation + Defence + Space ; corporate : Investor relations + Group https://thales-group.prezly.com/airbus-leonardo-and-thales-sign-memorandum-of-understanding-to-create-a-leading-european-player-in-space airbus-leonardo-and-thales-sign-memorandum-understanding-create-leading-european-player-space On Airbus, Leonardo and Thales sign Memorandum of Understanding to create a leading European player in space

Learn how Fastly's distributed decision-making and self-healing systems build a resilient, high-performance network. Discover key benefits and examples.

In this episode of The Future of Identity Podcast, I’m joined by Chris Goh, former National Harmonisation Lead for Australia’s mobile driver’s licenses (mDLs) and the architect behind Queensland’s digital driver’s license. Chris played a pivotal role in driving national alignment across states and territories, culminating in the 2024 agreement to adopt ISO mDoc/mDL standards for mobile driver’s licenses and photo IDs across Australia and New Zealand.

Our conversation dives into Australia’s path from early blockchain experiments to a unified, standards-based approach - one that balances innovation, security, and accessibility. Chris shares lessons from real-world deployments, cultural challenges like “flash passes,” and how both Australia and New Zealand are building digital ID ecosystems ready for global interoperability.

In this episode we explore:

Why mDoc became the foundation: Offline + online verification, PKI-based trust, and modular architecture enabling scalable, interoperable credentials. From Hyperledger to harmony: Lessons from early decentralized trials and how certification and conformance reduce fragmentation. Balancing innovation and standardization: Why agility and stability must coexist to keep identity ecosystems moving forward. The cultural realities of adoption: How flash passes, retail constraints, and public education shaped Australia’s rollout strategy. The road ahead: How national trust lists, privacy “contracts,” and delegated authority could define the next phase of digital identity in the region.

This episode is essential listening for anyone building or implementing digital credentials, whether you’re a policymaker, issuer, verifier, or technology provider. Chris offers a clear, grounded perspective on what it really takes to move from pilots to national-scale digital identity infrastructure.

Enjoy the episode, and don’t forget to share it with others who are passionate about the future of identity!

Learn more about Valid8.

Reach out to Riley (@rileyphughes) and Trinsic (@trinsic_id) on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you.

Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or find all ways to listen at trinsic.id/podcast.

“If AI agents can now behave like humans well enough to pass CAPTCHA, we’re no longer dealing with bots we’re dealing with synthetic users. That creates real risk.”

The above statement, by Marcom Strategic Advisor and Investor Katherine Kennedy-White, in response to a LinkedIn post by Veracity’s CEO Nigel Bridges, shows the real concern over how sophisticated AI agents and bots are becoming.

The post How do we deal with “synthetic users” accessing our data? appeared first on Veracity Trust Network.

Stop fraud before it starts. Indicio Proven closes the door on account takeovers, social engineering scams and deepfakes with secure, interoperable Digital Travel Credentials — the highest level of digital identity assurance and the easiest to use.

By Helen Garneau

Identity fraud is rising around the world, and travelers are starting to lose confidence that airlines and hotels can keep their personal data safe. More stories about new kinds of scams are coming out using AI-generated deepfakes, fake documents, and other digital tricks that can fool identity systems. As airports and airlines depend more on facial recognition and other biometric tools, the risk of these attacks becomes a serious threat to the entire travel experience.

Think of how this plays out in real life. A thief uses a stolen credit card to buy an airline ticket and checks in with a forged passport. An impostor calls into an airline call center with a stolen password, takes over the victim’s account, and steals their miles. A criminal walks through a border checkpoint using false biometrics. Each case happens because identity cannot be verified in real time, directly from the traveler.

Digital Travel Credentials fix this problem.

A Digital Travel Credential — DTC — is a secure, digital version of a passport that aligns with    specifications outlined by the International Civil Aviation Organization, a global body that was responsible for standardizing physical passports.

Currently, there are two types of implementable DTCs: One issued by a government along with a physical passport (DTC-2), or one issued by an organization, such as an airline or hotel, by way of data derived from a valid passport and biometrically authenticated against the rightful passport holder (DTC-1).

The data in each DTC is digitally  signed, which provides a way to cryptographically prove its origin (who issued it) and that it hasn’t been tampered with. The credential is held by the passport holder in a digital wallet on their mobile device, which provides two additional layers of binding (biometric/code to first unlock the device and then the wallet).

Here’s what makes the DTC a deepfake buster

First, you can’t re-engineer the cryptography using AI to alter the data. Second, each person is able to carry an authenticated biometric with them for verification. It’s like having a second you to prove who you are. The biometric template in the credential can be automatically compared with a liveness check, so authentication is not only instant, it doesn’t require the verifying party to store biometric data.

The DTC completely transforms identity verification and fraud prevention in one go.

The upshot is that identity authentication no longer needs usernames, passwords, centralized data storage, multifactor authentication, or increasingly complex and expensive layers of security; instead, customers hold their data and present it for seamless, cryptographic authentication, which can be done anywhere using simple mobile software.

Their data is protected, you’re protected, and your operations can be automated and streamlined for better customer experiences and reduced cost.

The easy switch for implementing DTC credentials

Indicio Proven® is the most advanced market solution for issuing, holding, and verifying interoperable DTC-1 and DTC-2 aligned credentials, with options for the leading three Verifiable Credential formats, SD JWT VC, AnonCreds, and mDL.

Proven is equipped with advanced biometric and document authentication tools, and our partnership with Regula enables us to validate identity documents from 254 countries and territories for issuance as Verifiable Credentials. It has a white-label digital wallet compatible with global digital identity standards and a mobile SDK for adding Verifiable Credentials to your apps.

It’s easy and quick to add to your existing biometric infrastructure, removing the need to rip and replace identity systems. It can effortlessly scale to country level deployment, and best of all, it’s significantly less expensive than centralized identity management.

Proven also follows the latest open standards, including eIDAS 2.0 and the EUDI framework, lowering regulatory risks, preserving traveler privacy, and opening markets that would otherwise be off limits.

Shut down fraud before it starts

Fraud should never be accepted as part of doing business. With Proven DTCs, airlines can defend against ticket and loyalty fraud before they even talk to a passenger. Airports can trust the traveler and the data they receive because it matches the credential and the verified government records. Hotels can check in guests with confidence, no passport photocopying or manual lookups required — and they have a simple and powerful way to reduce chargeback fraud.

Indicio Proven removes legacy vulnerabilities to identity fraud and closes the gaps between systems so identity can be trusted from start to finish. It protects revenue, safeguards customer relationships, and restores confidence across every stage of travel.

It’s time to stop fraud, simplify identity verification, and give travelers a secure, seamless experience with Indicio Proven.

Contact Indicio today and see how you can protect your business and your customers with Indicio Proven.

 

The post Why Digital Travel Credentials provide the strongest digital identity assurance appeared first on Indicio.

Keywords

AWS outage, digital dependency, business continuity, FIDO, authentication, passkeys, digital certificates, threat informed defense, false positives, cyber resilience

Summary

In this episode of the Analyst Brief Podcast, Simon Moffatt and David Mahdi discuss the recent AWS outage and its implications on digital dependency and business continuity. They explore the importance of disaster recovery plans and the evolving landscape of authentication technologies, particularly focusing on the FIDO Authenticate Conference. The conversation delves into the lifecycle of passkeys and digital certificates, emphasizing the need for threat-informed defense strategies and the challenges of managing false positives in security. The episode concludes with a call for better integration of systems and shared intelligence across the industry.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Global Outage Discussion

03:01 The Impact of Digital Dependency

06:00 Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery

09:10 FIDO Authenticate Conference Overview

16:09 Evolution of Authentication Technologies

21:45 The Lifecycle of Passkeys and Digital Certificates

29:59 Threat Informed Defense and False Positives

39:55 Conclusion and Future Considerations

This summer, Amadeus, a global travel technology company that powers many airline and airport systems, and Lufthansa, Germany’s flag carrier and one of Europe’s largest airlines, successfully tested the EU Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI Wallet) in real travel scenarios.

The test showed how credential-based travel could soon replace manual document checks.

During these tests, travellers could:

Check-in online by sharing verified ID credentials from their wallet with one click, instead of entering passport data manually.

Move through the airport by simply tapping their phone at check-in desks, bag drop machines, and boarding gates, rather than repeatedly showing physical documents.

The results point to a future where travel becomes smoother and more secure, thanks to verifiable credentials and privacy-preserving identity verification.

Government agencies now have access to blockchain intelligence capabilities that were impossible just a few years ago. Where investigators once had to work within the constraints of third-party platforms designed for individual transaction tracing, they can now run comprehensive intelligence operations across complete blockchain datasets.

“I’ve been having an intellectually fascinating time diving into Internet fragmentation and how it is shaped by supply chains more than protocols. There’s another bottleneck ahead, though, one that’s even harder to reroute: people.”

Innovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It requires engineers, designers, policy thinkers, and entrepreneurs. In other words, it needs human talent to build systems and set standards. And demographics are destiny when it comes to innovation. The places where populations are shrinking face not only economic strain but also a dwindling supply of innovators. The regions with young, growing populations could take the lead, but only if they can translate those numbers into participation in building tomorrow’s Internet.

Right now, the imbalance is striking. The countries that dominated the early generations of the Internet—the U.S., Europe, Japan, and now China—are either stagnating or shrinking. Meanwhile, countries with youthful demographics, especially across Africa and parts of South Asia, aren’t yet present in large numbers in the open standards process that defines the global Internet. That absence will shape the systems they inherit in the next 10-15 years.

This is the third in a four-part series of blog posts about the future of the Internet, seen through the lens of fragmentation.

First post: “The End of the Global Internet“ Second post: “Why Tech Supply Chains, Not Protocols, Set the Limits on AI and the Internet“ Third post: [this one] Fourth post: “Can standards survive trade wars and sovereignty battles?” [scheduled to publish 28 October 2025]

A Digital Identity Digest The People Problem: How Demographics Decide the Future of the Internet Play Episode Pause Episode Mute/Unmute Episode Rewind 10 Seconds 1x Fast Forward 30 seconds 00:00 / 00:12:01 Subscribe Share Amazon Apple Podcasts CastBox Listen Notes Overcast Pandora Player.fm PocketCasts Podbean RSS Spotify TuneIn YouTube iHeartRadio RSS Feed Share Link Embed

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The United States: a leaking talent pipeline

For decades, the U.S. thrived as the global hub of Internet development. Silicon Valley became Silicon Valley not just because of venture capital, but because talent from around the world came to build there. That was then.

Domestically, U.S. students continue to lag behind peers in international comparisons of math and science performance, as OECD’s PISA 2022 makes clear. Graduate programs in engineering and computer science still brim with energy, but overwhelmingly from international students. Those students often want to stay, yet immigration bottlenecks, capped and riotously expensive H-1B visas, and green card backlogs create real uncertainty about whether they can.

Even inside the standards world, there are warning signs. The IETF’s 2024 community survey showed concerns about age distribution, with long-time participants nearing retirement and too few younger contributors entering. If the U.S. cannot fix its education and immigration systems, its long-standing leadership in setting Internet rules will decline, not through policy shifts in Washington which are not helping, but because of demographic erosion.

China: aging before it gets rich

China has built its growth story on a huge working-age population. That dividend is spent. Fertility hovers around 1.0, far below the replacement rate of 2.1, and the working-age population has already begun shrinking. By 2040, the elderly dependency ratio will climb sharply, with more pressure on pensions, healthcare, and younger workers.

The state has made automation and AI a cornerstone of its adaptation strategy. Investments in robotics and machine learning are designed to offset the loss of youthful labor. But an older population means fewer risk-takers, fewer startups, and more fiscal resources tied up in sustaining a rapidly aging society.

Japan’s experience offers a cautionary tale. Starting in the 1990s, it faced a similar contraction. Despite strong institutions and technological sophistication, growth stagnated. China risks repeating that path on a larger scale, and with less wealth per capita to cushion the fall.

Europe & Central Asia: slow contraction, unevenly distributed

Europe’s demographic transformation is a slow squeeze rather than a sudden cliff. According to the International Labour Organization’s 2025 working paper, the old-age ratio in Europe and Central Asia—the number of people over 65 compared to those of working age—will rise from 28 in 2024 to 43 by 2050. The region is expected to lose roughly ten million workers over that period.

The impact will not be uniform. Southern Europe is on track for some of the steepest shifts, with old-age ratios rising to two-thirds by 2050. By contrast, Central Asia maintains a relatively youthful profile, with projections of only 17 older adults per 100 workers. Policymakers across the continent are pushing familiar levers: encouraging older workers to stay employed longer, increasing women’s participation, and opening doors to migrants. But even with those adjustments, the fiscal weight of pensions, healthcare, and social protection will grow heavier, forcing innovation to rely more on productivity than population.

South Korea: the hyper-aged pioneer

South Korea is the most dramatic example of how quickly demographics can shift. The Beyond The Demographic Cliff report describes a “demographic cliff”: fertility has collapsed to just 0.7 children per woman, the lowest in the world. The working-age share, once 72 percent in 2016, will fall to just 56 percent by 2040. By 2070, nearly half the population will be over 65.

Unlike the U.S. or Germany, South Korea has little immigration to soften the decline; only about five percent of the population is foreign-born. Despite spending trillions of won since 2005 on pronatalist programs, fertility has only dropped further. The government has little choice but to adapt. With one of the world’s highest industrial robot densities, Korea is leaning heavily on automation and robotics. At the same time, the “silver economy” is becoming a growth engine, with eldercare, health technology, and age-friendly industries gaining traction.

The sheer speed of Korea’s shift is staggering. What took France nearly two centuries—from 7 percent to 20 percent of the population being over 65—took Korea less than thirty years. That compressed timeline means Korea is a test case for what happens when demographics move faster than institutions can adapt.

Africa: the continent of the future

While the industrialized world contracts, Africa surges. As a World Futures article makes clear, Tropical Africa alone will account for much of the world’s population growth this century. By 2100, Africa will be the largest source of working-age population in the world.

This demographic wave could be transformative. Africa holds vast reserves of cobalt, lithium, and other rare earths critical to green technologies. Combined with a youthful workforce, that could give the continent a central role in shaping the next century’s innovation. But the risks are real: education systems remain uneven, governance is fragile in many states, and climate pressures could destabilize growth. A demographic dividend only pays out if paired with investment in education and institutions.

Still, Africa is where the people will be. Whether or not it becomes a driver of global innovation depends on choices made now by African governments, but also by those investing in the continent’s infrastructure and industries.

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Who shows up in the standards process

And here is the connection to Internet fragmentation: the regions with the fastest-growing, youngest populations are not yet shaping the standards process in any significant way.

The W3C Diversity Report 2025 shows that governance seats are still dominated by North America, Europe, and a slice of Asia. Africa and South Asia barely register. ISO admits the same problem: while more than 75 percent of its members are from developing countries, many lack the resources to participate actively. That’s why ISO has launched programs such as its Action Plan for Developing Countries and capacity-building initiatives for technical committees. Membership may be global, but influence is not.

Participation isn’t just about fairness. It determines the rules that future systems will follow. If youthful regions aren’t in the room when those rules are written, they’ll inherit an Internet designed elsewhere, reflecting other priorities. In the meantime, outside players are shaping the infrastructure. China is investing heavily in African digital and industrial networks, creating regional value chains that may set defaults long before African voices appear in open standards bodies.

Cross-border interdependence

Even if the Internet fragments politically or technologically, demographics will keep it globally entangled. Aging countries will depend on migration and remote work links to tap youthful labor pools. Younger countries will increasingly provide the engineers, developers, and operators who sustain platforms. Standards bodies may eventually shift to reflect new population centers, but the lag between demographic change and institutional presence can be decades.

This interdependence means that fragmentation won’t create neatly separated Internets. Instead, we’ll see overlapping systems shaped partly by who has the people and partly by who invests in them.

Destiny is in the demographics

Demographics don’t move quickly, but they do move inexorably. The U.S. risks losing its edge through education and immigration failures. China is aging before it fully secures prosperity. Europe faces a slow decline. South Korea is already living the reality of a hyper-aged society. Africa is the wild card, with the potential to become the global engine of innovation if it can turn population growth into a dividend rather than a liability.

The stage is clearly set: the regions with the people to build tomorrow’s Internet aren’t yet present in the open standards process. Others, especially China, are already investing heavily in shaping what those regions will inherit.

If you want to know what kind of Internet we’ll have in the decades to come, don’t just look at protocols or supply chains. Watch the people. Watch where they are, and who is investing in them. That’s where the future of innovation lies.

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Transcript

[00:00:30] Welcome back to the Digital Identity Digest! I’m Heather Flanagan, and if you’ve been following this series, you’ll remember that we’ve been exploring Internet fragmentation from multiple angles.

In this episode, we’re zooming out once again—because even when the protocols align perfectly and the chips get made, there’s still one more piece of the puzzle that determines the Internet’s future: people.

More precisely, demographics.

Why Demographics Matter

[00:01:17] Who shows up to build tomorrow’s systems?
Who are the engineers, the designers, the startup founders?
Which regions have enough young people to sustain innovation—and which don’t?

This isn’t just about the present moment. It’s about what happens in 15 years.

[00:01:35] The countries that built and shaped the early Internet—the U.S., the EU, Japan, and more recently China—are all aging. Some are even shrinking.

Meanwhile, regions with the youngest and fastest-growing populations, such as Africa and South Asia, are not yet fully represented in the rooms where global standards are written. And that gap matters deeply for the Internet we’ll all inherit.

The United States: Talent Pipeline Challenges

[00:02:07] For decades, the U.S. has been the global hub for Internet innovation. Silicon Valley thrived not just on venture capital, but because brilliant people from around the world came to build there.

[00:02:20] Yet, the domestic talent pipeline is starting to leak:

U.S. students lag behind international peers in math and science. Graduate programs remain strong, but most are filled with international students. Immigration backlogs and visa caps make it harder for those graduates to stay.

[00:02:44] Even inside the standards community, demographics are aging. The IETF’s own survey shows long-time contributors retiring and not enough young participants stepping in.

If the U.S. can’t fix its education and immigration systems, its leadership won’t decline due to competition—it’ll slip because there aren’t enough people to carry the work forward.

China: From Growth to Grey

[00:03:10] China’s story is different—but no less stark. For decades, its explosive growth came from a huge working-age population.

[00:03:19] That demographic dividend is over. Fertility rates have fallen to barely one child per woman. The working-age population peaked in 2015 and has been shrinking since.

[00:03:33] China’s solution has been to automate—investing heavily in robotics, AI, and machine learning.

But as populations age, societies often shift resources away from risk-taking. An older economy tends to:

Produce fewer startups Take fewer risks Spend more on pensions and healthcare

Japan’s experience offers a cautionary example—and China risks following it on a larger scale and with less wealth per person to cushion the impact.

Europe: Managing a Slow Decline

[00:04:24] Europe faces a quieter version of the same story.

[00:04:41] By 2050, the ratio of older to working-age adults in Europe and Central Asia is expected to rise from 28 to 43. That means millions fewer workers and millions more retirees.

Europe’s strategy includes:

Keeping older workers employed longer Expanding women’s participation in the workforce Opening the door to migrants

However, the basic reality remains—fewer young people are entering the workforce. Innovation will depend more on productivity gains than on population growth.

South Korea: The Hyper-Aged Future

[00:05:12] South Korea offers a glimpse into the world’s most rapidly aging society.

[00:05:14] Fertility has collapsed to 0.7 children per woman, the lowest in the world. By 2070, nearly half the population will be over 65.

Unlike the U.S. or Germany, Korea has almost no immigration to balance the decline. Despite huge government investments in pronatalist programs, fertility continues to fall.

Korea is adapting through:

High robot density and automation Growth in the silver economy — industries around elder care, health tech, and age-friendly products

The speed of this shift is astonishing: what took France 200 years, Korea did in less than 30. It’s now a laboratory for adaptation—figuring out how policy and technology respond when demographics move faster than politics.

Africa: The Continent of the Future

[00:06:28] While industrialized nations age, Africa is booming.

By the end of this century, Africa will account for the majority of the world’s working-age population.

Its advantages are immense:

Rapid population growth Rich reserves of critical minerals (cobalt, lithium, rare earths) Expanding urbanization and education

However, these opportunities are balanced by real challenges:

Under-resourced education systems Fragile governance Climate pressures

[00:07:22] If managed well, Africa could become the innovation hub of the late 21st century. But much depends on where investment originates—within Africa or from abroad—and whose values and standards shape the technologies that follow.

Who’s in the Room?

[00:07:54] This is where demographics meet Internet fragmentation directly.

Regions with the youngest populations are still underrepresented in open standards bodies.

The W3C’s diversity reports show most seats are still held by North America, Europe, and parts of Asia. Africa and South Asia barely register. ISO has many developing-country members, but few can participate actively.

[00:08:36] Membership may be broad, but influence is not.

And that absence matters—because standards define power. They determine how the Internet functions, what’s prioritized, and who benefits.

If youthful regions aren’t in the room when rules are written, they’ll inherit an Internet designed elsewhere.

Looking Ahead

[00:09:02] Meanwhile, China is filling that vacuum—investing heavily in African digital infrastructure and shaping defaults long before African voices are fully present in global standards.

Even as the Internet fragments politically and technologically, demographics tie us together.

Aging nations will rely on migration and remote work. Younger countries will provide the engineers and operators sustaining global platforms. Standards institutions may eventually reflect new population centers—but change lags behind demographic reality.

[00:09:43] The people who build the Internet of the future will increasingly come from Africa and Southeast Asia—while the institutions writing the rules still reflect yesterday’s demographics.

Wrapping Up

[00:10:00] Demographics move slowly—but they are relentless. You can’t rush them.

The U.S. risks losing its edge through education and immigration challenges. China is aging before securing long-term prosperity. Europe faces a gradual, gentle decline. South Korea is already living the reality of hyper-aging. Africa remains the wild card—its youth could define the next Internet if it can translate population growth into participation and policy.

[00:10:57] So, if you want to glimpse the Internet’s future, don’t just look at protocols or supply chains. Look at the people—where they are, and who’s investing in them. That’s where innovation’s future lies.

Closing Notes

[00:11:09] Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of the Digital Identity Digest.

If this discussion helped make things clearer—or at least more interesting—share it with a friend or colleague. Connect with me on LinkedIn (@lflanagan), and if you enjoyed the show, please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform.

You can always find the full written post at sphericalcowconsulting.com.

Stay curious, stay engaged, and keep the conversations going.

The post The People Problem: How Demographics Decide the Future of the Internet appeared first on Spherical Cow Consulting.

🛠 Metadium Explorer — Database Upgrade Notice

To improve the stability and performance of Metadium Explorer, we will be performing a database upgrade as outlined below.

📅 Schedule

October 23, 2025 (Thu) 10:30–11:30 (KST) Please note that the end time may vary depending on the progress of the upgrade.

🔧 Update Details

DB minor version upgrade

⚠️ Notice

During the upgrade window, Metadium Explorer will be temporarily unavailable. Users will not be able to access services such as transaction history, block information, and related features.

We appreciate your understanding as we work to improve the reliability of our services.
Thank you. The Metadium Team.

🛠 Metadium Explorer — DB업그레이드 안내

Metadium Explorer의 안정성 및 성능 향상을 위해 아래와 같이 데이터베이스 업그레이드를 진행합니다.

📅 일정

2025년 10월 23일 (목) 10:30 ~ 11:30 (KST) 작업 상황에 따라 종료 시간이 변동될 수 있습니다.

🔧 주요 변경 사항

DB 마이너 버전 업그레이드

⚠️ 유의 사항

업그레이드 진행 시간 동안 Explorer 서비스 이용이 일시 중단됩니다. Explorer를 통해 트랜잭션 조회, 블록 정보 확인 등의 기능을 이용하시는 경우 참고 부탁드립니다.

서비스 안정화를 위한 작업이오니 이용자 여러분의 너른 양해 부탁드립니다.
감사합니다. 메타디움 팀.

🛠 Metadium Explorer — Database Upgrade Notice was originally published in Metadium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Understand the differences between Social and Enterprise Connections to choose the right identity provider for your application.

Discover, monitor, and secure your APIs with Fastly API Discovery. Get instant visibility, cut the noise, and keep your APIs secure and compliant.

The post What Is Decentralized Identity? Complete Guide & How To Prepare appeared first on 1Kosmos.

Thank you to Linda Jeng and Elizabeth Santucci for their instrumental contributions to the analysis and recommendations in our U.S. Treasury comment letter.

The financial system’s integrity, and the public trust it depends on, can no longer rest on paper-era compliance. For more than fifty years, the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) has guided how institutions detect and report illicit activity. Yet as the economy digitizes, this framework has become a drag on both effectiveness and inclusion. The cost of compliance has soared to $59 billion annually, while less than 0.2% of illicit proceeds are recovered. Community banks spend up to 9% of non-interest expenses on compliance; millions of Americans remain unbanked because the system is too manual, too fragmented, and too dependent on outdated verification models.

SpruceID’s response to the U.S. Treasury’s recent Request for Comment on Innovative Methods to Detect Illicit Activity Involving Digital Assets (TREAS-DO-2025-0070-0001) outlines a path forward. Drawing on our real-world experience building California’s mobile driver’s license (mDL) and powering state-endorsed verifiable digital credentials in Utah, we propose a model that unites lawful compliance, privacy protection, and public trust.

Our framework, called the Identity Trust model, shows how verifiable digital credentials and privacy-enhancing technologies can make compliance both more effective for enforcement and more respectful of individual rights.

Our proposal is not to expand surveillance or broaden data collection, but to make compliance more precise. The Identity Trust model is designed to be applied only where existing laws such as the BSA and AML/CFT rules require verification or reporting. Today’s compliance systems often require collecting and storing more personal information than is strictly necessary, which increases costs and risks for institutions and customers alike. By enabling verifiable digital credentials and privacy-enhancing technologies, our model ensures institutions can fulfill their obligations with higher assurance while minimizing the amount of personal data collected, stored, and exposed. This shift replaces excess data retention with cryptographic proofs, delivering better outcomes for regulators, financial institutions, and individuals alike.

This framework proposes regulation for the digital age, using the same cryptographic assurance that already secures the nation’s payments, passports, and critical systems to bring transparency, precision, and fairness to financial oversight.

A System Ready for Reform

Compliance with BSA and AML/CFT rules remain rooted in outdated workflows: identity verified by a physical ID, information stored in readable form, and centralized personal data. These methods have become liabilities. They drive up costs, create honeypots of data for breaches, and encourage “de-risking” that locks out lower-income and minority communities.

The technology to fix this exists today. Mobile driver’s licenses (mDLs) are live in more than seventeen U.S. states, accepted by the TSA at over 250 airports. Utah’s proposed State-Endorsed Digital Identity (SEDI) approach, detailed in Utah Code § 63A-16-1202, already provides a framework for trusted, privacy-preserving digital credentials. Federal pilots, such as NIST’s National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) mobile driver’s license initiative, are proving these models ready for financial use.

What’s missing is regulatory recognition: the clarity that these trusted credentials, when properly verified, fulfill legal identity verification and reporting obligations under the BSA.

The Identity Trust Model

The Identity Trust model offers a blueprint for modernizing compliance without the need for new legislation. It allows regulated entities, such as banks or state- or nationally chartered trusts, to issue and rely on pseudonymous, cryptographically verifiable credentials that prove required attributes (such as sanctions screening status or citizenship) without disclosing unnecessary personal data.

The framework operates in four stages:

Identifying: A regulated entity (the Identity Trust, of which there can be many) is responsible for verifying an individual’s identity using digital and physical methods, based on modern best practices such as NIST SP 800-63-4A for identity proofing. Once verified, the trust issues a pseudonymous credential to the individual and encrypts their personal information. Conceptually, the unlocking key is split into three parts: one held by the individual, one by the Trust, and one by the courts, with any two sufficient to unlock the record (roughly, a “two-of-three key threshold”). Transacting: When the individual conducts financial activity, the individual presents their pseudonymous credential. Transactions are then tagged with unique one-time-use identifiers that prevent linking activity across contexts, even if collusion were attempted. Each identifier carries a cryptographically-protected payload that can only be “unlocked” with the conceptual two-of-three key threshold. Entities and decentralized finance protocols processing the identifiers are able to cryptographically verify that the identifier is correctly issued by an Identity Trust and remains valid. Investigating: If law enforcement or regulators demonstrate lawful cause, conceptually, both the court and the Identity Trust decide to operate their keys to reach the two-of-three threshold to designate authorized access to specific, limited data justified by the circumstances. The Identity Trust must have a robust governance framework for granting access to law enforcement that respects privacy and due process rights with law enforcement needs through judicial orders. Once the keys from the two entities are combined, the vault containing the relevant information about the identity can then be decrypted if it exists, revealing the individual’s information in a controlled and auditable manner, including correlating other transactions depending on the level of access granted by the lawful request. Alternatively, the individual is able to combine their key with the Identity Trust’s key to gain the ability to see their entire audit log, and also create cryptographic proofs of their actions across their transactions. Monitoring: The Identity Trust performs these continuous checks against suspicious actors and sanctions lists in a privacy-preserving manner with approved policies for manner and intervals, with the auditable logs protected and encrypted such that only the individual or duly authorized investigators can work with the Identity Trust to access the plaintext. Individuals may also request attribute attestations from the Identity Trust, for example, that they are not on suspicious actors or sanctions lists, or attestations for credit checks. 

This structure embeds accountability and due process into the architecture itself. It enables lawful access when required and prevents unauthorized surveillance when not. Crucially, the model fits within existing AML authority, leveraging the same legal and supervisory frameworks that already govern banks, trust companies, and credential service providers. 

Policy Recommendations for Treasury

SpruceID’s recommendations to Treasury and FinCEN focus on aligning policy with existing technology, ensuring that the U.S. remains a global leader in both compliance and digital trust.

Request for Consideration

Reasoning and Impact

1. Recognize verifiable digital credentials (VDCs) issued by many acceptable sources as valid evidence under Customer Identification Program (CIP) and Customer Due Diligence (CDD) obligations, including as “documentary” verification methods when appropriate.

Treasury and FinCEN should interpret 31 CFR § 1020.220 (and corresponding CIP rules and guidance) to include verifiable digital credentials if they can meet industry standards, such as a baseline of National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) SP 800-63-4 Identity Assurance Level 2 (IAL2) identity verification or higher, issued directly from government authorities, or through reliance upon approved institutions or identity trusts.

These verifiable digital credentials (VDCs), such as those issued pursuant to the State-Endorsed Digital Identity (SEDI) approaches, should be treated as “documentary” evidence where appropriate. The principle of data minimization should become a pillar of financial compliance, enabling VDC-enabled attribute verification encouraged over requiring the sharing of unnecessary personally identifiable information (PII), such as static identity documents, where possible.

Current CIP programs largely presume physical IDs, limiting innovation and remote onboarding, even as the statute is not prescriptive in medium or security mechanisms.

Verifiable digital credentials issued by trusted authorities provide cryptographically proven authenticity and higher assurance against forgery or impersonation, to better fulfill the aims of risk-based compliance management programs.

Recognizing VDCs as documentary evidence would enhance verification accuracy, reduce compliance costs, and align U.S. practice with FATF Digital ID Guidance (2023) and EU eIDAS 2.0, promoting global interoperability.

Attribute-based approaches to AML, such as “not-on-sanctions-list” or “US-person,” should be preferred whenever possible as they can effectively manage risks without the overcollection of PII data, avoiding a “checkpoint society” riddled with unnecessary ID requirements.

2. Permit financial institutions to rely on VDCs issued by other regulated entities, identity trusts, or accredited sources via verified real-time APIs for AML/CFT compliance.

Treasury and FinCEN should authorize institutions to accept credentials and attestations from peer financial institutions or identity trust networks when those issuers meet assurance and audit standards.

Congress should further consider the addition of a new § 201(d) to the Digital Asset Market Structure Discussion Draft (Sept. 2025) clarifying Treasury’s authority to recognize and accredit digital-identity and privacy-enhancing compliance frameworks.

While current CIP programs still assume physical ID presentation, the underlying statute is technology neutral and does not mandate any specific medium or security mechanism. Recognizing VDCs can modernize onboarding by reducing costs and friction, improving AML data quality and transparency, and enabling faster, more collaborative investigations across institutions and borders—all while minimizing data-collection risk.

Statutory clarity ensures that Treasury’s modernization efforts rest on a durable, technology-neutral foundation. This amendment would future-proof the U.S. AML/CFT regime, align it with G7 digital-identity roadmaps, and strengthen U.S. leadership in global digital-asset regulation.

3. Permit privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) to meet verification and monitoring obligations.

Treasury should issue interpretive guidance or rulemaking confirming that zero-knowledge proofs, pseudonymous identifiers, and multi-party computation may be used for CIP, CDD, and Travel-Rule compliance if equivalent assurance and auditability are maintained.

PETs enable institutions to prove AML/CFT compliance without exposing underlying PII, minimizing data breach and insider risk exposure while maintaining verifiable oversight.

Recognizing PETs would modernize compliance architecture, lower data-handling costs, and encourage innovation consistent with global privacy and financial-integrity standards.

4. Modernize the Travel Rule to enable verifiable digital credential-based information transfer.

Treasury should amend 31 CFR § 1010.410(f) or issue guidance allowing originator/beneficiary data to be transmitted via cryptographically verifiable credentials or proofs instead of plaintext PII.

The current Travel Rule framework was built for wire transfers, not blockchain systems. Verifiable digital credentials can carry or attest to required information with integrity, selective disclosure, and traceability.

This approach preserves law-enforcement visibility while protecting privacy, ensuring interoperability with FATF Recommendation 16 and global Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs).

5. Establish exceptive relief for good-faith reliance on accredited identity trust, VDC, and Privacy-Enhancing Technology (PET) systems.

Treasury should use its § 1020.220(b) rulemaking authority to provide exceptive relief deeming institutions compliant when they rely on Treasury-accredited credentials or PET frameworks meeting defined assurance standards.

Institutions adopting accredited compliance tools should not face enforcement liability for third-party system errors beyond their control. Exceptive relief would provide regulatory certainty and clear boundaries of accountability.

Exceptive relief incentivizes the adoption of privacy-preserving identity systems such as identity trusts, reducing costs while strengthening overall compliance integrity.

6. Leverage NIST NCCoE collaboration for technical pilots and standards.

Treasury and FinCEN should partner with NIST’s National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) Digital Identities project to pilot mDLs, VDCs, and interoperable trust registries for CIP and CDD testing.

The NCCoE provides standards-based prototypes (e.g., NIST SP 800-63-4 and ISO/IEC 18013-5/-7 mDL) that validate real-world feasibility and assurance equivalence.

Collaboration ensures technical soundness, interagency alignment, and rapid deployment of privacy-preserving digital-identity frameworks.

7. Direct FinCEN to engage proactively with industry on the adoption of advanced technologies that enhance AML compliance, investigations, and privacy protection.

Treasury should issue formal direction or guidance requiring FinCEN to establish an ongoing public-private technical working group with industry, academia, states, and standards bodies to pilot and evaluate advanced compliance technologies.

Continuous engagement with the private sector ensures that FinCEN’s rules keep pace with innovation and that compliance tools remain effective, privacy-preserving, and economically efficient.

This collaboration would strengthen AML/CFT investigations, reduce false positives, and alleviate the compliance burden on financial institutions while upholding privacy and data-protection standards.

The Path Forward

Time and again, regulatory compliance challenges have sparked the next generation of financial infrastructure. EMV chips transformed fraud detection; tokenization improved payment security; now, verifiable identity can redefine AML/CFT compliance.

By replacing static data collection with cryptographic proofs of compliance, regulators gain better visibility, institutions reduce cost, and individuals retain control over their personal information. The transformation is not solely technological—it’s institutional: from data collection to trust verification.

SpruceID’s aim is to build open digital identity frameworks that empower trust—not just between users and apps, but between citizens and institutions. Our experience powering government-issued credentials demonstrates that strong identity assurance and privacy can coexist. In our response to the Treasury, we’ve shown how those same principles can reshape AML/CFT for the digital age. But the work is far from finished.

Over the coming months, SpruceID will release additional thought pieces on how public agencies and private institutions can collaborate to advance trustworthy digital identity, from privacy-preserving regulatory reporting to unified standards for trustworthy digital identity.

We invite policymakers, regulators, technologists, and financial leaders to join us in dialogue and in action. Together, we can build a compliance framework that is lawful, auditable, and worthy of public trust.

About SpruceID: SpruceID is building a future where users control their identity and data across all digital interactions.

In aflevering 14 van de Data Sharing Podcast gaat host Caressa Kuk in gesprek met Gert-Jan van Dijke en Jeroen van Winden (Ockto) over klantbeheer in de financiële sector. Want zodra een klant aan boord is, begint het echte werk pas. 

Hey folks 👋

Big one today.

Like we hinted in the last edition, Kin 0.6 is rolling out. This is Kin’s biggest update ever, and it’s packed.

Full rollout begins tomorrow (Tuesday, October 21, 2025), but we’ve got some sneak peeks for you.

We also have a super prompt based around making the most out of the new opportunities this update provides - so make sure you read to the end.

What’s New With Kin🚀 Meet your advisory board 🧠

You’ve probably seen them drifting into chat recently - little hints of Harmony, Sage, and the rest. Now the full board of five arrives, each with expertise in advising on a particular topic.

Sage: Career & Work

Aura: Values & Meaning

Harmony (Premium only): Relationships

Pulse (Premium only): Sleep & Energy

Ember (Premium only): Social

Each one brings a different lens on your life, but all pull insight from your Journal entries, conversations, and memories.

Conversation Starters 💬

Every advisor’s chat screen now includes some personalized, context-aware starters - not just to make beginning a conversation easier, but remembering things you wanted to talk about as effortless as possible.

Memory, re-engineered (finally) 📂

It feels like we’re always alluding to this - but now it’s here.

Kin’s Memory is now 5× more accurate when recognizing and extracting memories from conversations.

Advisors can also now search across all of your memories, Journal entries, and conversations, so they can build an understanding of context quickly.

All of this means that no matter which advisor you speak with, Kin is much more able to pull the relevant information from its improved memory structure - so you get better, smarter, more relevant advice from every advisor.

We’ve also beefed up the Memory UI. On top of the classic memory graph, you can now see what Kin knows about you - as well as the organizations and people you’re connected to.

And each of these people/organizations/places now have their own Entity pages, where you can see, edit, and add to what Kin has collected about them from your conversations.

You can even finally search memories for key words and associations!

See your progress 📊

There’s a brand new Stats page that visualizes your growth with Kin.

You can see a breakdown of usage stats and Memory types, so you can see what you’re talking about a lot, and where you and your Kin might have some blind spots.

Journaling, cleaned up 📝

Based on all your feedback, we’ve finished rebuilding the Journal from the ground up.

There’s a brand-new, simplified UI to make daily journaling easier than ever.

Premium users also unlock custom journal templates, perfect for capturing anything from gratitude logs to tough feedback moments.

New onboarding (for everyone) 🔐

Next time you open Kin, you’ll be prompted to sign in with Apple, Google, or Email.

This makes onboarding smoother and syncing easier (rumours of a desktop version abound), and lays the groundwork for future features.

But don’t worry: your data hasn’t moved an inch.

It still lives securely with you, on your device.

We’ll share a detailed write-up soon (as promised), but the short version is: simpler sign-in, same privacy-first design.

Premium (by request!) ⭐

You asked. We built it.

Premium unlocks the full Kin experience, and extends existing Free features so you can make the most of your Kin.

If you join Premium, you’ll get:

All 5 advisors (Harmony, Pulse, Ember + the two free advisors, Sage and Aura)

Unlimited text messages

1 hour of voice per day

Custom journal templates

Premium is currently $20/month - and there’s a discount if you go for 3 months.

If you don’t want to upgrade though, don’t fret. The Free tier is going nowhere: Premium is for power users who want the full advisor board and voice time.

When? 🗓️

Rollout starts Tuesday, October 21, 2025. That’s tomorrow, if you’re reading this as it goes out!

Expect updates over the following week as we make sure everything runs smoothly. Speaking of…

Talk to us!🗣

This is the biggest change Kin has ever gone through. It’s our largest step toward a 1.0 release yet - and we want to make sure we’re heading in the right direction before we get too far.

The KIN team can be reached at hello@mykin.ai for anything, from feedback on the app to a bit of tech talk (though support@mykin.ai is better placed to help with any issues).

You can also share your feedback in-app. Just screenshot to trigger the feedback form.

But if you really want to get involved, the official Kin Discord is the best place to talk to the Kin development team (as well as other users) about anything AI.

We have dedicated channels for Kin’s tech, networking users, sharing support tips, and for hanging out.

We also regularly run three casual calls every week - and we’d love for you to join them:

Monday Accountability Calls - 5pm GMT/BST
Share your plans and goals for the week, and learn tips about how Kin can help keep you on track.

Wednesday Hangout Calls - 5pm GMT/BST
No agenda, just good conversation and a chance to connect with other Kin users.

Friday Kin Q&A - 1pm GMT/BST
Drop in with any questions about Kin (the app or the company) and get live answers in real time.

We updated Kin so that it can better help you - help us make sure that’s what it does!

Our current reads 📚

No new Slack screenshot this edition - we’ve been too busy to share new articles recently!

Article: Google announced DeepSomatic, an open-source cancer research AI
READ - blog.google

Article: Meta AI glasses fuel Ray-Ban maker’s best quarterly performance ever
READ - reuters.com

Article: Google launch Gemini Enterprise, to make AI accessible to employees
READ - cloud.google.com

Article: How are MIT entrepreneurs using AI?
READ - MIT News

This edition’s super prompt 🤖

This time, your chosen advisor can help you answer the question:

“How do I make the most of new opportunities?”

Try prompt in Kin

Once the update comes out tomorrow, try hitting the link with different advisors selected, and get a few different viewpoints!

Your are Kin 0.6 (and beyond) 👥

Without you, Kin wouldn’t be anything. We want to make sure you don’t just know that, but feel it.

So, please: get involved. Chat in our Discord, email us, or even just shake the app to get in contact with anything and everything you have to say about Kin.

Most importantly: enjoy the update!

With love,

The KIN Team

Banken hebben de afgelopen jaren flinke stappen gezet in het digitaliseren van onboarding. Nieuwe klanten aanhaken gaat steeds makkelijker. Maar zodra het gaat om klantbeheer – het actueel houden van klantgegevens tijdens de looptijd – blijft de sector achter. Terwijl juist hier de druk toeneemt, van toezichthouders én vanuit zorgplicht.

Dear Community,

Metadium made meaningful strides in the third quarter of 2025. We deeply appreciate your continued support and are pleased to share the key achievements and updates from Q3.

Summary

Metadium’s DID and NFT technologies were applied to support Korea’s first ITMO (Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes) certified carbon reduction project. The AI conversation partner service “Daepa” officially launched, using Metadium DID for identity management in the backend. The Metadium Node Partnership Program (2025–2027) officially began, with a total of 9 partners operating nodes across the network. Technology and Ecosystem Updates

Q3 Monthly Transactions

From July to September 2025, a total of 586,608 transactions were processed, and 42,979 DID wallets were created.

ITMO-Certified Carbon Reduction Project

The Verrywords project, officially recognized by the Cambodian government for reducing 680,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions, utilized Metadium’s DID and NFT technologies as core infrastructure.

Metadium DIDs were issued to electric motorcycle recipients, enabling participant identification and tracking. The reduction records were issued through a Metadium-based point system and uniquely verified via NFTs. This marks Korea’s first officially approved ITMO case and a significant milestone demonstrating Metadium’s potential in global environmental cooperation.

For more details, please click here.

Metadium DID Integrated into “Daepa” AI Service

The AI relationship training service “Daepa” has been officially launched with Metadium DID integrated into its backend identity management system.

Users do not directly interact with the DID system, but all interactions are managed through unique DIDs. The DID system will be leveraged for future expansion into trust-based services, including points, rewards, and user-to-user connections. This represents a case of DID and AI technology convergence, showcasing the diverse applicability of Metadium’s DID framework.

For more details, please click here.

Transition to the 2025–2027 Metadium Node Partnership

As of September 2025, Metadium’s Node Partnership Program has transitioned into a new operational cycle (2025–2027).

Alongside existing partners like Metadium, Berrywords, and Superschool, new global partners have joined, totaling nine participants. These partners play a vital role as co-operators of the Metadium ecosystem, participating in block generation, validation, and governance. The new structure enhances technical diversity and global scalability of the network.

For more details, please click here.

Metadium remains dedicated to advancing real-world applications of blockchain technology and decentralized identity.

We will continue to innovate and build a trusted digital infrastructure for our users and partners.

Thank you,

The Metadium Team

안녕하세요, 메타디움 팀입니다.

2025년 3분기에도 메타디움은 퍼블릭 블록체인으로서의 역할을 한층 확장하며, 기술적·생태계적으로 의미 있는 성과를 만들어냈습니다. 메타디움을 지지해주시는 모든 커뮤니티 여러분께 감사드리며, 이번 분기 주요 내용을 아래와 같이 보고드립니다.

요약

메타디움 DID와 NFT 기술이 한국 최초의 국제 감축(ITMO) 실증 프로젝트에 적용되어, 총 68만 톤의 온실가스 감축 실적을 공식 인정받는 데 기여했습니다. AI 기반 감정 트레이닝 서비스 ‘대파(Daepa)’에 메타디움 DID가 식별 인프라로 적용되어 정식 출시되었습니다. 2025–2027 메타디움 노드 파트너십 체계로 전환되며, 기존 및 신규 파트너사 총 9개사가 참여하여 운영의 신뢰성과 다양성이 강화되었습니다. 기술 및 생태계 업데이트

Q3 월간 트랜잭션

2025년 7월부터 9월까지 총 586,608건의 트랜잭션이 처리되었으며, DID는 42,979건이 생성되었습니다.

ITMO 국제 감축 프로젝트에 메타디움 기술 기여

캄보디아 정부로부터 68만 톤 규모의 온실가스 감축 실적이 공식 인정된 베리워즈 프로젝트에 메타디움 DID 및 NFT 기술이 핵심 인프라로 사용되었습니다.

전기 오토바이 수령자에게 메타디움 DID가 발급되어 참여자 식별 및 추적이 가능해졌습니다. 감축 실적은 메타디움 기반 포인트 시스템으로 발행되며, NFT를 통해 고유하게 증명됩니다. 이는 한국 최초의 ITMO 승인 사례로, 메타디움 기술의 글로벌 환경 협력 기여 가능성을 보여주는 의미 있는 이정표입니다.

자세한 내용은 여기를 확인해보세요.

AI 서비스 ‘대파(Daepa)’에 메타디움 DID 적용

AI 연애 트레이닝 서비스 ‘대파’가 정식 출시되었으며, 사용자 식별 백엔드 시스템에 메타디움 DID가 적용되었습니다.

사용자는 DID를 직접 인식하지 않지만, 모든 상호작용은 고유 DID 기반으로 관리됩니다. 향후 포인트, 리워드, 사용자 간 연결 등 신뢰 기반 서비스 확장에 활용될 예정입니다. 이는 DID와 AI 기술의 결합 사례로, 메타디움 DID의 다양한 활용 가능성을 보여줍니다.

자세한 내용은 여기를 확인해보세요.

2025–2027 메타디움 노드 파트너십으로 전환

2025년 9월부로 메타디움의 노드 파트너십이 새로운 운영 주기(2025~2027) 로 전환되었습니다.

기존 메타디움, 베리워즈, 슈퍼스쿨 등과 함께 새로운 글로벌 파트너사들이 합류하여 총 9개사가 참여 중입니다. 이들은 블록 생성, 검증, 거버넌스 운영 등 메타디움 생태계의 공동 운영 주체(Co-operator) 로서 핵심 역할을 수행합니다. 기술적 다양성과 글로벌 확장성이 강화되는 구조로의 전환이 이루어졌습니다.

자세한 내용은 여기를 확인해보세요.

메타디움은 블록체인 기술의 공공성과 신뢰를 바탕으로, 지속 가능한 사회적 가치와 실질적인 활용 사례를 만들어가고 있습니다.

앞으로도 다양한 영역에서 DID, NFT, 퍼블릭 체인의 역할을 실현해 나가며, 메타디움 생태계를 더욱 발전시켜 나가겠습니다.

감사합니다.

메타디움 팀

Metadium 2025 Q3 Activity report was originally published in Metadium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Blockchain-Based Identity Infrastructure Tested for Public Sector Use
CSAP Security Certification Underway — Demonstrating Real-World Viability of Metadium’s DID Technology

Government-Backed Pilot Adopts Metadium’s DID Technology

Metadium’s decentralized identity (DID) technology has been adopted for the 2025 pilot project of the Korea Blockchain Trust Framework (K-BTF), led by the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA). The K-BTF program aims to validate the use of blockchain-powered trust infrastructure within public services.

CPLABS is responsible for building the DID platform for this year’s pilot, with Metadium as the underlying blockchain protocol. The project covers the entire lifecycle of DID infrastructure — from system design to cloud-based deployment and security certification — offering a robust opportunity to demonstrate the scalability and reliability of Metadium’s technology in real-world public cloud environments.

CSAP Certification in Progress for Metadium-Based DID Platform

CPLABS has successfully implemented a Metadium-based DID platform, including DID issuance, authentication, and verification functions. The platform has formally entered the CSAP (Cloud Security Assurance Program) evaluation process, which is a mandatory certification for any cloud service provider offering solutions to public institutions in Korea.

The CSAP review will assess technical performance and verify the platform’s compliance with administrative and policy standards.

This marks a meaningful step forward for Metadium DID as it transitions from technical showcase to deployable infrastructure for government-grade digital identity systems.

Expanding from Private Sector to Public Sector Applications

Having proven itself in multiple commercial use cases, Metadium DID is now being tested for public sector readiness and policy alignment. Metadium’s blockchain is purpose-built for identity issuance and verification and features a native DID method optimized for privacy, traceability, and regulatory compliance — qualities that align well with government requirements.

The newly built platform is expected to serve as the foundation for a range of future public services, including cloud-based identity issuance, digital authentication, and point-integrated administrative programs.

👉 The results of the CSAP certification and future use cases will be shared via Metadium’s official channels.

The Metadium Team

메타디움 DID, KISA ‘K-BTF 실증사업’에 적용

공공 신뢰 인프라 실증 사업에 메타디움 기반 DID 기술 활용
공공 클라우드 인증(CSAP) 절차 진행 중… 블록체인 기반 신원 인프라의 실용 가능성 입증

정부 주도의 DID 실증 사업에 메타디움 기술 채택

메타디움 DID 기술이 한국인터넷진흥원(KISA)이 주관하는 K-BTF(Korea Blockchain Trust Framework) 실증사업에 적용되었습니다. K-BTF는 블록체인 기반 신뢰 인프라의 공공 도입 가능성을 실증하는 정부 과제로, 2025년 사업에서는 씨피랩스(CPLABS)가 DID 플랫폼 구축을 맡고, 기반 블록체인 기술로 메타디움이 활용되고 있습니다.

이번 실증은 클라우드 기반 DID 서비스의 설계, 구현, 보안인증까지 아우르는 전주기 구조로 구성되어 있으며, 이를 통해 메타디움 기술이 실제 공공 클라우드 환경에서 기술적 안정성과 확장 가능성을 입증하는 계기를 마련하고 있습니다.

메타디움 DID 기반 플랫폼, CSAP 보안인증 절차 진행 중

씨피랩스는 메타디움 기반 DID 시스템을 중심으로 사용자 DID 발급, 인증, 검증 기능을 구현한 플랫폼을 구축하였고, 현재는 공공 클라우드 보안 인증(CSAP)을 정식 신청하여 본심사 절차에 돌입한 상태입니다.

CSAP 인증은 공공기관 대상 SaaS 서비스 제공을 위한 가장 핵심적인 제도적 요건으로, 본 사업을 통해 메타디움 DID는 기술적 성능뿐 아니라 정책적, 제도적 기준 충족 여부까지 종합적으로 검증받고 있는 중입니다.

이는 단순 기술 데모를 넘어서, 실제 행정 시스템과 연동 가능한 수준의 DID 인프라로서의 활용 가능성을 입증하는 중요한 사례로 평가됩니다.

민간 중심 DID 기술, 공공시장으로의 확장 기반 마련

메타디움 DID는 그간 다양한 민간 서비스에서 축적된 기술 기반을 바탕으로, 이번 실증사업을 통해 공공 부문으로의 확장 가능성을 테스트하고 있습니다. 특히, 메타디움 블록체인은 DID 신원 발급 및 검증에 최적화된 구조와 자체 DID Method를 갖추고 있어, 공공기관이 요구하는 비식별성, 추적 가능성, 개인정보 보호 기준에 효과적으로 대응할 수 있습니다.

이번 실증을 통해 구축된 플랫폼은 향후 공공 클라우드에서 운영되는 DID 기반 행정 서비스, 인증 서비스, 포인트 기반 행정 연계 서비스 등 다양한 서비스로 확장될 수 있는 기반을 제공할 것으로 기대됩니다.

👉 CSAP 인증 결과와 공공 적용 사례는 추후 메타디움 공식 채널을 통해 상세히 공개할 예정입니다.

감사합니다.

메타디움팀 드림

Website | https://metadium.com Discord | https://discord.gg/ZnaCfYbXw2 Telegram(KOR) | http://t.me/metadiumofficialkor Twitter | https://twitter.com/MetadiumK Medium | https://medium.com/metadium

Metadium DID Applied in KISA’s “K-BTF” National Pilot Project was originally published in Metadium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

At the intersection of technology, education, and trust infrastructure

At Metadium, we build infrastructure for trust. We believe trust isn’t just about how a technology operates, but about how that technology is responsibly operated together. Trust isn’t built in isolation — it’s co-created with committed partners.

Today, we’re proud to welcome a new partner to our ecosystem: SuperSchool, an AI-powered education platform, has officially joined Metadium as a Node Partner.

Technology that works in the classroom — The SuperSchool mission

SuperSchool is an EdTech company innovating the school system through AI and cloud-based technology.

From attendance and activity logs to counseling, performance analytics, college guidance, and student records — SuperSchool digitizes the full spectrum of school operations, offering automated, AI-driven solutions for teachers and students.

Their work is grounded in real classrooms:

Co-designed with over 300 teachers nationwide Patent-registered for digital attendance & administration systems Privacy partnership with Korea University’s Graduate School of Cybersecurity Co-developed an IB education platform with Jeju PyoSeon High School Signed international contracts with schools abroad, including in China

This is not just about making school digital — it’s about managing sensitive educational data responsibly and meaningfully.

From technology user to ecosystem operator — What the node partnership means

Metadium has already been providing blockchain technology for parts of SuperSchool’s platform.

Now, that collaboration deepens: SuperSchool joins as a Node Partner, becoming an active participant in the operation of the Metadium network.

A node is more than just infrastructure. It’s a trust operator responsible for helping maintain the integrity, transparency, and continuity of a decentralized ecosystem. SuperSchool now shares in that responsibility.

Blockchain-Powered verification for educational records

SuperSchool manages data that reflects students’ lives — data that informs academic growth, career decisions, and institutional trust.

AI-generated activity record analysis Auto-drafted student reports for evaluation Personalized career & college guidance

Parts of this sensitive data are cryptographically verified through Metadium’s blockchain, ensuring they are tamper-proof and authentically sourced.

This represents a real-world intersection of public-sector education and blockchain-level trust.

Metadium x SuperSchool

We now stand on the same node where technology meets education and trust supports students’ future.

📎 Learn more about SuperSchool

메타디움 노드 파트너로 ‘슈퍼스쿨’이 합류합니다 기술, 교육, 그리고 신뢰 생태계의 접점에서

메타디움은 ‘신뢰 인프라’를 설계합니다. 우리는 기술이 작동하는 방식보다, 그 기술을 어떻게 함께 운영하느냐를 더 중요하게 생각합니다. 그리고 그 신뢰는 혼자서는 완성되지 않습니다 — 책임 있게 참여하는 파트너들과 함께 구축되어야 합니다.

메타디움 생태계에 또 하나의 의미 있는 노드 파트너가 합류했습니다. AI 기반 교육 플랫폼을 운영하는 ‘슈퍼스쿨(SuperSchool)’이 공식 메타디움 노드 파트너로 참여합니다.

교육 현장에서 실천하는 기술, 슈퍼스쿨

슈퍼스쿨은 AI와 클라우드 기술을 기반으로 학교 교육을 혁신하고 있는 에듀테크 기업입니다. 출결 관리, 활동 기록, 상담, 성적 분석, 진로 컨설팅, 생기부 작성 등 학교의 모든 교육 데이터를 디지털화하고, AI 분석과 자동화를 통해 교사와 학생 모두의 경험을 향상시키는 플랫폼을 만들어왔습니다.

전국 현직 교사 300여 명과 함께 기획된 현장 중심 솔루션 출결 및 행정 자동화 시스템 특허 등록 고려대학교 정보보호대학원과 개인정보보호 협력 제주 표선고와 IB 교육과정 전용 플랫폼 공동 개발 중국 교육기관과의 해외 공급 계약 체결

이 모든 활동은 단순한 서비스가 아니라, 교육 데이터를 어떻게 안전하게 다루고, 의미 있게 사용할 수 있는가에 대한 고민의 결과입니다.

기술 사용자에서 생태계 운영자로 — 노드 파트너십의 의미

메타디움은 이미 슈퍼스쿨의 일부 시스템에 기술을 제공하며 협력해 왔습니다. 그리고 이제, 단순한 사용자 관계를 넘어 슈퍼스쿨은 메타디움의 노드 파트너로서 생태계 운영에 직접 참여하게 되었습니다.

노드는 단순한 기술 장비가 아닙니다. 그것은 네트워크의 일부를 책임지는, 신뢰의 운영자입니다. 블록체인의 데이터가 기록되는 모든 과정에 관여하며, 생태계의 무결성과 지속성을 함께 지켜나가는 존재입니다.

교육과 DID, 그리고 데이터의 새로운 흐름

슈퍼스쿨이 다루는 교육 데이터는 학생의 삶과 연결되어 있고, 사회로 이어집니다.

AI 활동기록 분석 디지털 생기부 초안 자동 작성 학생 맞춤형 진로/진학 추천

이 모든 흐름 위에, 메타디움 블록체인 기술이 함께하게 되면서 교육이라는 공공성과 블록체인 기술의 신뢰성이 현실적으로 접목됩니다.

메타디움 x 슈퍼스쿨

기술이 교육을 만나고, 신뢰가 학생의 미래를 지지하는 지점에서 — 우리는 이제 같은 노드 위에 서 있습니다.

📎 [슈퍼스쿨 자세히 보기]

SuperSchool Joins the Metadium Node Partner Network was originally published in Metadium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

At the intersection of technology, climate, and trust infrastructure

Metadium is more than just a blockchain project. We design trust infrastructure. And trust is not built by technology alone — it’s built through responsible operation and meaningful participation by those who share that responsibility.

Today, we’re pleased to announce the latest addition to the Metadium ecosystem: VERYWORDS, a company developing and operating an e-Mobility-based carbon reduction platform, has officially joined as a Metadium Node Partner.

VERYWORDS — Building sustainable technology through real-world action

VERYWORDS is not a company that merely expresses interest in climate issues. It’s a team that has spent years in the field, building practical, technology-based models to reduce carbon emissions.

2017–2019: Carbon neutrality consulting for government and enterprise 2020–2022: e-Mobility pilot programs across ASEAN countries 2023: Established electric motorcycle assembly plant in Cambodia 2024: Signed carbon credit pre-purchase agreement with Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy 2025: Secured Korea’s first ITMO (Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcome) project approval

VERYWORDS operates a multidimensional climate tech ecosystem, integrating carbon reduction, EV infrastructure, international policy cooperation, and cutting-edge technology. They’ve built a blockchain-based MRV (Monitoring, Reporting, Verification) system to ensure transparency and reliability of carbon data. They are already running IoT-based data security infrastructure and carbon reward mechanisms.

Through partnerships with the Cambodian government and various regional institutions, VERYWORDS has secured key footholds in international climate mitigation — not as experiments, but as operational models already in motion.

From technology user to ecosystem operator — a partnership grounded in shared trust

Metadium has already provided blockchain technology for VERYWORDS’ platform, helping ensure integrity in carbon verification and data transparency. This new node partnership marks an evolution in that relationship — a step toward greater autonomy, shared responsibility, and deeper integration.

A node is not just a server. Maintaining trust, security, and decentralization is a critical part of the blockchain’s backbone. Becoming a node partner means becoming an active steward of the network itself.

VERYWORDS will now participate directly in the data creation and validation process within the Metadium blockchain, assuming the role of trust operator in a broader ecosystem of transparency and accountability.

At the intersection of climate action and Web3

Climate change is one of the most complex, far-reaching challenges humanity faces. When applied thoughtfully, blockchain offers one of the most powerful tools to address it: a tamper-proof, transparent, verifiable system of record.

VERYWORDS is a leading example of applying this technology beyond borders — creating tangible momentum in the global fight against climate change.

Their role as a Metadium Node Partner further strengthens the trust architecture behind that work.

To those building this ecosystem with us

Metadium is an open-source blockchain project focused on decentralized identity (DID) and trust infrastructure. But ecosystems are not built on code alone. They are built by those who share the responsibility to run them, those who apply them meaningfully, and those who have the vision — and grit — to bring it into the real world.

VERYWORDS is one of those partners.

Metadium x VERYWORDS

Where sustainability meets technology, and trust supports real-world climate action — We now stand on the same node.

📎 Learn more about VERYWORDS

메타디움 노드 파트너로 ‘베리워즈’가 합류합니다 기술, 기후, 그리고 신뢰 생태계의 접점에서

메타디움은 단지 블록체인을 개발하는 프로젝트가 아닙니다. 우리는 ‘신뢰 인프라’를 설계합니다. 그리고 그 신뢰는 기술로만 완성되지 않습니다 — 책임 있게 운영하고, 진정성 있게 참여하는 파트너들과 함께할 때 비로소 구축됩니다.

그런 의미에서, 메타디움 생태계에 새로운 노드 파트너의 합류를 소개하게 된 것을 기쁘게 생각합니다. e-Mobility 기반 탄소감축 플랫폼을 개발하고 운영하는 베리워즈(VERYWORDS)가 공식 메타디움 노드 파트너로 참여하게 되었습니다.

지속가능성을 위한 기술, 현장에서 실천해온 베리워즈

베리워즈는 단순히 기후 문제에 ‘관심 있는’ 기업이 아닙니다. 이들은 수년간 직접 현장에 들어가, 기술을 기반으로 실질적인 탄소감축 모델을 구현해온 기업입니다.

2017~2019: 정부 및 기업 대상 탄소중립 컨설팅 2020~2022: 아세안 국가 대상 e-Mobility 시범사업 수행 2023: 캄보디아 현지에 전기 오토바이 조립 공장 구축 2024: 산업부와 탄소크레딧 선구매 협약 체결 2025: 국내 최초 국제탄소감축사업(ITMO) 공식 승인

베리워즈는 탄소 감축, 전기차 인프라, 국제 정책 협력, 기후테크 기술이 유기적으로 연결된 복합적이고 입체적인 생태계를 구축하고 있습니다.

기술적으로는 블록체인 기반 MRV(Monitoring, Reporting, Verification) 시스템을 구축해 감축 활동의 투명성과 신뢰성을 확보했고, IoT 기반 데이터 보안 및 탄소 리워드 시스템도 이미 운영 중입니다.

또한, 캄보디아 정부 및 다양한 현지 기관과의 협업을 통해 국제 감축 사업의 거점을 실질적으로 확보하고 있으며, 이는 단순한 ‘실험’이 아닌 운영 가능한 모델로 증명되고 있습니다.

기술 사용자에서 생태계 운영자로 — 신뢰의 무게를 함께 지는 파트너십

메타디움은 이미 베리워즈의 플랫폼에 기술을 제공하며, 감축 인증 및 데이터 투명성 확보에 협력해 왔습니다. 그리고 이번 노드 파트너십은, 그 협업 관계가 한층 더 주체적이고 책임 있는 단계로 진화했음을 의미합니다.

노드는 단순한 기술 장비가 아닙니다. 노드는 블록체인 네트워크의 일부로서, 생태계의 신뢰성과 무결성을 유지하는 핵심 요소입니다. 블록체인의 거버넌스 구조 안에서 직접 참여하고, 네트워크를 ‘함께 지키는 존재’가 된다는 뜻입니다.

베리워즈는 이제, 메타디움 블록체인의 데이터가 만들어지고 저장되는 과정에 참여하며, 생태계의 신뢰 운영자(trust operator)로 함께하게 됩니다.

기후 행동과 Web3의 연결 지점에서

기후 변화는 인류가 직면한 가장 복잡하고 거대한 과제입니다. 그리고 블록체인은, 그 과제를 해결하는 데 있어 가장 강력한 도구 중 하나입니다 — 데이터 위조가 불가능하고, 투명하며, 누구나 확인 가능한 기록 시스템.

베리워즈는 이 기술을 기후 분야에 적용하는 데 있어 한국을 넘어 국제 무대에서도 의미 있는 전환점을 만들어내고 있으며, 이번 메타디움 노드 파트너 합류는 이런 움직임에 더 깊은 신뢰 구조를 부여하는 작업이라 할 수 있습니다.

함께 생태계를 만드는 이들에게

메타디움은 오픈소스 블록체인 프로젝트로서, 자기주권형 신원(DID)과 신뢰 기반 인프라를 구축하는 것을 목표로 합니다.

그리고 그 생태계는 기술만으로는 완성되지 않습니다. 책임을 함께 지는 파트너, 기술을 실제로 구현하는 기업, 그리고 그것을 실현할 철학과 실행력을 가진 사람들과 함께 만들어집니다.

베리워즈는 바로 그런 파트너입니다.

메타디움 x 베리워즈

기술이 지속가능성을 만나고, 신뢰가 기후 행동을 지지하는 지점에서 — 우리는 이제 같은 노드 위에 서 있습니다.

📎 [베리워즈 자세히 보기]

VERYWORDS Joins the Metadium Node Partner Network was originally published in Metadium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Announcing CheckMate for Auth0, a new, open-source tool to proactively assess and improve your Auth0 security. Analyze your tenant configuration against best practices.

Avoid costly app and API security mistakes. Learn how to streamline WAF evaluation, estimate TCO, and embrace agile development for optimal security.

THE DIGITAL CRISIS

TOKENS, AI, REAL ESTATE, AND THE FUTURE OF FINANCE

Artificial inflation of real estate prices for decades caused the global financial crisis.

We propose converting the global system from a debt-backed to an equity-backed model to solve it.

We propose using AI to manage the diligence work, and using the blockchain to handle the share registers and other obligations.

By Vinay Gupta (CEO Mattereum)
with economics and policy support from Matthew Latham of Bradshaw Advisory
and art and capitalism analysis from A.P. Clarke

THE BAR CODE STARTED IT

Back when I was in primary school in the 1970s, they suddenly started teaching us binary arithmetic; why?

Well, because they could see that computers were a coming thing and, of course, we’d all have to know binary to program them. So, The Digital has been a rolling wave for pretty much all my life — that was an early ripple, but it continued to build relentlessly, and when it truly started surging forwards in the 1990s, it began to transform everything in its path. Some things it washed away entirely, some things floated on it, but everywhere it went, digital technology transformed things. Sometimes the result is amazing, sometimes it is disastrous.

The wave was sometimes visible, but sometimes invisible. You could see barcodes arrive, and replace price stickers.

I’m just a bit too young to remember when UK money was pounds, shillings and pence. In 1970 there were two hundred and forty pence to the pound.

Through the 1970s and 1980s the introduction of barcodes on goods was a fundamental change in retail, not just because it changed how prices were communicated in stores, but because it enabled a flow of realtime information about the sale of goods to the central computer systems managing logistics and money in the big store’s supply chain.

Before the bar code, every store used to put the price on every object with a little sticker gun. Changing prices meant redoing all the stickers. Pricing was analogue.

In many ways decimalization and barcoding marked the end of the British medieval period. We still buy and sell real estate pretty much the same way we did in 1970.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975 The sword has two edges

When you get digitization wrong, the downsides tend to be much larger than the upsides. It’s all very well to “move fast and break things” but the hard work is in replacing the broken thing with something that works better. It’s not a given that better systems will emerge by smashing up the old order, but the digital pioneers were young, and it seems obvious to young people that literally anything would be better than the old people’s systems. This is particularly true in America, which, being founded by revolutionaries, lacks a truly conservative tradition: in America, what is conserved, what people have nostalgia for, is revolution itself.

That makes change a constant, and this is both America’s greatest strength, and weakness. The only thing you can get people interested in is a revolution. Nobody cares about incrementally improving business-as-usual. Everybody acts like they have nothing to lose at all times.

This winner-takes-all nothing-held-back attitude exemplified by “move fast and break things” has become the house style of the digitization.

But as a result a lot of things are broken these days.

Jonathan Taplin - Move Fast and Break Things

Wikipedia turned out pretty well

You can get a decent enough answer for most purposes from Wikipedia, it’s free, it’s community generated, there’s no ads, it doesn’t enshittify (yet), and you do not need to spend a fortune on a shelf full of instantly out of date paper encyclopedias. Most people would agree this is “digitization done right.”

Spotify, not so much; it wrecked musicians livelihoods, turned music listening into a coercive hellscape of ‘curated’ playlists, and is on course to overwhelm actual human created music with AI produced digital soundalike slop that will do its best to kill imaginative new leaps in music — no AI without centuries of history and culture build up in its digital soul could come up with anything like the extraordinary stuff Uganda’s Nyegge Nyegge Tapes label finds for example — and you pay for it or get hosed with ads. It was, after all, always intended to be an advertising platform that tempted audiences in with streamed music.

Nobody ever stopped to ask how the musicians were doing.

Of course for the listeners — the consumers of music-content-product — the experience was initially utopian. People used to talk about the celestial jukebox, the everything-machine, and for a while $9.99 a month got you that. The first phase was utopian, for everybody except the musicians, the creators of music: they had a better financial deal when they got their own CDs pressed and sold them at shows. Seriously, musicians look back at that time as the good old days. Digitization went badly wrong for music.

How Spotify is stealing from small indie artists, why it matters, and what to do about it

It’s not just the software that can be disastrous; take massive data centres, not only do they cover vast areas and consume ludicrous amounts of energy, they are extremely vulnerable to disaster. The Korean government just lost the best part of a petabyte of data when one went up in smoke — the backup was in the same place it seems.

Then there’s a contagious Bluetooth hack of humanoid robots that has just come to light. You can infect one of the robots, and then over Bluetooth, it can infect the other robots, until you have a swarm of compromised humanoid robots, and Elon Musk says he’s going to produce something like 500,000 of these things.

We always thought Skynet would be some sinister defence company AI, but it turns out that basically it’s just going to be 4Chan’s version of ChatGPT — and it’s not like there isn’t plenty of dodgy, abrasive internet culture in the training data already!

This is the digital crisis, it inevitably hits field after field, but whether what emerges at the end is a winner or a disaster is completely unpredictable.

Will it lead to a Wikipedia, or a Spotify, something that’s just sort of OK, like Netflix, or something deeply weird and sinister like those hacked robots. Did Linux save the world? Will it?

Why is there such a range in outcomes over a process whose arrival is so predictable? That is because the Powers-That-Be that might steer the transition, that could come up with an adequate response, the nation states, are really poor at digital. Nation States move too slowly, they fundamentally fail to understand the digital, and their mechanisms just haven’t caught up; they just suck at digital at a very primordial level, so the result of any digital crisis requiring state intervention is a worse crisis.

That’s not to say that any of the possible alternatives to nation states show any sign of doing this better — that’s part of the problem.

Whoever is doing the digitizing during the critical period for each industry has outsized freedom to shape how the digitization process plays out.

4chan faces UK ban after refusing to pay 'stupid' fine

Move fast and break democracy

Eventually “move fast and break things” took over in California and beyond, and crypto (the political faction, the industry, the ideology!) identified the fastest moving object in the political space (Trump-style MAGA Republicanism) and backed it to the hilt.

The American Libertarian branch of the crypto world is now trying to build out the rest of their new political model without a real grasp of how politics worked before they got interested in it. The crypto SuperPACs and associated movements threw money at electing a team who would accommodate them, in the process destroying the old American political mode without, perhaps, much concern about what else they might do once in power.

There’s a whole bunch of “break things phase” activity emerging from this right now.

Unprecedented Big Money Surge for Super PAC Tied to Trump

The “break things” part of “move fast and break things” has a very constrained downside in a corporation. Governments are a lot more dangerous to tinker with.

The Silicon Valley venture capital ecosystem itself is a relic. It is itself a legacy system. Dating back to the 1950s American boom times, Silicon Valley is having an increasingly hard time generating revenue, and today its insularity and short sightedness are legendary. There is a lot of need for innovation, and there’s no good way to fund most of it. Keeping innovation running needs a new generation of financial instruments (remember the 2018 ICO craze?) but instead we’re stuck with Series funding models.

Funding the future is a now a legacy industry.

Series A, B, C, D, and E Funding: How It Works

It still isn’t fully appreciated that today’s political crisis, to a significant extent, is because the Silicon Valley could not integrate into the old American political mode. For decades Silicon Valley struggled to find a voice in Washington, or to figure out whether the right wing or the left wing was its natural home. Meanwhile life got worse and worse in California because of a set of frozen political conflicts and bad compromises nobody seemed to be able to fix. The situation slowly escalated, but the problem in Silicon Valley was always real estate.

How Proposition 13 Broke California Housing Politics

Digital real estate is a huge global gamble

The digital crisis is just about to collide with one of society’s other major crises — the housing crisis.

We have problems, globally, with real estate. We don’t seem to be able to build enough of it, nobody seems to be able to afford it, largely because it’s being used as an asset class by finance instead of being treated as a basic human need.

Real estate availability and real estate bubbles are horrendous problems.

The U.S. Financial Crisis

Now the hedge funds are moving in to further financialize the sector at the same time as people seem not to be able to buy enough housing to have kids in.

This has been steadily getting worse since Thatcher and Reagan in the late 70s/early 80s. Once, one person in work could comfortably buy a house and support a family, then it became necessary for two people to work to do that, now it’s slipping beyond the grasp of even two people, and renting is no cheaper; renters are just people who haven’t got a deposit together for a mortgage, so are paying someone else’s and coming out the end with nothing to show for it. It’s a mess, and then we’re going to come along and we’re going to digitize real estate. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, if we don’t deal with this as being an aspect of a much larger crisis, we will be rolling the dice on whether we like the outcome we get from digitization of real estate. Things are really bad already, and bad digitization could make them so much worse. But, as is the nature of the digital crisis, it could also make them better, and it is up to us, while things are still up in the air, to make sure that this is what happens.

The initial skirmishes around digitization of real estate have mostly been messy: the poster children are Airbnb and Booking, both of which enjoy near-monopoly status and externalize a range of costs onto the general public, while usually offering seamless convenience to renters and guests. But when things go wrong and an apartment gets trashed or a hotel is severely substandard, often people are left out in the cold dealing with a corporation which is so large it might as well be a government and this is, indeed, usually how the Nation State as an institution has handled digital.

Corporations the size of governments negotiate using mechanisms that look more like international treaties than contracts, and they increasingly wield powers previously reserved to the State itself. It’s not a great way to handle a customer service dispute on an apartment.

Neoreaction (NRx) and all the rest of it simply want to ratify this arrangement and create a permanent digital aristocracy as a layer above the democracy of the (post-)industrial nation states: the directors and owners of corporations treated as above the law.

Inside the New Right, Where Peter Thiel Is Placing His Biggest Bets

Economic stratification and political complexity

One reason we aren’t dealing adequately with these crises is that the very existence of many of them is buried by an increase in the variance of outcomes. It used to be that people operated within a fairly narrow bandwidth. The standard deviation of your life expectations was relatively narrow, barring things like wars. Now, what we have is this incredibly broad bimodal distribution, trimodal distribution. A chunk of people manage to stay in the average, a tiny number of people wind up as billionaires, and then maybe 20% of the society gets shoved into various kinds of gutters. In America, it’s medical bankruptcy, it’s homelessness, it’s the opioid epidemic, it’s being abducted by ICE, those kinds of things.

What we’ve done is create a much wider range of possible outcomes, and a lot of those outcomes are bad, but the average still looks kind of acceptable — the people at the top end of that spectrum are throwing off the averages for the entire rest of the thing.

Ten facts about wealth inequality in the USA - LSE Inequalities

In fact, generally speaking, on the streets things repeatedly approach the point of revolution as various groups boil over. If they all boil over at the same time, that’s it, game over, new regime.

We’re in a position where we’ve managed to create a much more free society with a much wider range of possible outcomes, however, the bad outcomes are very severe and often masked by the glitzy media circus around the people enjoying the good outcomes. Good outcomes are being disproportionately controlled by a tiny politically dangerous minority at the top, but as these are the ones making the rules, trying to correct the balance is super difficult.

Democracy as we knew it was rooted in economic democracy, and nothing is further from economic democracy than robots, AI, and massive underemployment. Political democracy without economic democracy is unstable and only gives the lucky rich short term benefits; they are gambling on being able to constantly surf the instabilities to keep ahead of the game, continuing to reap those benefits while palming the externalities off on everyone else. But that can’t be done; eventually someone gets something wrong and the whole lot hits the wall in financial crashes, riot, revolution, and no one gets a good outcome. It all ends up like Brazil if you’re lucky and Haiti if you’re not.

The combination of extreme wealth gaps and democracy cannot be stabilized, and increasingly the rich are looking at democracy as a problem to be solved, rather than the solution it once was. I cannot tell you how bad this is.

Yet the benefits of technology are all around us, increasingly so. Democracy tends towards the constant redistribution of those benefits through taxation-and-subsidy. To fight against being redistributed, the billionaires are rapidly moving towards a post-democratic model of political power. The general human need for access to a safe and stable future seems to be less and less a stated goal for any political faction. This is getting messy.

Today, middle of the road democratic redistribution sounds like communism, but it’s not; it just sounds like that because the current version of capitalism is so distorted and out of whack. American capitalism used to function much more like Scandinavian capitalism, a version of capitalism that gives everyone a reasonable bit of the pie, with a strong focus on social cohesion. Within that model, the slice may vary considerably in size, but it should allow even those at the lower end safe and dignified lives. Weirdly enough the only large country running a successful 1950s/1960s “rapid economic growth with reasonable redistribution of wealth” model of capitalism today is China.

Breakneck

Fractocrises and magic bullets

In 2016 there was a little dog with a cup of coffee who reflected back the feeeling the world had gone out of control and nobody cared.

In 2016. Sixteen. No covid. Not much AI. Little war. But still the pressure.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/06/arts/this-is-fine-meme-dog-fire.html

Understandably some very smart people are pursuing the concept of polycrisis as a response to the many arms of chaos.

https://x.com/70sBachchan/status/1723103050116763804

Deal with the crises in silos and this mess is the result.

The impulse towards polycrisis as a model is understandable, but it’s a path we know leads to a very particular kind of nowhere. It leads to Powerpoint.

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/world/27powerpoint.html

In truth, crises are fractal. They are self-similar across levels. The chains of cause-and-effect which spider across the policy landscape in impenetrable webs are produced by a relatively small number of repeating patterns.

“Follow the money”, for example, almost always cuts through polycrisis and replaces the complexity of the situation with a small number of actors who are above the law.

To use a medical analogy, a patient can present with a devastating array of systemic failures driven by a single root cause. Consider someone suffering from dehydration — blood pressure is way down, kidneys are failing, maybe 40 different systems are going seriously wrong. Treat them individually and the patient will just die.

Step back and realise “Oh, this patient is dehydrated!”, give them water and rehydration salts and appropriate care and all the problems are solved at once.

Or maybe it’s reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone Park; suddenly the rivers work better, there are more trees, insect pests decline, because one big key change ramifies through the system and brings about a whole load of unanticipated benefits downstream. Systems have systemic health. Systems also have systemic decline. But the complex systems / “polycrisis” analysts focus entirely on how failing systems interact to produce faster failure in other failing systems, effectively documenting decline, and carry around phrases like “there is no magic bullet.”

There is. The magic bullet for dehydration is water.

Finding the magic bullets is medicine; documenting systemic collapses is merely biology.

REHYDRATING THE AMERICAN DREAM

The dollar is a dead man walking — there is no way to stabilise the dollar in the current climate. It is holed below the waterline but the general public has only the very earliest awareness of this problem today. By the time they all know there will be no more dollar. Perhaps the entire fiat system is in terminal decline as a result: if the dollar hyperinflates, or dies in some other way, will it take the Pound and the Euro and the Yen with it? Who could have foreseen this?

Frankly, in 2008, following the Great Financial Crisis, everybody knew.

https://theconversation.com/as-uk-inflation-falls-to-2-3-heres-what-it-could-mean-for-wages-230563

There is a long term macro trend of fiat devaluation. There is also the acute fallout of the 2008 catastrophe. We have a fundamental problem: the 1971 adoption of the fiat currency system (over the gold standard) is not working. The dysfunction of the fiat system detonated in 2008. We have now had 17 years of negotiations with the facts of the matter, but so far, no solutions.

Well, other than this one…

All the fiat economies are carrying tons of debt, crazy unsustainable amounts of debt, both personal and national. It could well be that a lot of smart people are thinking that a “great reset” of some kind would solve a lot of problems simultaneously.

The Jubilee Report: A Blueprint for Tackling the Debt and Development Crises and Creating the Financial Foundations for a Sustainable People-Centered Global Economy

The nature of that “great reset” is going to determine whether your children live as slaves, or live at all.

So the global approach to currency needs overhauling as part of a more general effort to make the political economy stabilize in an age of exponential change.

It is not the first time that it has been done even within living memory.

Bowie released “The Man Who Sold The World” while the dollar was still backed by physical gold. This is not ancient history. It’s not at all irrational to think that 6000 year old human norms about handing over shiny bits of metal for food might need to be updated for the world we are in today. But it’s also not too late to adjust our models and fine-tune the experiment.

Globally issued non-state fiat, like Bitcoin, is just not going to get you the society that you want, unless the society you want is an aristocratic oligarchy. Bitcoin is just a different kind of fiat — money that only exists because someone says it’s money and enough people go along with it, rather than money based on something that has intrinsic value itself. It has the same problem as fiat currency has: there is no way to accurately vary the amount of money to meet the demand for money to keep the price of money stable. Purchasing power is always going to be unpredictable and that makes long term economic forecasting difficult for workers and governments alike.

Governments print too much. Bitcoin prints too little, particularly this late in the Halving Cycle.

Understanding the Bitcoin Halving Cycle and Its Impact on 2025 Market Trends

The problem of purchasing power fluctuations causes for estimating long term infrastructure project economics has huge impacts too: if you can’t accurately predict the future, you can’t finance infrastructure. You can’t plan for pensions. The great wheel of civilization grinds to a halt as short-termism eats the seed corn of society. Nobody wants to make a 30 year bet because of robots and AI and all the rest, and so we wind up ruled quarter by quarter with occasional 4 year elections.

Not dollars, not Bitcoin

The debates about what money should be are not new.

Broadly, there are three models for currency

(1) government fiat/national fiat — fine in principle but, in practice, in nearly all highly democratic societies the governments wind up inflating away their own currencies over time

(2) global fiat issued on blockchains — Ethereum, Bitcoin, all the rest of those things

(3) resource-backed currencies — conventionally that means gold but it can also apply to things like Timebanking and various mutual credit systems

Gold is already massively liquid. You cannot solve a global crisis by making gold 40 times more valuable than it currently is because it becomes the backing for all currencies again. Gold is also very unequally distributed: Asian women famously collect the stuff in the form of jewellery and a shift to a new gold standard could easily make India one of the wealthiest countries in the world again, women first. Much as this sounds like a delightful outcome, it’s hard to imagine a new economic order ruled by now-very-wealthy-indeed middle class Indian housewives who had a couple of generations to build up a solid pile of bangles.

This, by the way, is the same argument against hyperbitcoinization — being on the Silk Road in 2011 and buying illegal substances using bitcoin is not the same thing as being good at productive business or being a skilled capital allocator: windfalls based on a social choice about currency systems are not a sensible way to allocate wealth, although it does often happen.

Hyperbitcoinization Explained - Bitcoin Magazine

You can argue that bitcoin mining requires a ton of expertise and technological capacity, and this is worthy economic reward, but there is a fundamental limit to how many kilograms of gold you can rationally expect to pull out of a data center running 15 year old open source software.

Similarly, the areas which were geographically blessed (or is that cursed?) by gold would wind up with a huge economic uplift. It becomes a question of geological roulette whether you have gold or not, and unlike the coal and oil and iron and uranium lotteries, nobody can build anything using gold as an energy source or a tool. Gold is just money. It’s like an inheritance.

Resource curse - Wikipedia

So what’s the alternative? Bitcoin scarcity, gold scarcity, these are all models in which early owners of the asset do very well when the asset class is selected for the backing of the new system. Needless to say those asset owners are locked in a very significant geostrategic power struggle for the right to define the next system of the world. They are all bastards.

Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government...

But what if we move to something that is genuinely, fundamentally useful? Well, what about land? You’re much more likely to get a world that works if you rebase the global currencies on real estate in a way that causes homes to get built, than if you rebase the world’s currencies on non-state fiat.

Both sides of this equation must balance. If we simply lock the amount of real estate in the game, then (figure out how to) use it as currency we wind up with another inflexible monetary supply problem. Might as well use Bitcoin or Gold. We’ve been down this track: we did not like it, and in 1971 we changed course permanently.

Real estate could be “the new gold” but real estate has flexible supply because you can always build more housing.

If the law permits.

And if we can solve that problem, the incentives align in a new way: building housing increases the money supply. If house prices are rising too fast, build more housing.

Bryan's Cross of Gold and the Partisan Battle over Economic Policy | Miller Center

Artificially scarce real estate is the gold of today

We’ve been manipulating real estate prices for a few generations.

The data is screamingly clear, and that’s 100% evidence of pervasive market manipulation: housing is not hard to physically build, but bureaucratically there’s been a massive concerted effort to keep the stuff expensive by bureaucratic limitations on supply. There are entire nation states dedicated to this cause.

The exceptions to this rule look like revolutionary actions.

Consider Austin, Texas which saw its real economic growth and potential status as The Next Great Californian City threatened by a San Francisco style house price explosion. Austin responded with a massive building wave, and managed to rapidly stabilize house prices at a more sustainable level.

Some reports say that >50% of Silicon Valley investor money eventually winds up in the pockets of landlords.

Peter Thiel: Majority of capital poured into SV startups goes to 'urban slumlords'

The way out is to build housing, and a lot of it.

But not like this.

Digital finance has to build more real estate to win

At the root of everything is that the digitization of real estate has to build more real estate. If the next system does not work for average people to get them a better outcome than the current system, there is going to be real trouble: state failures or the violent end of capitalism.

First and above all, this means we need to build more real estate.

Building has been artificially restricted because to make it work as an investment that increases in value, there needs to be scarcity; if you build more its investment value goes down, but its utility value increases.

YIMBY - Wikipedia

One way to digitize real estate is to create currencies backed by real estate, but the logical outcome of this is to make real estate as scarce as possible to protect the value of the currency, which is a disaster for the people who actually need to live somewhere. It would be like a society where mining gold is illegal because the value of the gold supply has to be protected, except we are doing this for homes. We are here now, and we could make this disaster worse.

In truth, if we take that path, we are fucked beyond all human belief. We will have literally immanentized the eschaton. You basically wind up with the economic siege of the young by the old, and that is a powder keg waiting to blow. State failures and violent revolutions.

The 2008 crisis was triggered by over-valuing real estate (underpricing the risk, to be precise) on gigantic over-simplified financial instruments like mortgage-backed securities, literally gigantic bundles of mortgages with a fake estimate about how many of the people taking out those mortgages could afford them in the long run. The global economic slowdown triggered by the US-led invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq (don’t even get me started) hit the mortgage payers, and the risk concentrated in markets like “subprime mortgages” and the credit default swaps which were being used to hedge those (and other) risks.

Credit default swap - Wikipedia

The digital crisis, when it hits real estate, could make 2008 look like the boom of the early 90s. However we choose to tokenize real estate, it has to result in more homes getting built.

However we choose to tokenize real estate, it has to result in more homes getting built.

You cannot use real estate as the backend for stablecoins, then limit the supply of real estate in a way that causes prices to continually go up. That paradigm is what has caused the current real estate crisis. It’s been destroying our societies in America and Europe for decades, so it’s not going to solve the crisis it has caused.

This is largely downwind of Thatcher and Reagan and financial deregulation on one hand, paired with promises to control inflation over the long run (we’re talking decades). This was the core promise made by the Conservatives: inflation will stay low forever. We will not print money.

Once that promise was in place it was possible to have low interest rates and long mortgages, meaning the working class could afford to buy housing. They called this model the Ownership Society.

Ownership society - Wikipedia

The ownership society (and associated models) was an attempt to change the incentives for poor voters so they would not use democracy to take control of the government and vote money from the rich into their own pockets.

What we’ve done is we’ve basically bribed an entire generation (the boomers) with that model, and now we’re at the point where they have no grandchildren and the entire thing is collapsing because housing is a much worse kind of bitcoin than bitcoin. Expensive bitcoin makes bitcoin hard to buy. Expensive housing devastates entire societies. And that’s where we are today.

The solution to all of these ills is to solve these crises at a fundamental level. The patient is dehydrated. The patient needs water. Affordable housing.

This is why you’ve got to focus on outcomes for average people: in any crisis you can find a minority of people who are thriving. Those people are useless for diagnosing the cause of the crisis. You have to look at the losers to understand why the system is broken.

The rent is too damn high.

The patient needs water not antibiotics

If we fix the housing part of this digitization crisis correctly, the results are going to be amazing. That could be the one big change that propagates through the entire financial system and brings back the balance.

Essentially, what works is not backing a currency with real estate, then manipulating the real estate supply to prop it up. What works, we believe, is being able to use land directly as a kind of currency. This is not in the current sense of taking out a loan with the land as collateral, but instead using it directly as money without ever having to dip into any kind of fiat; no need to turn anything into dollars to be able to trade things. Why would I pay interest on a loan against my collateral if I can simply pay for something using my collateral directly?

If we digitize real estate properly, the reward is that we could potentially use tokenized real estate to stabilize the financial system. Regulatory friction is keeping real estate, by far the world’s largest asset class, illiquid in a world which desperately needs liquidity. But there is also a very hard problem in automating the valuation of real estate, and that is going to need AI.

When something is digitized it is inevitably an approximation, and the consequences of that approximation are much larger in some areas than others. With real estate, when we buy and sell we’re constantly in a position where we are dealing with the gap between the written documentation of the real estate and the actual value of the asset. As a result, you wind up with another kind of digitization crisis, one caused by the gap between the digital representation of the object and the object itself.

Using current systems, the liability pathways attached to misleading information in a data set being used to value assets would normally be revealed during legal discovery. If the problem is worth less than tens of millions it’s never going to be found out. If the problem is worth tens or hundreds of billions, it’s now too late. A lot slips through the gaps, historically speaking. And this is only going to get worse now that sellers have started to fake listings using AI.

Realtors Are Using AI Images of Homes They're Selling. Comparing Them to the Real Thing Will Make You Mad as Hell Real estate listing gaffe exposes widespread use of AI in Australian industry - and potential risks

This information-valuation-risk nexus creates friction; to get real estate digitization to work we need to eradicate that friction, and keep fake listings out of the system. This challenge is only going to get harder.

Total Value of Global Real Estate: Property remains the world's biggest store of wealth | Savills Impacts

Real estate is a safer fix for the currency crisis

“Without revolution” is a feature, not a bug.

Vitally, unlike gold or bitcoin, the distribution of land and real estate ownership is close to the current estimates of people’s wealth: a shift to a real estate based economic model would not have the same gigantic and disruptive impacts as moving to either gold or bitcoin or both. There is enough value there too: $400 trillion dollars of real estate, versus $30 trillion of gold or only $38 trillion of US national debt. Global GDP is a bit over $100 trillion.

There is enough real estate, correctly deployed, to create a stable global medium of exchange.

The valuation problem has meant that previously the transactional costs of pricing real estate as collateral were insane. Instead of doing the hard work, pricing the real estate, financial institutions priced the mortgages on the real estate using simplistic models. The 2008-era financial system simply treated the mortgage as a promise to pay, without evaluating whether the person who was supposed to pay had a job, or if anybody was willing to buy the underlying asset which was meant to be backing the mortgage. A thing is worth what you can sell it for!

Shocking Headlines of the 2008 Financial Crisis - CLIPPING CHAINS

You would think somebody was minding the store, but you only need to look at the post-2008 shambles to realize not only is there nobody minding the store, the store itself burned down some time ago. In fact the global financial system is a system in name only: it’s more like a hybrid of a memecoin economy, a Schelling point, a set of real economic flows of oil and machine tools and microprocessors, and big old books of nuclear strategy and doctrine. The globa “system” is a bunch of bolted together game boards with innumerable weird pieces held together by massive external pressures, gradually collapsing because the stress points between different complex systems are beyond human comprehension. Environmental economics, for example. Or the energy policy / national security interface. AI and everything. The complexity overwhelms understanding and the system degrades.

It does not have to be this way.

When you have AI to price complex collateral like real estate (or running businesses), you can do things with that collateral that you couldn’t do previously. Of course that AI system needs trustworthy inputs. If the information coming into the system is factual, and the AI is an objective analyst, various parties can use their own AI systems to do the pricing without human intervention, so the trade friction plummets. Remember too these are competitive systems: players with better AI pricing models will beat out players with less effective price estimation, and that continuous competition will keep the markets honest, at least for a while.

Mattereum Asset Passports can provide the trustworthy inputs, again based on an extremely competitive model to price the risk of bad information getting into the Mattereum Asset Passport which is being used by the AI system to price the asset. The economic model we use was built from the ground up to price every substantial asset in the world even in an environment with the pervasive use of AI systems to manufacture fake documents and perpetrate fraud. We literally built it for these times, but we started in 2017. That’s futurism for you!

The economic mechanism of the Mattereum Asset Passport is a thing of beauty. The way that it works is that data about an asset is broken up into a series of claims. For example, for a gold bar, weight and purity and provenance and vaulting and delivery details and likely enough to price the bar. For an apartment there might be 70 claims including video walk throughs of the space and third party insurances covering issues like title or flood insurance. Every piece of information in the portfolio is tied to a competitively-priced warranty: buyers will rationally select the least expensive adaquate warranty on each piece of data. This keeps warranty prices down. This process is a strain with humans in the loop for every single decision, but in an agentic AI economy this competitive “Product Information Market” model is by far the best way of arriving at a stable on-chain truth about matters of objective fact.

It’s not that the system drives out error: it does, but the point is that it accurately prices the risk of error which is a much more fundamental economic process. This is a subtle point.

Bringing Truth to Market with Trust Communities & Product Information Markets

The combination of AI to commit real estate fraud and Zcash and similar technologies to launder the money stolen in those frauds is going to be unstoppable without really good, competitive models for pricing and then eliminating risk on transactions. The alternatives are pretty unthinkable.

In this new model, if I come to you with a token that says, based on the Mattereum Asset Passport data, this property is worth $380,000. Then you can say I will pay you 20% of this property in return for a car, there’s the transaction. You take 20% of a piece of real estate, I take an SUV. Maybe you can require me to buy back a chunk of that equity every month (a put option). Maybe the equity is pulled into an enormous sovereign wealth fund type apparatus which uses the pool to back standard stable tokens backed by fractions of all the real estate in the country. The story may begin with correctly priced collateral, but it does not end with correctly priced collateral. This is the anchor but it is only a part of a system.

If we get it right — and it’s a lot of moving parts — we could get out of the awful shadow of not only 2008’s financial crisis, but the calamitous changes to the global system which emerged from 1971.

WTF Happened in 1971?

The pragmatics of making real estate liquid

As long as you’ve got the ability to do relative pricing based on AI analysis, you don’t need to convert everything into currency to use it in trade. If you have an AI that can do the relative valuations, including risk and uncertainty, you can reach a position where you don’t have to use fiat money to make a fair exchange between different items, like land and cars, or apartments and antique furniture, or factories and farms; there are a whole set of AI-based value-estimation mechanisms that can be used for doing that and produce a fair outcome.

This cuts down or eliminates the valuation problems which can be caused by any kind of fiat — be it government fiat like the dollar, or private fiat like bitcoin — making it possible to operate on tokenized land — tokens based on an asset that is inherently dramatically more stable and inherently non-volatile. Solid assets back transactions. Closer to gold, but more widely distributed.

It’s a big story. But at its simplest what if we just said… “look, this is a global currency crisis. And the reason we’re in that crisis is artificial inflation. Real estate prices. Take the inflated real estate and the debt associated with the real estate transform it into equity, you know, debt to equity transformation…” and we restart the game on a sounder basis.

Who can follow along with that tune?

If you tokenize half, or even a third, of the real estate, what that provides is a staggeringly enormous pool of assets which move from being illiquid to liquid and that liquidity — widely distributed in the hands of ordinary people by virtue of them already owning these properties — then bails out the rest of the system. The conversion of mortgage debt into shared ownership arrangements, as mortgage lenders take equity rather than facing huge waves of defaults (again), balances the books without requiring huge government bailouts and money printing as in 2008. Homeowners do not hit the sheer logistical nightmares of moving house (particularly in old age) nor do they have to borrow money from lenders by remortgaging, creating more debt.

Rather than attaching debt to the real estate, we simply add a cap table to the real estate as if it was a tiny little company, and then let the owners sell or exchange some of that equity for whatever they want.

It’s a relatively small change to established norms, with massive, outsized benefits.

The key benefit of this approach is precisely that it is non-revolutionary. Compare the social stresses between this approach and doing that rescue process by massively pumping the price of (say) Bitcoin. In the hyperbitcoinization model you wind up with massive, massive, massive class war because you have people that were cryptocurrency nerds who are now worth half a trillion. You can’t have that kind of transfer of power without the system trying to engineer around it. Same thing happens with gold at $38,000 an ounce. The shift in wealth distribution is too violent for society to survive the transitional processes.

But making real estate truly liquid gives the economy the flexibility it desperately needs, probably without wrecking the world in the process.

Turning real estate debt into real estate equity and then making the equity tradable is not a new trick in finance: large scale real estate finance projects do things like this all the time. We’re just using established techniques from corporate finance at a much smaller scale, on a house-by-house basis, to safely manage the otherwise unmanageable real estate bubble. If every piece of real estate in America had the ability to do tokenized equity release built into the title deeds, America would not have solvency problems.

Pricing debt which does not default is relatively easy and prior to 2008 the global system sought stability by pricing debt as if it would not default. This looks like a joke now. But pricing defaults on debt is very very hard because the global economy is a just a part of a much larger unitary interlinked system and factors from beyond the view of spreadsheets can cause the world to move: covid, most recently. Such correlated risks change everything and are inherently unpredictable. Debt-based economies carry such risks poorly. Equity is a much better instrument for handling risk, but we have over-restricted its use, and are paying the price (literally) for this societal-scale error of judgement.

Debt cannot do what equity can, and we have too much debt and not enough equity.

Pricing complex and diverse assets like real estate is orders of magnitude harder than pricing good debt. Fortunately we now have the computer.

Flipping us from a debt world to an equity world needs a competitive AI environment to value the assets, and the blockchain to make issuing and transferring equity in those assets manageable.

That’s what’s needed to start clearing up the gridlocked debt obligation nightmare.

It’s not that hard to imagine, if you could tokenize one house, you could tokenize all of them. If you think of it as the debt to equity transformation for all of the mortgage debt, and then you pull the mortgage debt back out of the American system because you turn it into equity and then you allocate it to the banks, you could actually make America liquid again much faster.

It is an extreme manoeuvre, but the question is, as always, “compared to what?”

At the end of that we’d be left with a very different real estate ownership model, more like the Australian strata title or English Commonhold model. In both of these instances, aspects of a real estate title deed are split between multiple owners (the “freehold” is fractional) forming what amounts to an implicit corporate structure within every real estate title deed.

Imagine, that, but scaled.

Strata title - Wikipedia Commonhold - Wikipedia So practical government fought dirty for years

Business is pretty good at change once government gets out of the way.

Once tokenized equity is clearly regulated in America, business will figure out real estate tokenization very fast. We could see 5,000 companies in America that are capable of doing real estate tokenization five years after the SEC says it’s okay to do it.

Business will create competing industrial machines that will effect the transformation, and get huge numbers of people out of the debt. Shared equity arrangements for housing could rebalance the economy without crashing society. The speed at which society can get the assets on chain is equal to how quickly finance can satisfactorily document them and fractionalize them.

What is a plausible documentation standard for a real world asset on chain that you could use an AI system to create? That’s a Mattereum Asset Passport.

Mattereum aims to get real estate through the digitization crisis in a healthy and productive way. Specifically, a decentralized, networked way which is kept honest by ruthless competition to honestly price risk in fair and free (AI powered) markets.

A business model which is the best of capitalism.

The alternatives are not attractive.

But there is reason for hope.

Once you tell the Americans what the rules are, the Americans will go there and do it. The only way that the SEC could hold back mass adoption of crypto was by refusing to tell people the rules. It doesn’t matter how onerous the regulatory burden was, if the SEC had told people the rules, they would have crawled up that regulatory tree a branch at a time, and we would have had mass tokenization six months after the rules were set, whatever the rules were.

The long delay was only possible because of an aggressive use of ambiguity, I’m going to say charitably, to protect Wall Street. Maybe it was to keep Silicon Valley out of the banking business, but however you want to think about it, the SEC had a very strong commitment under previous administrations that there was not going to be mass tokenization.

We can take this further — as the digitization wave washes inevitably over everything, if we continue to use this model we can finally be done with the age of the Digital Crisis and all its chaoses, replaced with far more stable, and predictably advantageous outcomes. For example, if everybody is using an AI to put a price tag on anything they look at, and all I have to do is hold that up in the air and say, does anybody want this? Then what you could get is effectively a spot market in everything, because the AIs do pricing. In that environment is anybody going to get a destructive permanent lock in? What makes most of the big digitization disasters into disasters is the formation of wicked monopolies, after all.

Spot markets today are for things like gold, oil or foreign exchange, anything where there’s so much volume in the marketplace that the prices are basically set by magic. With a vast number of participants in a global marketplace, all you need to do is hold up an asset, then everybody uses their AI to price the asset, resulting in a market that has a spot price for everything. Add the tokens to effect the title transfer. When you have a market that has a spot price and everything, all assets are in some way equivalent to gold — the thing that makes gold, gold, is that you can get a spot price on it. So if we have spot pricing for basically everything, based on AI agents, what you wind up with is being able to use almost any asset in the world as if it was gold. Everything is capital, completing the de Soto vision of the future.

Finance and Development

In this future, all assets are equivalent to gold because you can price them accurately and cheaply, and can verify the data about them. It changes the entire nature of global finance, because that finally removes the friction from transacting assets. Then, if you’ve got near-zero friction transactions in assets, why use money? No need for dollars, no need for bitcoin; instead, a new financial system creating itself out of the whole cloth on the fly, and one that is stable and shows every sign of being rational because it is diverse and not tied to any single asset that can distort the market through exuberance and crashes. Diversification is the only stability.

Now that would be a paradigm worthy of the name “stablecoins”!

Anyone got a better plan for saving the world?

In a world that has blockchains, artificial intelligence, and a global currency crisis, we need big ideas and big reach to get to a preferable future. It’s an alignment problem, not just AI alignment but capital alignment. We don’t just strive against 2008’s AAA bonds backed by mouldy sheds alone, but against future Nick Landian factors about AI alignment.

Through the lens of AI, we can start looking at all the world’s real estate as an anchor for the rest of the economy. When we put the diligence package for a piece of real estate on chain in the form of Mattereum Asset Passport, then over time 50 or 70 or 90 or 95 or 99.9% of the diligence could be done by competing networks of AIs, striving to correctly value property and price risk in competitive markets which reliably punish corruption with (for example) shorts. With those tools, we could rapidly tokenize the world and use the resulting liquidity to keep the wheels from falling off the global economy.

This is, at least in potential, a positive way of solving the next financial crisis before it really starts and ensuring that the digitization of real estate does not create another digital disaster.

CONCLUSION

Artificial inflation of real estate prices for decades caused the global financial crisis.

We propose converting the global system from a debt-backed to an equity-backed model to solve it.

We propose using AI to manage the diligence work, and using the blockchain to handle the share registers and other obligations.

THE DIGITAL CRISIS — TOKENS, AI, REAL ESTATE, AND THE FUTURE OF FINANCE was originally published in Mattereum - Humanizing the Singularity on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) — the G20’s global risk watchdog — released a sobering statement: there remain “significant gaps” in global crypto regulation.

It wasn’t the typical bureaucratic warning. It was a clear signal that the world’s financial governance structures are lagging behind the speed and fluidity of decentralized systems. For an industry built on cross-border code and borderless capital, national rulebooks no longer suffice.

But the FSB’s concern reaches beyond oversight. It exposes an unresolved paradox at the heart of digital finance: how to regulate what was designed to resist regulation.

Fragmented Governance, Unified Risk

The FSB’s assessment underscores a growing structural mismatch. The world’s regulatory responses to crypto have been disparate, reactive, and jurisdictionally fragmented.

The United States continues to rely on enforcement-driven oversight, led by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), each defining “crypto assets” through its own lens. The European Union is pursuing harmonization through the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), creating the first comprehensive regional rulebook for digital assets. Asia remains diverse: Japan and Singapore operate under established licensing regimes, while India and China take more restrictive, state-centric approaches.

To the FSB, this regulatory pluralism is not innovation — it’s exposure. The lack of standardized frameworks for risk management, consumer protection, and cross-border enforcement creates vulnerabilities that can spill over into the traditional financial system.

In a market where blockchain transactions flow without borders, inconsistent regulation becomes the new systemic risk.

Regulatory Arbitrage: The Silent Threat

This fragmented environment fuels what the FSB calls “regulatory arbitrage” — the quiet migration of capital, operations, and data to jurisdictions with the weakest oversight.

Stablecoin issuers, decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms, and digital asset exchanges can relocate at the speed of software. For regulators, national boundaries have become lines on a digital map that capital simply ignores.

The result is a patchwork of supervision. Entities can appear compliant in one jurisdiction while operating opaque structures in another. Risk becomes mobile, and accountability becomes ambiguous.

Ironically, this dynamic mirrors the early years of global banking — before coordinated frameworks like Basel III sought to standardize capital rules. Crypto now faces the same evolution: a system outgrowing its regulatory perimeter.

Privacy as a Barrier and a Battleground

One of the FSB’s most striking observations concerns privacy laws. Regulations originally designed to protect individual data are now obstructing global financial oversight.

Cross-border supervision depends on data sharing — but privacy regimes like the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and similar frameworks in Asia restrict what can be exchanged between authorities.

This creates a paradox:

To monitor crypto markets effectively, regulators need visibility. To protect users’ rights, privacy laws impose opacity.

The collision of these principles reveals a deeper tension between financial transparency and digital sovereignty.

For blockchain advocates, this friction isn’t a flaw — it’s the point. Privacy, pseudonymity, and autonomy were not accidental features of decentralized systems; they were foundational responses to surveillance-based finance.

Now, as regulators push for traceability “from wallet to wallet,” the original ethos of blockchain — self-sovereignty over data and identity — faces its greatest institutional test.

The Expanding Regulatory Perimeter

The FSB’s report marks a turning point: the global regulatory community no longer debates whether crypto needs rules, but how far those rules should reach.

Stablecoins have become the front line. The Bank of England (BoE) recently stated it will not lift planned caps on individual stablecoin holdings until it is confident such assets pose no systemic threat. Meanwhile, the U.S. Federal Reserve has warned that the growth of privately backed digital currencies could undermine monetary policy if left unchecked.

These positions signal that regulators see crypto not as a niche market, but as a parallel financial infrastructure that must be integrated or contained.

Yet, as oversight expands, so does the distance from decentralization’s original promise. The drive to institutionalize crypto — through licensing, capital controls, and compliance standards — risks turning decentralized finance into regulated middleware for the existing system.

The innovation remains, but the autonomy fades.

From Innovation to Integration

What the FSB implicitly acknowledges is that crypto’s mainstreaming is no longer hypothetical. Tokenized assets, on-chain settlement, and programmable money are being adopted by major banks and financial institutions.

However, this adoption often comes with a trade-off: decentralized architecture operated under centralized control.

The example of AMINA Bank — which recently conducted regulated staking of Polygon (POL) under the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) — illustrates this trajectory. The blockchain may remain decentralized in code, but its operation is now filtered through institutional risk, compliance, and prudential oversight.

Crypto is entering a phase of institutional assimilation, where its tools survive but its principles are moderated.

The Ethical Undercurrent: Control vs. Autonomy

At its core, the FSB’s warning is not only about risk but about control. Global regulators see the same infrastructure that enables open, peer-to-peer exchange also enabling opaque, borderless financial activity that escapes accountability.

Their response — standardization and supervision — is rational from a stability standpoint. But it introduces a new ethical question: who governs digital value?

If every decentralized protocol must operate through regulated entities, if every wallet must be traceable, and if every transaction must comply with jurisdictional mandates, then blockchain’s promise of financial self-determination becomes conditional — granted by regulators, not coded by design.

This doesn’t make regulation wrong. It makes it philosophically consequential.

A Call for Coordination, Not Convergence

The FSB’s call for tighter global alignment does not mean a single, monolithic framework. True coordination will require mutual recognition, data interoperability, and respect for jurisdictional privacy laws, not their erosion.

Without this nuance, global harmonization risks turning into regulatory homogenization, where innovation bends entirely to institutional comfort.

A sustainable balance will depend on how regulators treat decentralization:

As a risk to be mitigated, or As an architecture to be understood and integrated responsibly.

The distinction is subtle but defining.

The Architecture of Financial Sovereignty

The G20’s warning marks a pivotal moment. It is a reminder that the future of digital finance will not be decided by code alone, but by the alignment — or collision — of regulatory philosophies.

Crypto began as a rejection of centralized financial power. It now faces regulation not as an external force, but as an inevitable layer of the system it helped create.

The question ahead is not whether crypto will be regulated. It already is.
The real question is whose definition of sovereignty will prevail — that of the individual, or that of the institution.

About Shyft Network

Shyft Network powers trust on the blockchain and economies of trust. It is a public protocol designed to drive data discoverability and compliance into blockchain while preserving privacy and sovereignty. SHFT is its native token and fuel of the network.

Shyft Network facilitates the transfer of verifiable data between centralized and decentralized ecosystems. It sets the highest crypto compliance standard and provides the only frictionless Crypto Travel Rule compliance solution while protecting user data.

Visitour website to read more, and follow us on X (Formerly Twitter), GitHub, LinkedIn,Telegram,Medium, andYouTube.Sign up for our newsletter to keep up-to-date on all things privacy and compliance.

Book your consultation: https://calendly.com/tomas-shyft or email: bd@shyft.network

G20’s Crypto Dilemma: Regulation Without Coordination was originally published in Shyft Network on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In recent years, the growing scale and profitability of so-called pig butchering scams has sparked increasing concern among law enforcement and regulatory agencies around the world. 

Fastly's September 2025 DDoS report details modern application attacks. Get insights and guidance to strengthen your security initiatives.

The post What Is Digital Identity Management & How to Do It Right appeared first on 1Kosmos.

In the move toward more inclusive and privacy-respecting digital government services, guardianship (when one person is legally authorized to act on behalf of another) is a core, but often overlooked, component.

Today, guardianship processes are fragmented across probate court, family court, and agency-level determinations, with no clear mechanism for digital verifications. Without clarity, agencies risk legal challenges if they inadvertently allow the wrong person to act on behalf of a dependent.

Rather than treating guardianship as an abstract capability, we believe states should identify a non-exhaustive list of key use cases they want to enable. For example, a parent accessing school records on behalf of a minor, a guardian applying for healthcare or social services on behalf of a dependent senior adult, or a foster parent temporarily authorized to pick a child up. Each of these may require a different level of assurance, auditability, and inter-agency coordination.

Why Legal Infrastructure Falls Short

Several legal and regulatory barriers may affect the implementation of a state digital identity. At the state level, existing statutes were drafted for physical credentials and may not clearly authorize digital equivalents in all contexts. Without explicit recognition of state digital identity as a legally valid proof of identity, agencies may be constrained in adopting digital credentials for remote service delivery.

This legal ambiguity creates friction for both agencies and residents, limiting the full potential of digital identity solutions.

Mapping Authority: Who Can Issue What, and When

Guardianship in digital identity is a complex and, as yet, unsolved problem. A guardianship solution should accept decisions from the entities legally empowered to make them, represent those decisions in credentials rather than recreating them, and keep endorsements current as circumstances change.

The first step is to enumerate today’s pathways to establishing guardianship and to identify which entities are authorized to issue evidence. This mapping enables cohesive implementation and prevents confusion about who can issue what.

In parallel, a program should also clarify which agencies authorize which actions and what evidence each verifier needs. Where authorities differ, the state can allow agencies to issue guardianship credentials that reflect their scope while still unifying common steps to reduce friction.

A Taxonomy for Real-World Guardianship Scenarios

We believe that states should define a clear guardianship credential taxonomy.

There are multiple ways to define guardianship depending on legal and operational context, such as parental authority, foster care, medical consent, or financial guardianship. This will naturally lead to multiple guardianship credential types, tailored to definitions, use cases, and issuing agencies.

Design for Flexibility and Change

Digital delivery introduces several challenges that the program should address up front. Endorsements need to change cleanly at the age of majority or when a court modifies an order, including a clear transfer of control to the individual. Reissuance and backstops should be specified for lost devices or keys and calibrated to the chosen technical models. 

The design should remain flexible enough to accommodate emerging topics, including AI agent-based interactions, without locking in assumptions that are likely to shift.

Support Human Judgment and Prevent Abuse

The overall system for guardianship should maximize the ability for appropriate and contextualized exercise of human judgement by responsible individuals. All of these systems, even protected with cryptography, security measures, and fraud detection, will still be faulty. They should be designed to prioritize humans and their wellbeing, even with failures and fraud present.

A state digital identity framework should require that as much credential validity information as is appropriate and necessary to be made available to the relying party, and that clear indicators of the credential’s current status are available to holders.

It is equally important to prevent abuse of the system. A state must ensure that guardianship credentials cannot be issued or accumulated in ways that could enable fraud, such as one person holding dozens of guardian endorsements to unlawfully access benefits or facilitate trafficking.

The Future of Digital Guardianship

Guardianship in digital identity is not a future problem, it’s a present-day requirement. A successful state digital identity framework must support these relationships with clarity, flexibility, and privacy at its core.

SpruceID helps states design systems that reduce the risk of fraud without sacrificing individual autonomy. Contact us to learn more.

Contact Us

About SpruceID: SpruceID is building a future where users control their identity and data across all digital interactions.

Thales Celebrates 60 Years in Mexico, driving technological innovation and local development prezly Thu, 10/16/2025 - 16:00 Mexico

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Facebook X Whatsapp Linkedin Email URL copied to clipboard 16 Oct 2025 Thales, a global leader in advanced technologies, marks 60 years in Mexico, supporting the country’s technological development with solutions in Defence, Aerospace, Cybersecurity, and Digital. With more than 1,300 employees, the company has established a strong industrial footprint, spearheading key strategic projects for national growth. In this milestone year, Thales has proudly received the official “Hecho en México” label from the Mexican government, recognizing products and services that are designed and manufactured locally.

Mexico City, October 15, 2025 – Since 1965, Thales has been part of Mexico’s technological transformation. Today, with over 1,300 employees, it maintains a strong industrial presence that includes two production and personalization centers for payment cards and SIM/eSIM, an Air Traffic Management Service and Integration Center, and a Cyber Academy that trains professionals in cybersecurity. These operations serve not only the domestic market but also customers around the world, positioning Mexico as a strategic hub for the Group.

Over the past six decades, Thales has become an integral part of the daily lives of millions of Mexicans—from every phone call or mobile connection, every card or digital payment transaction, to the safety of their air travel and national defense. Thales’ radars and control centers manage 100% of Mexico’s airspace traffic. Additionally, the Mexican Navy’s Long-Range Oceanic Patrol Vessel (POLA) is equipped with Thales combat systems and sensors.

Thales is present wherever defence, security, and technological innovation are essential to advancing and safeguarding society. This journey has been made possible thanks to the trust of government entities, private companies, institutions, and cities that, for six decades, have chosen Thales as a strategic partner to face critical moments and explore new frontiers with confidence in an increasingly interconnected and complex world. In the face of every challenge, we reaffirm our commitment to building a future we can all trust.

This year, Thales proudly received the “Hecho en México” designation, awarded by the Ministry of Economy, recognizing not only the local origin of its production, but also its ongoing commitment to innovation, job creation, and specialized talent development in the country. This recognition underscores the company’s dedication to Mexico’s growth and global competitiveness.

"We look to the future with the same enthusiasm that marked the beginning of our journey 60 years ago, ready to remain a driver of change and progress in Mexico’s strategic sectors. And what better way to celebrate 60 years in the country than by honoring our people, strengthening national innovation, and reaffirming our commitment to this nation. At Thales, we proudly carry the 'Hecho en Mexico' label, because behind every project, client, and solution, there are Mexican engineers, researchers, and professionals making world-class technological advancements possible," said Analicia García, Country Director of Thales in Mexico.

Thales plays a key role in strengthening Mexico’s defence and security, with advanced systems that help safeguard its sovereignty and protect its citizens. It is also the leading provider of air traffic management systems in Mexico and a key player in the financial sector, where its cybersecurity and digital identity solutions protect the transactions and sensitive information of millions of citizens. In the field of defence and security, the Group contributes to strengthening national capabilities with advanced technologies that support the protection of territory, sovereignty, and the security of critical infrastructure. Its technology promotes trust in the national financial ecosystem and enhances the country’s resilience against emerging digital threats.

With pride in its legacy and eyes firmly on the future, Thales in Mexico will continue to expand its talent pool, investing in Mexican engineers whose high level of expertise and ability to excel on the international stage are undeniable. The company remains committed to promoting local talent, innovation, and research—solidifying its role as a strategic partner in building a safer, more competitive, and globally connected Mexico.

About Thales in Latin America

With six decades of presence in Latin America, Thales, a global tech leader for the Defence, Aerospace, Cyber & Digital sectors. The Group is investing in digital and “deep tech” innovations – Big Data, artificial intelligence, connectivity, cybersecurity and quantum technology – to build a future we can all trust.

The company has 2,500 employees in the region, across 7 countries - Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Panama - with ten offices, five manufacturing plants, and engineering and service centres in all the sectors in which it operates.

Through strategic partnerships and innovative projects, Thales in Latin America drives sustainable growth and strengthens its ties with governments, public and private institutions, as well as airports, airlines, banks, telecommunications and technology companies.

View PDF countries : Americas > Mexico https://thales-group.prezly.com/thales-celebrates-60-years-in-mexico-driving-technological-innovation-and-local-development thales-celebrates-60-years-mexico-driving-technological-innovation-and-local-development On Thales Celebrates 60 Years in Mexico, driving technological innovation and local development

The Payments Paradox:

The financial services landscape is defined by a relentless drive for frictionless commerce. Yet, the industry remains trapped in a payments paradox: increasing convenience often comes at the expense of security and reliability. The current generation of low-friction solutions, primarily QR codes, are highly susceptible to spoofing and fraud. Conversely, secure methods like NFC are costly, hardware-dependent, and struggle with mass deployment.

This trade-off is untenable.

LISNR has introduced the definitive answer: Radius. By utilizing ultrasonic data-over-sound, Radius provides the industry with the missing link—a secure, hardware-agnostic, and offline-reliable method for token exchange and proximity verification. This technology is not an iteration; it is the strategic shift required to future-proof mobile payments.

 

The Current Vulnerability and Reliability Gaps

For financial institutions and payment processors, the challenge lies in securing high-value transactions across a fractured ecosystem:

QR Code Spoofing: QR code payments are vulnerable to “quishing” (QR code phishing). A fraudster can easily overlay a malicious code onto a legitimate one, hijacking payments or stealing credentials. This simplicity is its greatest security flaw. Offline Transaction Liability: In environments with poor connectivity (e.g., transit, emerging markets), most digital wallets revert to a hybrid system where transactions are batched. This exposes merchants to greater fraud liability and introduces a dangerous delay in payment certainty. Deployment Bottlenecks: Scaling a payment solution for tap-to-pay payment solutions quickly requires high capital expenditure. The mandatory, dedicated hardware required for NFC makes global deployment slow and expensive, hindering financial inclusion. Radius: The Strategic Imperative for Payment Modernization

LISNR’s Radius SDK addresses these strategic deficiencies by decoupling transactional security from reliance on hardware and the network. It transforms every device with a speaker and microphone into a secure payment endpoint.

Here are the four non-negotiable benefits of adopting Radius for your payments platform:

1. Absolute Security 

LISNR eliminates the core vulnerability of open-source payment modalities by building security directly into the data transfer protocol.

Spoofing Elimination: ToneLock® uses a proprietary security precaution to obfuscate the payload before transmission. Only receivers with the correct, authorized key can demodulate the tone, making it impossible for unauthorized apps to read or spoof the payment data. End-to-End Encryption: For the highest security standards, the SDK offers optional, built-in AES 256 Encryption for all payloads, ensuring data remains unreadable. 2. Unrivaled Offline Transaction Certainty

Radius is engineered for mission-critical reliability, ensuring transactions are secure and auditable even when the network fails.

Network Agnostic Reliability: The entire ToneLock and AES 256 Encryption/Decryption process can occur offline. This enables the secure exchange and validation of payment tokens without requiring an active internet connection. Radius ensures instant transaction certainty and lowers merchant liability in disconnected environments. Bi-Directional Exchange: The SDK supports bidirectional transactions, allowing two devices (e.g., customer wallet and merchant terminal) to simultaneously transmit and receive tones on separate channels. This two-way handshake initiates payment instantly while simultaneously delivering a merchant record to the consumer device. 3. High-Velocity, Zero-Friction Commerce

The speed of a transaction directly correlates with consumer satisfaction and throughput in high-volume settings. Radius accelerates the process with specialized tone profiles.

Rapid High-Throughput: For point-of-sale environments, LISNR offers Point 1000 and Point 2000 tone profiles. These are optimized for sub-1 meter range and engineered for high throughput, enabling near-instantaneous credential exchange for rapid checkout and self-service kiosks. Seamless User Experience: The process can be nearly entirely automated: the user simply opens the app, and the transaction is initiated and verified by proximity, eliminating manual input, scanning, or tapping. 4. Low-Cost, Universal Deployment

Radius is a software-only solution that democratizes access to secure, contactless payment infrastructure.

Hardware-Agnostic: The SDK is integrated into existing applications and requires only a device’s standard speaker and microphone. This removes the need for costly upgrades to POS hardware, dramatically reducing the capital expenditure barrier for global payment modernization. Scalability: As a software solution, upgrading the entire payment infrastructure is as easy as updating the app. Because there is no new hardware to manage, payment providers can achieve unparalleled scale and speed in deploying secure payment functionality across millions of endpoints instantly.

LISNR is the worldwide leader in proximity verification because our software-first approach delivers the security and reliability the payments industry demands, without sacrificing the frictionless experience consumers expect.

Want to Learn more?

We’d love to learn more about your payment solution and discuss how data-over-sound can help improve your consumer experience. Learn more about our solutions in finance on our website or contact us to set up a meeting. 

 

 

The post 4 Ways Ultrasonic Proximity Solves the Security-Friction Trade-Off appeared first on LISNR.

De tijd dat je stapels documenten nodig had om een klant goed te beoordelen, loopt op z’n einde. In een wereld waarin snelheid, compliance en klanttevredenheid steeds belangrijker worden, is werken met pdf’s, bijlagen en handmatige controles niet meer houdbaar. Zeker in de credit management sector leidt het oude proces tot vertraging, fouten en frustratie – voor zowel de klant als de organisatie.

The Future of Web3 Communities

Everyone in Web3 talks about community. It is the word every project uses. The badge everyone wears. But what does it actually mean?

Too often, “community” becomes a checkbox. A Telegram channel. A Discord server with NFT giveaways. Some quick incentives to drive engagement. It looks alive, but it is often built on borrowed attention. When the rewards stop, so does the activity.

That is not a community. That is marketing.

Real community building is slower. It is harder. It is the process of aligning people who build with people who use what is built. It is finding the point where incentives and intention meet. Because incentives bring people in, but intention keeps them there.

Ontology has been working at this intersection for years. Its ecosystem, Ontology Network, ONT ID, ONTO Wallet, and Orange Protocol, is designed to make digital identity, reputation, and ownership usable. The mission is not to promise a new world. It is to build the tools that make that world functional.

The challenge, and the opportunity, lies in connection. How do we connect the builders who create new infrastructure with the users who actually need it? How do we make sure that what gets built is not only possible, but wanted?

The Two Paths to Community

There are two basic ways to grow a Web3 community.

The first is bottom-up. Builders and users start together, often from an open-source idea or shared need. Growth is organic. The intent is pure. It can lead to real innovation, but it often lacks structure. Without incentives or direction, momentum slows. Projects fade before reaching scale.

The second is top-down. A project defines the mission, creates incentives, and drives participation. This works in the short term. It brings clear goals and resources. But it risks becoming transactional. When participation is driven only by reward, genuine buy-in disappears.

Ontology’s view is that neither path works alone. Bottom-up builds belief. Top-down brings clarity. The right approach mixes both. You need intent to guide action, and incentives to accelerate it.

Incentives Are Not the Enemy

Incentives get a bad reputation in Web3, mostly because they are often misused. Too much focus on token rewards can distort priorities. But incentives are not the problem. Misalignment is.

Used correctly, incentives can do what they are meant to do: attract attention, reward effort, and encourage collaboration. They should not replace purpose. They should amplify it.

A healthy Web3 community does not reward speculation. It rewards contribution. The best projects find ways to recognize value that is created, not just traded. That is where Ontology’s focus on verifiable identity and reputation becomes powerful.

Through tools like ONT ID and Orange Protocol, participants can prove who they are and what they have done. This makes contribution measurable. It lets communities recognize real participation, not just noise. Builders can see who their users are. Users can trust who they are working with.

That is how you turn incentives from a gimmick into a growth engine.

What People Need vs. What People Want

Every product in Web3 faces a simple question: do people need it, or do they want it?

The truth is that need alone is not enough. People need security, privacy, and control of their data, but they rarely act on those needs until they want the solution. Want drives action.

At the same time, want without need leads to hype. Short-term excitement, no lasting value.

The strongest projects meet both. They make people want what they need. That is the balance Ontology’s tools aim to strike. Identity and reputation are not new ideas, but in Web3 they become essential. Users are learning that decentralized identity is not just a feature. It is freedom. It is usability.

When developers build with that in mind, they create products that solve real problems. ONTO Wallet gives users control of their assets and identity in one place. Orange Protocol turns reputation into a building block for trust. ONT ID lets applications integrate secure, verifiable identity without friction.

These are not abstract innovations. They are the foundation for the next generation of apps, games, and communities.

The Bridge Between Builders and Users

Community building in Web3 is not just about size. It is about structure. Builders and users need to meet in the middle.

That is where Ontology wants to focus: creating spaces and systems where developers and users can collaborate directly. Builders should understand what users need before they design. Users should influence what gets built. The result is not just adoption, but alignment.

How that happens can vary. Incubators can bring early projects into focus. Incentives can reward experimentation. Retrospective funding can support what already works. The structure is flexible. The principle is constant. Connect intent with incentive.

Ontology’s ecosystem gives that structure a home. It already supports tools for identity, data, and trust. The next step is bringing those who build with those who use. Because Web3 only scales when both sides grow together.

From Incentives to Intent

The early years of Web3 were about speculation. The next phase is about utility. The projects that last will be the ones that shift from short-term incentives to long-term intent.

That means building for real people, not just wallets. It means communities where participation has meaning, and contribution has visibility. It means giving users a reason to stay even when rewards change.

Ontology’s technology is ready for that shift. But technology alone is not enough. It needs people. Builders who see the value of decentralized identity and reputation. Users who want control and trust. Contributors who believe in open collaboration.

The future of Web3 will not be built by one group or the other. It will be built by both, together.

The Next Step

If the goal of Web3 is freedom, then community is the mechanism that gets us there. Not through marketing or speculation, but through shared purpose.

Ontology is ready to help build that future. To connect the developers who create with the users who validate. To make collaboration not just possible, but natural.

It starts by asking the right question: what do people need, and what do they want? Then building where those answers overlap.

Let us bring you together. Builders, meet your users. Users, meet your builders. The next phase of Web3 begins with both.

Building What Matters was originally published in OntologyNetwork on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Nineteen Virtual Asset firms in Dubai have been charged with penalties amounting to $163,000. These firms were fined for operating without a Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) license and breaching Dubai's marketing rules.

The post 19 Virtual Asset Providers Fined up to $163,000 by Dubai Regulators first appeared on ComplyCube.

You know that moment when a new app asks for your ID and selfie before letting you in? You sigh, snap the photo, and in seconds it says “You’re verified!” It feels simple, but behind that small step sits an advanced system called ID verification services that keeps businesses safe and fraudsters out.

In today’s digital world, identity verification isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessity. Without it, online platforms would be a playground for scammers. That’s why more companies are turning to digital ID verification to secure their platforms while keeping user experiences smooth and fast.

 

How ID Verification Evolved into a Digital Superpower

Not too long ago, verifying someone’s identity meant visiting a bank, filling out forms, and waiting days for approval. It was slow and painful. Today, online identity verification has turned that ordeal into a 10-second selfie check.

Feature Traditional ID Checks Digital ID Verification Time Days or weeks Seconds or minutes Accuracy Prone to human error AI-powered precision Accessibility In-person only Anywhere, anytime Security Paper-based Encrypted and biometric

According to a Juniper Research 2024 report, businesses using digital identity checks have reduced onboarding times by 55% and cut fraud by nearly 40%. That’s not an upgrade, that’s a revolution.

 

How ID Verification Services Actually Work

It looks easy on your screen, but behind the scenes, it’s like a full orchestra performing perfectly in sync. When you upload your ID, OCR technology instantly extracts your details. Then, facial recognition compares your selfie to the photo on your document, while an ID verification check cross-references the data with secure global databases.

All this happens faster than your coffee order at Starbucks. And yes, it’s fully encrypted from start to finish.

If you want to see how global accuracy standards are tested, visit the NIST Face Recognition Vendor Test (FRVT). This benchmark helps developers measure the precision of their facial recognition algorithms.

 

Why Businesses Are Making the Shift

Let’s be honest, no one likes waiting days to get verified. Businesses know that, and users expect speed. So, they’re shifting from manual checks to identity verification solutions that deliver results in real time.

ID verification software gives businesses an edge by:

Cutting down on manual reviews

Reducing fraud risks through AI analysis

Staying compliant with rules like GDPR

Enhancing global accessibility

A McKinsey & Company study found that businesses using automated ID verification checks experienced up to 70% fewer fraudulent sign-ups. Another Gartner analysis (2023) reported that automation in verification reduces onboarding costs by over 50%.

So, businesses aren’t just going digital for fun; they’re doing it to stay alive in a market where users expect instant trust.

 

The Technology Making It All Possible

Every smooth verification hides some serious tech genius. Artificial intelligence detects tampered IDs or fake lighting, while machine learning improves detection accuracy over time. Facial recognition compares live selfies to document photos, even if your hair color or background lighting changes.

The FRVT 1:1 results show that today’s best facial recognition models are over 20 times more accurate than they were a decade ago, according to NIST.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) handles the text on IDs, and encryption ensures data privacy. It’s these small but powerful innovations that make modern ID document verification fast, secure, and scalable.

Want to explore real-world tech examples? Visit the Recognito Vision GitHub, where you can see how advanced verification systems are built from the ground up.

 

Why It’s a Smart Investment

Investing in reliable ID verification solutions isn’t just about compliance, it’s about building customer trust. When users feel safe, they’re more likely to finish sign-ups and come back.

According to Statista’s 2024 Digital Trust Report, companies using digital identity verification saw conversion rates increase by 30–35%. That’s because users today value both speed and security.

So, when you invest in this technology, you’re not just protecting your business. You’re giving users the confidence to engage without hesitation.

Where ID Verification Shines

The beauty of user ID verification is that it works across every industry. It’s not just for banks or fintech startups.

In finance, it prevents money laundering and fraud.

In healthcare, it confirms patient identities for telemedicine.

In eCommerce, it helps fight fake orders and stolen cards.

In gaming, it enforces age restrictions.

In ridesharing and rentals, it keeps both parties safe.

According to a 2022 IBM Security Study, 82% of users say they trust companies more when those companies use digital identity checks. That’s how powerful this technology is; it builds credibility while keeping everyone safe.

 

Recognito Vision’s Role in Modern Verification

For businesses ready to step into the future, Recognito Vision makes it simple. Their ID document recognition SDK helps developers integrate verification directly into apps, while the ID document verification playground lets anyone test the process firsthand.

Recognito’s platform blends AI accuracy, fast processing, and user-friendly design. The result? Businesses verify customers securely while users hardly notice it’s happening. That’s efficiency at its best.

 

Challenges to Consider

Of course, nothing’s perfect. Some users hesitate to share IDs online, and global documents come in thousands of formats. Integrating verification tools into older systems can also feel tricky.

However, choosing a trustworthy ID verification provider can solve most of these issues. As Gartner’s 2024 Cybersecurity Trends Report points out, companies that adopt verified digital identity frameworks see significantly fewer data breaches than those using manual checks.

So while there are challenges, the benefits easily outweigh them.

 

The Road Ahead

The next phase of digital identity verification is all about control and privacy. Imagine verifying yourself without even sharing your ID. That’s what decentralized identity systems and zero-knowledge proofs are bringing to life.

According to the PwC Global Economic Crime Report 2024, widespread digital ID verification could save over $1 trillion in fraud losses by 2030. That’s not science fiction, it’s happening right now.

The world is heading toward frictionless, instant trust. And businesses that adopt early will lead the pack.

 

Final Thoughts

At its core, ID verification services aren’t just about checking who someone is. They’re about creating confidence for users, for businesses, and for the digital world as a whole.

If you’re a company ready to modernize and protect your platform, explore Recognito Vision’s identity verification solutions. Because in an era of deepfakes, scams, and cyber tricks, the smartest move is simply knowing who you’re dealing with safely, quickly, and confidently.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

1. What are ID verification services and how do they work?

ID verification services confirm a person’s identity by analyzing official ID documents and matching them with facial or biometric data using AI technology.

 

2. Why are ID verification services important for businesses?

They help businesses prevent fraud, comply with KYC regulations, and build customer trust through secure and fast verification processes.

 

3. Is digital ID verification secure for users?

Yes, digital ID verification is highly secure because it uses encryption, biometric checks, and data protection standards to keep user information safe.

 

4. How do ID verification services help reduce fraud?

They detect fake or stolen IDs, verify real users instantly, and prevent unauthorized access, reducing fraud risk significantly.

 

5. What should businesses look for in an ID verification provider?

Businesses should look for providers that offer fast results, global document support, strong data security, and full regulatory compliance.

October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month (DVAM), an annual event dedicated to shedding light on the devastating impact of domestic violence and advocating for those affected. 

The theme for DVAM 2025 is With Survivors, Always, which is exploring what it means to be in partnership with survivors towards safety, support, and solidarity.

Anonyome Labs stands #WithSurvivors this National Domestic Violence Awareness Month and every day—and is proud to help empower safety through privacy for survivors of domestic violence via our Sudo Safe Initiative.

What is the Sudo Safe Initiative?

The Sudo Safe Initiative is a program developed to bring privacy to those at higher risk of verbal harassment or physical violence.

Sudo Safe offers introductory discounts on the MySudo privacy app, to help people to keep their personally identifiable information private.

You can get a special introductory discount to try MySudoby becoming a Sudo Safe Advocate.

Here’s how it works:

Visit our website at anonyome.com. Sign up to be a Sudo Safe Advocate — it’s quick and easy. Once you’re signed up, you’ll receive details on how to access your exclusive discount and start using MySudo.

In addition to survivors of domestic violence, the Sudo Safe Initiative also empowers safety through privacy for:

Healthcare professionals Teachers Foster care workers Volunteers Survivors of violence, bullying, or stalking.

How can MySudo help survivors of domestic violence?

MySudo allows people to communicate with others without using their own phone number and email address, to reduce the risk of that information being used for tracking or stalking.

With MySudo, a user creates secure digital profiles called Sudos. Each Sudo has a unique phone number, handle, and email address for communicating privately and securely.

The user can avoid making calls and sending texts and emails from their personal phone line and email inbox by using the secure alternative contact details in their Sudos.

No personal information is required to create an account with MySudo through the app stores. 

Download MySudo

Four other ways to help survivors of domestic violence Educate yourself and others

Learn and share the different types of abuse (physical, emotional, sexual, financial, and technology-facilitated) and how to find local resources and support services. 

Listen without judgment

One of the most powerful things you can offer a domestic violence survivor is support, by doing things like:

Creating a safe space for them to share their experiences without fear of judgment or blame Letting them express their feelings while validating their emotions Being willing to listen  Helping them create a safety plan.

Encourage professional support

Encourage your friend or family experiencing domestic violence to seek help from counselors, therapists, or support groups that specialize in trauma and abuse. You can assist by researching local resources, offering to accompany them to appointments, or helping them find online support communities. Professional guidance can provide victims with the tools they need to rebuild their lives.

Raise awareness and advocate for change

Support survivors not just during DVAM, but year-round. Find ideas here and learn about the National Domestic Violence Awareness Project.

Become a Sudo Safe Advocate

If your organization can help us spread the word about how MySudo allows at-risk people to interact with others without giving away their phone number, email address, and other personal details, we invite you to become a Sudo Safe Advocate.

As an advocate, you’ll receive:

A toolkit of shareable privacy resources A guide to safer communication Special MySudo promotions Your own digital badge.

Become a Sudo Safe Advocate today.

More information

Contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

Learn about the National Domestic Violence Awareness Project.

Learn more about Sudo Safe Initiative and Anonyome Labs.

Anonyome Labs is also a proud partner of the Coalition Against Stalkerware.

The post DVAM 2025: MySudo discount for survivors of domestic violence appeared first on Anonyome Labs.

For years, the promise of a truly passwordless enterprise has felt just out of reach. We’ve had passwordless for web apps, but the desktop remained a stubborn holdout. We’ve seen the consumer world embrace passkeys, but the solutions were built for convenience, not the rigorous security and compliance demands of the enterprise. This created a dangerous gap, a world where employees could access a sensitive cloud application with a phishing-resistant passkey, only to log in to their workstation with a phishable password.

That gap closes today.

HYPR is proud to announce our partnership with Microsoft to deliver the industry's first true enterprise-grade passkey solution. By integrating HYPR’s non-syncable, FIDO2 passkeys directly with Microsoft Entra ID, we are finally eliminating the last password and providing a unified, phishing-resistant authentication experience from the desktop to the cloud.

What is the Difference Between Enterprise and Other Passkeys?

The term "passkey" has become a buzzword, but not all passkeys are created equal. The synced, consumer-grade passkeys offered by large tech providers are a fantastic step forward for the public, but they present significant challenges for the enterprise:

Loss of Control: Synced passkeys are stored in third-party consumer cloud accounts, outside of enterprise control and visibility. Security Gaps: They are designed to be shared and synced by users, which can break the chain of trust required for corporate assets. The Workstation Problem: They do not natively support passwordless login for enterprise workstations (Windows/macOS), leaving the most critical entry point vulnerable.

For the enterprise, you need more than convenience. You need control, visibility, and end-to-end security. You need an enterprise passkey.

Introducing HYPR Enterprise Passkeys for Microsoft Entra ID

HYPR’s partnership with Microsoft directly addresses the enterprise passkey gap. Our solution is purpose-built for the demands of large-scale, complex IT environments that rely on Microsoft for their identity infrastructure.

This isn't a retrofitted consumer product. It's a FIDO2-based, non-syncable passkey that is stored on the user's device, not in a third-party cloud. This ensures that your organization retains full ownership and control over the credential lifecycle.

With a single, fast registration, your employees can use one phishing-resistant credential to unlock everything they need:

Passwordless Desktop Login: Users log in to their Entra ID-joined Windows workstations using the HYPR Enterprise Passkey on their phone. No password, no phishing, no push-bombing.
Seamless SSO and App Access: That same secure login event grants them a Primary Refresh Token (PRT), seamlessly signing them into all their Entra ID-protected applications without needing to authenticate again. Why Is This a Game-Changer for Microsoft Environments?

This partnership isn't just about adding another MFA option; it's about fundamentally upgrading the security posture of your entire Microsoft ecosystem.

Effortless Deployment: Go Passwordless in Days, Not Quarters

You’ve invested heavily in the Microsoft ecosystem. Now, you can finally maximize that investment by eliminating the #1 cause of breaches: the password. The HYPR and Microsoft partnership makes true, end-to-end passwordless authentication a reality.

There are no complex federation requirements, no painful certificate management, and no AD dependencies. It's a simple, lightweight deployment that allows you to roll out phishing-resistant MFA across your entire workforce in days, not quarters.

Empower your employees with fast, frictionless access that works everywhere they do. And empower your security team with the control and assurance that only a true enterprise passkey can provide.

Ready to bring enterprise-grade passkeys to your Microsoft environment? Schedule your personalized demo today.

Enterprise Passkey FAQ

Q: What is a "non-syncable" passkey?

A:  A non-syncable passkey is a FIDO2 credential that is bound to the user's physical device and cannot be copied, shared, or backed up to a third-party cloud. This provides a higher level of security and assurance because the enterprise maintains control over where the credential resides.

Q: How is this different from using an authenticator app for MFA?

A: Authenticator apps that use OTPs or push notifications are still susceptible to phishing and push-bombing attacks. HYPR Enterprise Passkeys are based on the FIDO2 standard, which is cryptographically resistant to phishing, man-in-the-middle, and other credential theft attacks

Q: What does the deployment process look like?

A: Deployment is designed to be fast and lightweight. It involves deploying the HYPR client to workstations and configuring the integration within your Microsoft Entra ID tenant. Because there are no federation servers or complex certificate requirements, many organizations can go from proof-of-concept to production rollout in a matter of days.

Q: Does this support Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) scenarios?

A: Yes. The solution is vendor-agnostic and supports both corporate-managed and employee-owned (BYOD) devices, providing a simple, IT-approved self-service recovery flow that keeps users productive without compromising security.

CivicLens : Building the First Structured Dataset of EU Parliamentary Speeches

A new Annotators Hub challenge

The European Parliament generates thousands of speeches, covering everything from local affairs to international diplomacy. These speeches shape policies that impact millions across Europe and beyond. Yet, much of this discourse remains unstructured, hard to track, and difficult to analyze at scale.

CivicLens, the second and latest task in the Annotators Hub, invites contributors to help change that. Together with Lunor, Ocean is building a structured, research-grade dataset based on real EU plenary speeches. Your annotations will support civic tech, media explainers, and political AI, and will give you the chance to earn a share of the $10,000 USDC prize pool.

What you’ll do

You’ll read short excerpts from speeches and answer a small set of targeted questions:

Vote Intent: Does the speaker explicitly state how they will vote (yes/no/abstain/unclear)? Tone: Is the rhetoric cooperative, neutral, or confrontational? Scope of Focus: Is the emphasis on the EU, the speaker’s country, or both? Verifiable Claims: Does the excerpt contain a factual, checkable claim (flag and highlight the span)? Topics (multi-label): e.g., economy, fairness/rights, security/defense, environment/energy, governance/procedure, health/education, technology/industry. Ideological Signal (if any): Is there an inferable stance or framing (e.g., pro-integration, national interest first, market-oriented, social welfare-oriented), or no clear signal?

Each task follows a consistent schema with clear tooltips and examples. Quality is ensured through overlap assignments, consensus checks, and spot audits.

Requirements Good command of written English (reading comprehension and vocabulary) Ability to recognize when political or ideological arguments are being made Basic understanding of common political dimensions (e.g., left vs. right, authoritarian vs. libertarian) Minimum knowledge of international organizations and relations (e.g., what the EU is, roles of member states) Awareness of what parliamentary speeches are and their general purpose in the context of EU roll call votes Why it matters

Your contributions will help researchers and civic organizations better understand political debates, predict voting behavior, and make parliamentary discussions more transparent and accessible.

The resulting dataset isn’t just for political analysis, but it has broad, real-world applications:

Fact-checking automation: AI models trained on this data can learn to distinguish checkable assertions from opinions or vague claims, helping organizations like PolitiFact, Snopes, or Full Fact prioritize their verification workload Compliance and policy tracking: Financial compliance platforms, watchdog groups, and regtech firms can detect and monitor predictive or market-moving statements in political and economic discourse Content understanding and education: News aggregators, summarization tools, and AI assistants (like Feedly or Artifact) can better tag and summarize political content. The same methods can also power educational apps that teach critical thinking and media literacy Rewards

A total prize pool of $10,000 USDC is available for contributors.

Rewards are distributed linearly based on validated submissions, using the formula:

Your Reward = (Your Score ÷ Sum of All Scores) × Total Prize Pool

The higher the quality and volume of your accepted annotations, the higher your share.

For full participation details, submission rules, and instructions, visit the quest details page on Lunor Quest.

CivicLens : Building the First Structured Dataset of EU Parliamentary Speeches was originally published in Ocean Protocol on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Lawyers, labour consultants, accountants: 5 practical ways in which a Business VPN can protect your work and data

 

Are you a lawyer working away? A smartworking accountant? Do you provide consulting services at clients’ premises? If so, read this article to learn why you should use a Business VPN to connect to a network other than your own. A VPN for business is a valuable professional ally because it helps protect highly sensitive information while guaranteeing secure remote access to professional content wherever you are, even abroad.

 

So, what exactly can a VPN – a virtual private network – do for you when you work remotely? Here are five practical ways in which using a VPN for remote work can make a difference to professionals and small businesses.

Work from home security

You are working from home and, as always, you have to access business management systems, dashboards, customer and supplier databases. You may also need to consult or send confidential documents like balance sheets, contracts and court procedures. You even have crucial calls and meetings on your agenda to finalise agreements or submit reports. To do all this, you rely on your home router and perhaps use your own laptop or smartphone. Without a VPN to protect your connection, your home network can become a point of vulnerability – a potential entry point for eavesdropping and data breaches. Have you ever thought what would happen if all the information you work with were to fall into the wrong hands? Your clients’ confidentiality, the security of your work and your own professional reputation would be severely compromised.

 

A VPN creates an encrypted and therefore secure tunnel between your device and company servers, ensuring cybersecurity and protecting resources and internal communications. In this way, even remotely sharing files with co-workers or customers is absolutely secure. Many premium VPNs also offer additional security tools that protect you from malware, intrusive advertisements, dangerous sites and trackers, and warn you in case of data leaks.

 

Public Wi-Fi security

On a business trip, you are highly likely to use hotel or airport lounge Wi-Fi to complete a presentation or access your corporate cloud. What could happen without a VPN? Imagine you are waiting for your flight and want to check your email. The moment you connect to the public network and access your mail server, a hacker intercepts your traffic, reads your email and steals your login credentials. You don’t know it, but you have just suffered what is called a man-in-the-middle attack. With a virtual private network, no hacker can see what you do online, even on open Wi-Fi networks.

Accessing national services and portals, even abroad

If you are abroad and need to access essential international websites, portals and services like National Insurance, Inland Revenue, or corporate intranets, you may encounter access limitations and geo-blocking. This is because, for security reasons, some public portals and corporate networks choose to restrict access from foreign IPs. In some cases, the site may not function properly or may not show certain sections.

 

In these cases, a VPN is absolutely indispensable. Irrespective of where you are physically located, all you need to do is connect to a server in another country to simulate a presence there, bypass geo-blocking and gain access the content you want, while still enjoying an encrypted and protected connection.

Privacy and data security

This aspect is often overlooked. Surfing online without adequate protection endangers the security not only of your own information but also that of your employees, collaborators, suppliers and customers, risking potentially enormous economic and reputational damage.

 

If you think data breaches only concern big tech companies like Meta, Amazon and Google, you are wrong. Very often hackers and cybercriminals choose to target professional firms or small businesses that fail to pay attention to IT security, underestimating the need for proper tools and protective infrastructures to prevent data breaches.

 

When dealing with sensitive data, health, legal or financial information on a daily basis, keeping it secure is not just common sense in today’s fully digitalised world, but a legal duty.

 

Data privacy is as crucial for individuals as it is for companies, because it represents a key element of protection, trust and accountability. It means maintaining control over your personal information and protecting yourself against abuse or misuse that may damage brand reputation or personal security.

 

Using a VPN for business travel is one of the tools that cybersecurity experts recommend to protect privacy and client data, since, as we have seen, VPNs change your IP address and encrypt your Internet connection, preventing potential intrusions.

Access to international websites and content

If you work with international customers or suppliers, a virtual private network is indispensable. As we have seen, for security reasons, some institutional and professional sites and portals restrict access based on your geographical location. With a VPN, you can simulate your presence in a country other than the one in which you are physically located.

For instance, do you ever need to consult public registers or legal databases in non-EU countries, access tax or customs portals, use SaaS software for foreign markets or monitor the pricing strategies of foreign competitors by accessing local versions of their sites? With a VPN you only need to connect to the server of the country or geographical area you are interested in to bypass geo-blocking and access the financial resources you need.

 

Whatever your profession, whatever the size of your company, and wherever you are, a VPN is indispensable to the security and privacy of your work.

The post VPN for lawyers, labour consultants, accountants appeared first on Tinexta Infocert international website.

What is a VPN? A non-technical guide for professionals

We have been living in a vast digital workplace for some time now, a permanently connected environment that transcends the boundaries of the traditional office to include the sofa at home, airport lounges, hotel rooms, coffee shops and train carriages. In this fluid and constantly evolving digital space, you read the news, shop online, download apps, participate in calls and meetings, answer emails, access sensitive data, perform banking transactions, and more besides, on a daily basis. But do you ever wonder what happens to your data while you are online? Are you really in control of the information you share, the sites you visit, and the actions you take? Spoiler: a large number of others can see what you do during your daily visits to the Internet. Unless, of course, you use a VPN – a Virtual Private Network to protect your Internet connection and online privacy. So, how does a VPN work? A VPN acts as a vigilant and attentive guardian to protect you from prying eyes and malicious attacks.

Who can see what you do online?

Though it might seem so, surfing online is by no means private. Every click you make leaves a trace. These traces form what is called a “digital shadow” or fingerprint. Every time you “touch” something online, many actors monitor, collect or intercept what you do. Who are these people?

 

1. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP): your provider can track all the sites you visit, when you visit them, and for how long. Not only that, but your provider may store and share certain information with third parties (not only the police and judicial authorities, but even advertisers) for a variable period of time, depending on the type of content, the consent you have given, internal policies and legislation (national and European). In Italy, for example, Internet service providers may retain certain data for up to 10 years.

 

2. Network administrators: if you connect to corporate or public Wi-Fi, e.g. a hotel network, the network administrator can monitor its traffic and thus have access to information on your online activities.

 

3. Websites and online platforms: many sites collect browsing data, including through cookies (just think of all those pop-ups that constantly interrupt your browsing), pixels and trackers. This allows them to profile you in order to show you personalised advertisements or sell your data to third parties.

 

4. Search engines: if you use a traditional search engine like Google, Bing or Yahoo, everything you do is traceable – even if you use “Incognito mode”. If you want to keep your searches private, we suggest using non-traceable search engines such as DuckDuckGo, Qwant, Startpage or Swisscows.

 

5. Hackers and criminals: surfing online exposes you to daily risks, especially when you choose to connect to unprotected public Wi-Fi networks or surf without the use of security tools like antivirus software, VPNs or anti-malware tools. Credentials, emails, bank details, even your identity, are valuable commodities.

The Internet is not a private house; it is a public square.

Every time you connect to the Internet, your device uses an Internet Protocol (IP) address, which can reveal not only your online identity, but also the location from which you connect. Technically, an IP address is a numerical label assigned by the Internet service provider. Because it is used to identify individual devices among billions of others, it can be regarded as a postal address in the digital world.

 

When you enter the name of a website (example.com) in your browser’s address bar, your computer has to perform certain operations because it cannot actually read words, only numbers. First of all, the browser locates the IP address corresponding to the site you want (example.com = 192.168.1.1), then, once the location is found, it loads the site onto the screen. An IP address functions like a home address, ensuring that data sent over the Internet always reaches the correct destination.

 

This identifier is visible to all the subjects listed above.

 

Not only that, but the information you routinely exchange online – passwords, emails, documents and sensitive data – often travel in “plaintext” i.e. without being encrypted. This means that anyone who manages to intercept them on their way through the network can read or copy them. Think of sending a postcard: anyone intercepting it on the way can read its contents, your name, the recipient’s address and so on. The same happens with your online data. Not using adequate protection systems, like a VPN, is like leaving your front door open. Would you ever do that?

How does a VPN work?

Typically, when you attempt to access a website, your Internet provider receives the request and directs it straight to the desired destination. A VPN, however, directs your Internet traffic through a remote server before sending it on to its destination, creating an encrypted tunnel between your device and the Internet. This tunnel not only secures the data you send and receive, but also hides it from outside eyes, providing you with greater privacy and online security. A VPN also changes your real IP address (i.e. your digital location), e.g. Milan, and replaces it with that of the remote server you have chosen to connect to, e.g. Tokyo. In this way, no one – neither your Internet provider, nor the sites you visit, nor any malicious attackers – can know where you are really connecting from.

 

It is as if the virtual public square, where everyone sees and listens, turns into a closed room, invisible to those outside, at the click of a button.

 

This, in brief, is how a virtual private network works:

 

1. First, the VPN server identifies you by authenticating your client.

2. The VPN server applies an encryption protocol to all the data you send and receive, making it unreadable to anyone trying to intercept it.

3. The VPN creates a virtual, secure “tunnel” through which your data travels to its destination, so that no one can access it without authorisation.

4. The VPN wraps each data packet inside an external packet (an “envelope”) which is encrypted by encapsulation. The envelope is the essential element of the VPN tunnel that keeps your data safe during transfer.

5. When the data reaches the server, the external packet is removed through a decryption process.

Using a VPN should be part of your digital hygiene

Every professional should use a VPN, not only when working remotely or using public Wi-Fi, but as an essential tool to surf more securely, privately and responsibly, day after day. You can think of a VPN as a habit of digital hygiene that provides greater privacy and an additional layer of protection against potential online threats.

A VPN:

 

● encrypts your data, protecting you from prying eyes
● changes your real IP, protecting your identity
● routes your data through remote servers, creating a secure and private tunnel
● stops your Internet provider and other third parties tracking your data.

 

To sum up, a VPN is not just a tool for special situations, like using public Wi-Fi, accessing restricted content. Neither is it only for experienced users and cybersecurity enthusiasts. On the contrary, it is an essential tool – a “must-have” – for all professionals and individuals who want to inhabit the digital space that surrounds us with greater awareness and less fear.

The post VPN: a non-technical guide for professionals appeared first on Tinexta Infocert international website.

Read the first installment in our series on The Future of Digital Identity in America here.

Technology alone doesn’t change societies; policy does. Every leap forward in digital infrastructure (whether electrification, the internet, or mobile payments) has been accelerated or slowed by policy. The same is true for verifiable digital identity. The question today isn’t whether the technology works; it does. The question is whether policy frameworks will make it accessible, trusted, and interoperable across industries and borders.

Momentum is building quickly. State legislatures, federal agencies, and international bodies are beginning to treat verifiable digital identity not as a niche experiment, but as critical public infrastructure. In this post, we’ll explore how policy is shaping digital identity, from U.S. state laws to European regulations, and why governments care now more than ever.

States Leading the Way: Laboratories of Democracy

In the U.S., states have become the proving ground for verifiable digital identity. Seventeen states, including California, New York, and Georgia, already issue mobile driver’s licenses (mDLs) that are accepted at more than 250 TSA checkpoints. By 2026, that number is expected to double, with projections of 143 million mDL holders by 2030, according to ABI Research forecasts.

Seventeen states now issue mobile driver’s licenses accepted at more than 250 TSA checkpoints - digital ID is already real, growing faster than many expected.

California’s DMV Wallet offers one of the most comprehensive examples. In less than two years, over two million Californians have provisioned mobile driver’s licenses, which can be used at TSA checkpoints, in convenience stores for age-restricted purchases, and even online to access government services—real, everyday transactions that people recognize. In addition to the digital licenses, more than thirty million vehicle titles have been digitized using blockchain, making it easier for people to transfer ownership, register cars, or prove title history without mountains of paperwork. Businesses can verify credentials directly, residents can present them online or in person, and the system is designed to work across states and industries. In other words, this program demonstrates proof that digital identity can scale to millions of people and millions of records while solving real problems.

California’s DMV Wallet has issued over two million mDLs and has digitized over 42 million vehicle titles using blockchain - demonstrating trustworthiness at scale.

Utah took a different approach by legislating principles before widespread deployment. SB 260, passed in 2025, lays down a bill of rights for digital identity. Citizens cannot be forced to unlock their phones to present a digital ID. Verifiers cannot track or build profiles from ID use. Selective disclosure must be supported, allowing people to prove an attribute, like being over 21, without revealing unnecessary details. Digital IDs remain optional, and physical IDs must continue to be accepted. Utah’s framework shows how policy can proactively protect civil liberties while enabling innovation.

Utah’s SB 260 doesn’t just pilot identity tech - it builds in privacy and choice from day one, naming those values as rights.

Together, California and Utah illustrate a spectrum of policymaking. One demonstrates what’s possible with rapid deployment at scale - how quickly millions of people can adopt new credentials when the technology is made practical and widely available. The other shows how legislation can proactively embed privacy and choice into the foundations of digital identity, creating durable protections that guard against misuse as adoption grows. Both approaches are valuable: California proves the model can work in practice, while Utah ensures it works on terms that respect civil liberties. Taken together, they show that speed and safeguards are not opposing forces, but complementary strategies that, if aligned, can accelerate trust and adoption nationwide.

Federal Engagement: Trust, Security, and Compliance

Federal agencies are also stepping in, linking digital identity to national security and resilience. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is piloting verifiable digital credentials for immigration—a use case where both accuracy and accessibility are essential.

Meanwhile, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), through its National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE), has launched a hands-on mDL initiative. In collaboration with banks, state agencies, and technology vendors (including 1Password, Capital One, Microsoft, and SpruceID, among others), the project is building a reference architecture demonstrating how mobile driver’s licenses and verifiable credentials can be applied in real-world use cases: CIP/KYC onboarding, federated credential service providers, and healthcare/e-prescribing workflows. The NCCoE has already published draft CIP/KYC use-case criteria, wireframe flows, and a sample bank mDL information page to show how a financial institution might integrate and present mDLs to customers—bringing theory into usable models for regulation and deployment. 

Why the urgency? Centralized identity systems are prime targets for adversaries. Breach one large database, and millions of people’s information is compromised. Decentralized approaches change that risk equation by sharding and encrypting user data, reducing the value of any single “crown jewel” target.

Decentralized identity reshapes the risk equation—no single crown jewel database for adversaries to breach.

Policy is also catching up to compliance challenges in financial services. In July 2025, Congress passed the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, which, among other provisions, directs the U.S. Treasury to treat stablecoin issuers as financial institutions under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). Section 9 of the Act requires Treasury to solicit public comment on innovative methods to detect illicit finance in digital assets, including APIs, artificial intelligence, blockchain monitoring, and (critically) digital identity verification.

Treasury’s August 2025 Request for Comment (RFC) builds directly on this mandate. It seeks input on how portable, privacy-preserving digital identity credentials can support AML/CFT and sanctions compliance, reduce fraud, and lower compliance costs for financial institutions. Importantly, the RFC recognizes privacy as a design factor, asking specifically about risks from over-collection of personal data, the sensitivity of information reviewed, and how to implement safeguards alongside compliance.

This is a significant shift: digital identity is not only being framed as a user-rights issue or a convenience feature, but also as a national security and financial stability priority. By embedding identity into the GENIUS Act’s framework for stablecoins and BSA modernization, policymakers are effectively saying that modernized, cryptographically anchored identity is essential for the resilience of U.S. markets.

The European Example: eIDAS 2.0

While the U.S. pursues a patchwork of state pilots and federal engagement, Europe has opted for a coordinated regulatory approach. In May 2024, eIDAS 2.0 came into force, requiring every EU Member State to issue a European Digital Identity Wallet by 2026.

The regulation mandates acceptance across public services and major private sectors like banks, telecoms, and large online platforms. Privacy is baked into the requirements: wallets must be voluntary and free for citizens, support selective disclosure, and avoid central databases. Offline QR options are also mandated, ensuring usability even without connectivity.

Europe is treating digital identity as a right: free, voluntary, private, and accepted across borders.

Why does this matter? For citizens, it means one-click onboarding across borders. For businesses, it means lower compliance costs and reduced fraud. For the EU, it’s a step toward digital sovereignty, reducing dependency on foreign platforms and asserting leadership in global standards.

Identity as Infrastructure

Look closely, and a pattern emerges: policymakers are treating identity as infrastructure. Like roads, grids, or communications networks, identity is a shared resource that underpins everything else. Without it, markets stumble, governments waste resources, and citizens lose trust. With it, economies run smoother, fraud drops, and individuals gain autonomy.

Identity is infrastructure—like roads or grids, it underpins every modern economy and democracy.

This framing (identity as infrastructure) helps explain why governments care now. Fraud losses are staggering, trust in institutions is fragile, and AI is amplifying risks at unprecedented speed. Policy is not just reacting to technology; it’s shaping the conditions for decentralized identity to succeed.

Risks of Policy Done Wrong

Of course, not all policy is good policy. Poorly designed frameworks could centralize power, entrench surveillance, or create vendor lock-in. Imagine if a single state-issued wallet were mandatory for all services, or if verifiers were allowed to log every credential presentation. The result would be digital identity as a tool of control, not freedom.

That’s why principles matter. Utah’s SB 260 is instructive: user consent, no tracking, no profiling, open standards, and continued availability of physical IDs. These are not just policy features; they are guardrails to keep digital identity aligned with democratic values.

Privacy as Policy: Guardrails Before Growth

Alongside momentum in statehouses and federal pilots, civil liberties organizations have raised a critical warning: digital identity cannot scale without strong privacy guardrails. Groups like the ACLU, EFF, and EPIC have cautioned that mobile driver’s licenses (mDLs) and other digital ID systems risk entrenching surveillance if designed poorly.

The ACLU’s Digital ID State Legislative Recommendations outline twelve essential protections: from banning “phone-home” tracking and requiring selective disclosure, to preserving the right to paper credentials and ensuring a private right of action for violations. EFF warns that without these safeguards, digital IDs could “normalize ID checks” and make identity presentation more frequent in American life .

The message is clear: technology alone isn’t enough. Policy must enshrine privacy-preserving features as requirements, not optional features. Utah’s SB 260 points in this direction by mandating selective disclosure and prohibiting tracking. But the broader U.S. landscape will need consistent frameworks if decentralized identity is to earn public trust.

We'll explore these principles in greater depth in a later post in this series, where we examine how civil liberties critiques shape the design of decentralized identity and why policy and technology must work together to prevent surveillance creep.

SpruceID’s Perspective

At SpruceID, we sit at the intersection of policy and technology. We’ve helped launch California’s DMV Wallet, partnered on Utah’s statewide verifiable digital credentialing framework, and collaborated with DHS on verifiable digital immigration credentials. We also contribute to global standards bodies, such as the W3C and the OpenID Foundation, ensuring interoperability across jurisdictions.

Our perspective is simple: decentralized identity must remain interoperable, privacy-preserving, and aligned with democratic principles. Policy can either accelerate this vision or derail it. The frameworks being shaped today will determine whether decentralized identity becomes a tool for empowerment or for surveillance.

Why Governments Care Now

The urgency comes down to four forces converging at once:

Fraud costs are exploding. In 2024, Americans reported record losses - $16.6 billion to internet crime (FBI IC3) and $12.5 billion to consumer fraud (FTC). On the institutional side, the average U.S. data breach cost hit $10.22 million in 2025, the highest ever recorded (IBM). AI is raising the stakes. Synthetic identity fraud alone accounted for $35 billion in losses in 2023 (Federal Reserve). FinCEN has warned that criminals are now using generative AI to create deepfake videos, synthetic documents, and realistic audio to bypass identity checks and exploit financial systems at scale. Global trade requires interoperability. Cross-border commerce depends on reliable, shared frameworks for verifying identity. Without them, compliance costs balloon and innovation slows. Citizens expect both privacy and convenience. People want frictionless, consumer-grade experiences from digital services, but they will not tolerate surveillance or being forced into a single system.

Policymakers increasingly see decentralized identity as a way to respond to all four at once. By reducing fraud, strengthening democratic resilience, supporting global trade, and protecting privacy, decentralized identity offers governments both defensive and offensive advantages.

The Policy Frontier

We are standing at the frontier of decentralized identity. States are pioneering real deployments. Federal agencies are tying identity to national security and compliance. The EU is mandating wallets as infrastructure. Around the world, policymakers are realizing that identity is not just a product, it’s the scaffolding for digital trust.

The decisions made in statehouses, federal agencies, and international bodies over the next few years will shape how identity works for decades. Done right, verifiable digital identity can become the invisible infrastructure of freedom, convenience, and security. Done wrong, it risks becoming another layer of surveillance and control.

That’s why SpruceID is working to align policy with technology, ensuring that verifiable digital identity is built on open standards, privacy-first principles, and user control. Governments care now because the stakes have never been higher. And the time to act is now.

This article is part of SpruceID’s series on the future of digital identity in America.

Subscribe to be notified when we publish the next installment.

Predictoor DF159 rewards available. DF160 runs October 16th — October 23rd, 2025 1. Overview

Data Farming (DF) is an incentives program initiated by Ocean Protocol. In DF, you can earn OCEAN rewards by making predictions via Predictoor.

Data Farming Round 159 (DF159) has completed.

DF160 is live, October 16th. It concludes on October 23rd. For this DF round, Predictoor DF has 3,750 OCEAN rewards and 20,000 ROSE rewards.

2. DF structure

The reward structure for DF160 is comprised solely of Predictoor DF rewards.

Predictoor DF: Actively predict crypto prices by submitting a price prediction and staking OCEAN to slash competitors and earn.

3. How to Earn Rewards, and Claim Them

Predictoor DF: To earn: submit accurate predictions via Predictoor Bots and stake OCEAN to slash incorrect Predictoors. To claim OCEAN rewards: run the Predictoor $OCEAN payout script, linked from Predictoor DF user guide in Ocean docs. To claim ROSE rewards: see instructions in Predictoor DF user guide in Ocean docs.

4. Specific Parameters for DF160

Budget. Predictoor DF: 3.75K OCEAN + 20K ROSE

Networks. Predictoor DF applies to activity on Oasis Sapphire. Here is more information about Ocean deployments to networks.

Predictoor DF rewards are calculated as follows:

First, DF Buyer agent purchases Predictoor feeds using OCEAN throughout the week to evenly distribute these rewards. Then, ROSE is distributed at the end of the week to active Predictoors that have been claiming their rewards.

Expect further evolution in DF: adding new streams and budget adjustments among streams.

Updates are always announced at the beginning of a round, if not sooner.

About Ocean and DF Predictoor

Ocean Protocol was founded to level the playing field for AI and data. Ocean tools enable people to privately & securely publish, exchange, and consume data. Follow Ocean on Twitter or TG, and chat in Discord.

In Predictoor, people run AI-powered prediction bots or trading bots on crypto price feeds to earn $. Follow Predictoor on Twitter.

DF159 Completes and DF160 Launches was originally published in Ocean Protocol on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“I had one of those chance airplane conversations recently—the kind that sticks in your mind longer than the flight itself.”

My seatmate was reading a book about artificial intelligence, and at one point, they described the idea of an “infinitely growing AI.” I couldn’t help but giggle a bit. Not at them, but at the premise.

An AI cannot be infinite. Computers are not infinite. We don’t live in a world where matter and energy are limitless. There aren’t enough chips, fabs, minerals, power plants, or trained engineers to sustain an infinite anything.

This isn’t just a nitpicky detail about science fiction. It gets at something I’ve written about before:

In Who Really Pays When AI Agents Run Wild? I noted that scaling AI systems isn’t just about clever protocols or smarter algorithms. Every prompt, every model run, every inference carries a cost in water, energy, and hardware cycles. In The End of the Global Internet, I argued that we are already moving toward a fractured network where national and regional policies shape what’s possible online.

The “infinite AI” conversation is an example that ties both threads together. We may dream about global systems that grow without end, but the reality is that technology is built on finite supply chains. It’s those supply chains that are turning out to be the real bottleneck for the future of the Internet.

A Digital Identity Digest Why Tech Supply Chains, Not Protocols, Set the Limits on AI and the Internet Play Episode Pause Episode Mute/Unmute Episode Rewind 10 Seconds 1x Fast Forward 30 seconds 00:00 / 00:15:19 Subscribe Share Amazon Apple Podcasts CastBox Listen Notes Overcast Pandora Player.fm PocketCasts Podbean RSS Spotify TuneIn YouTube iHeartRadio RSS Feed Share Link Embed

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The real limits aren’t protocols

When people in the identity and Internet standards space talk about limits, we often point to protocols. Can the protocol scale? Will a new protocol successfully replace cookies? Can we use existing protocols to manage delegation across ecosystems?

These are important questions, but they are not the limiting factor. Protocols, after all, are words in documents and lines of code. They can be revised, extended, and reinvented. The hard limits come from the physical world.

Chips and fabs. Advanced semiconductors require fabrication plants that cost tens of billions of dollars and take years to build. Extreme ultraviolet lithography machines (say that five times, fast) are produced (as of 2023) by exactly one company in the Netherlands—ASML—and delivery schedules are measured in years. Minerals and materials. Every computer depends on a handful of rare inputs: lithium for batteries, cobalt for electrodes, rare earth elements for magnets, neon for chipmaking lasers, high-purity quartz for wafers. These are not evenly distributed across the globe. China dominates rare earth refining, while Ukraine has been a critical source of neon. And there is no substitute for water in semiconductor production. Power and cooling. Training a frontier AI model consumes gigawatt-hours of electricity. Running hyperscale data centers requires water for cooling that rivals the consumption of entire towns. When power grids are strained, there’s no protocol that can fix it. People. None of this runs itself. Chip designers, process engineers, cleanroom technicians, miners, metallurgists—these are highly specialized roles. Many countries are facing demographic changes that include aging workforces and immigration restrictions for the current tech giants and uneven education where the populations are booming.

You can’t standardize your way out of these shortages. You can only manage, redistribute, or adapt to them.

Geopolitics and demographics

The Internet was often described as “borderless,” but the hardware that makes it run is anything but. Supply chains for semiconductors, network equipment, and the minerals that feed them are deeply entangled with geopolitics and demographics.

No region has a fully independent pipeline:

The US leads in chip design but depends on the Indo-Pacific region for chip manufacturing. China dominates rare earth refining but relies on imports of high-end chipmaking tools it cannot yet build domestically. Europe has niche strengths in lithography and specialty equipment but lacks the scale for end-to-end independence. Countries like Japan, India, and Australia supply critical inputs—from silicon wafers to rare earth ores—but not the whole stack.

This interdependence is not an accident. Globalization optimized supply chains for efficiency, not resilience. Each region specialized in the step where it had a comparative advantage, creating a finely tuned but fragile web.

Demographics add another layer. Many of the most skilled engineers in chip design and manufacturing are reaching retirement age. The same is true for technical standards architects; they are an aging group. Training replacements takes years, not months. Immigration restrictions in key economies further shrink the talent pool. Even if we had the minerals and the fabs, we might not have the people to keep the pipelines running.

The illusion of global resilience

For decades, efficiency reigned supreme. Tech companies embraced just-in-time supply chains. Manufacturers outsourced to the cheapest reliable suppliers. Investors punished redundancy as waste.

That efficiency gave us cheap smartphones, affordable cloud services, and rapid AI innovation. But it also created a brittle system. When one link in the chain breaks, the effects cascade:

A tsunami in Japan or a drought in Taiwan can disrupt global chip supply. A geopolitical dispute can halt exports of critical minerals overnight. A labor strike at a port can ripple through shipping networks for months.

We saw this during the 2020–2023 global chip shortage. A pandemic-driven demand spike collided with supply chain shocks: a fire at a Japanese chip plant, drought in Taiwan, and war in Ukraine cutting off neon supplies. Automakers idled plants. Consumer electronics prices rose. Lead times stretched into years.

AI at scale only magnifies the problem. Training one large model requires thousands of specialized GPUs. If one upstream material is constrained—say, the gallium used in semiconductors—it doesn’t matter how advanced your algorithms are. The model doesn’t get trained.

Cross-border dependencies never vanish

This is where the conversation loops back to the idea of a “global Internet.” Even if the Internet fragments into national or regional spheres—the “splinternet” scenario—supply chains remain irreducibly cross-border.

You can build your own national identity system. You can wall off your data flows. But you cannot build advanced technology entirely within your own borders without enormous tradeoffs.

A U.S. data center may run on American-designed chips, but those chips likely contain rare earths refined in China. A Chinese smartphone may use domestically assembled components, but the photolithography machine that patterned its chips came from Europe. An EU-based AI startup may host its models on European servers, but the GPUs were packaged and tested in Southeast Asia.

Fragmentation at the protocol and governance level doesn’t erase these dependencies. It only adds new layers of complexity as governments try to manage who trades with whom, under what terms, and with what safeguards.

The myth of “digital sovereignty” often ignores the material foundations of technology. Sovereignty over protocols does not equal sovereignty over minerals, fabs, or skilled labor.

Opportunities in regional diversity

If infinite AI is impossible and total independence is unrealistic, what’s left? One answer is regional diversity.

Instead of assuming we can build one perfectly resilient global supply chain, we can design multiple overlapping regional ones. Each may not be fully independent, but together they reduce the risk of “one failure breaks all.”

Examples already in motion:

United States. The CHIPS and Science Act is pouring billions into domestic semiconductor manufacturing (though how long that act will be in place is in question). The U.S. is also investing in rare earth mining and processing though environmental and permitting challenges remain. European Union. The EU Raw Materials Alliance is working to secure critical mineral supply and recycling. European firms already lead in certain high-end equipment niches. Japan and South Korea. Both countries are investing in duplicating supply chain segments currently dominated by China, such as battery materials. India. This country has ambitious plans to build local chip fabs and become a global assembly hub. Australia and Canada. Positioned as suppliers of critical minerals, Australia and Canada are working to move beyond extraction to refining.

Regional chains come with tradeoffs: higher costs, slower rollout, and sometimes redundant investments. But they create buffers. If one region falters, others can pick up slack.

They also open the door to more design diversity. Different regions may approach problems in distinct ways, leading to innovation not just in technology but in governance, regulation, and labor practices.

Reframing the narrative

So let’s come back to that airplane conversation. The myth of infinite AI (or infinite cloud computing, for that matter) isn’t just bad science fiction. It’s a misunderstanding of how technology actually grows.

AI, like the Internet itself, is bounded by the real world. Protocols matter, but they are only the top layer. Beneath them are the chips, the minerals, the power, and the people. Those are the constraints that will shape the next decade.

Which leads us to the current irony in all of this: even as the Internet fragments along political and regulatory lines, the supply chains that support it remain irreducibly global. We can argue about governance models and sovereignty all we like and target tariffs at a whim, but a smartphone or a GPU is still a planetary collaboration.

The challenge, then, isn’t to pretend we can achieve total independence. It’s to design supply chains—local, regional, and global—that acknowledge these limits and build resilience into them.

Looking ahead

When I wrote about The End of the Global Internet, I wanted to show that fragmentation is not just possible, but already happening. But fragmentation doesn’t erase interdependence. It just makes it messier.

When I wrote about Who Pays When AI Agents Run Wild? I wanted to point out that scaling computation is not a free lunch. It comes with bills measured in electricity, water, and silicon.

This post ties both threads together: the real bottlenecks in technology are not the protocols we argue about in standards meetings. They are the supply chains that determine whether the chips, power, minerals, and people exist in the first place.

AI is a vivid example because its appetite is so enormous. But the lesson applies more broadly. The Internet is fracturing into spheres of influence, but those spheres will remain bound by the physical pipelines that crisscross borders.

So the next time someone suggests an infinite AI, or a fully sovereign domestic Internet, remember: computers aren’t infinite. Supply chains aren’t sovereign. The real question isn’t whether we can break free of those facts, it’s how we design systems that can thrive within them.

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Transcript

[00:00:29] Welcome back to The Digital Identity Digest. I’m Heather Flanagan, and today, we’re going to dig into one of those invisible but very real limits on our digital future — supply chains.

[00:00:42] Now, I know supply chains don’t sound nearly as exciting as AI agents or new Internet protocols. But stay with me — because without the physical stuff (chips, minerals, power, and people), all of those clever protocols and powerful algorithms don’t amount to much.

[00:01:00] This episode builds on two earlier posts:

Who Really Pays for AI? — exploring how AI comes with a bill in water, electricity, and silicon. The End of the Global Internet — examining how fragmentation is reshaping the network itself.

Both lead us here: the supply chain is one of the biggest constraints on how far both AI and the Internet can actually go.

[00:01:27] So, if you really want to understand the future of technology, you can’t just look at the code or the protocols.

[00:01:35] You have to look at the supply chains.

The Reality Check: Technology Needs Stuff

[00:01:38] Let’s start with a story. On a recent flight, my seatmate was reading a book about artificial intelligence. Go him.

[00:01:49] At one point, he leaned over and described an idea of an infinitely growing AI.

[00:01:56] I couldn’t help but laugh a little — because computers are not infinite.

[00:02:04] There just aren’t enough chips, fabs, minerals, power plants, or trained people on the planet to sustain infinite anything. It’s not imagination — it’s physics, chemistry, and labor.

[00:02:20] That exchange captured something I keep seeing in conversations about AI, identity, and the Internet. We treat protocols as if they’re the bottleneck. But ultimately, it’s the supply chains underneath that constrain everything.

Chips, Fabs, and the Fragility of Progress

[00:02:38] Let’s break that down — starting with chips and fabricators, also known as fabs.

[00:02:44] The most advanced semiconductors come from fabrication plants that cost tens of billions of dollars to build — and take years, even a decade, to come online.

[00:02:56] And the entire process hinges on one company — ASML in the Netherlands.

[00:03:03] They’re the only supplier of extreme ultraviolet lithography machines. Without those, you simply can’t make the latest generation of chips. The backlog? Measured in years.

[00:03:21] Then there’s the issue of minerals and materials:

Lithium for batteries Cobalt for electrodes Rare earth elements for magnets Neon for chipmaking lasers High-purity quartz for wafers

[00:03:44] These resources aren’t evenly distributed. China refines most rare earths. Ukraine supplies much of the world’s neon. And water — another critical input — is also unevenly available.

Power, People, and Production

[00:04:05] A frontier AI model doesn’t just use a lot of electricity — it uses gigawatt-hours of power.

[00:04:26] Running a hyperscale data center can consume as much water as a small city. And when power grids are strained, no clever standard can conjure new electrons out of thin air.

[00:04:26] Then there’s the people. None of this runs itself:

Chip designers Process engineers Clean room technicians Miners and metallurgists

[00:04:57] These are highly specialized roles — and many experts are nearing retirement. Replacing them takes years, not months. Immigration limits compound the challenge.

[00:05:05] So yes, protocols matter — but the real limits come from the physical world.

Geopolitics and the Global Supply Web

[00:05:16] The Internet may feel borderless, but the hardware that makes it work is not.

[00:05:26] Every link in the supply chain is tangled in geopolitics:

The U.S. leads in chip design but depends on Taiwan and South Korea for manufacturing. China dominates rare earth refining but still relies on imported chipmaking tools. Europe has niche strengths in lithography but lacks materials for full independence. Japan, India, and Australia provide key raw inputs but not the entire production stack.

[00:06:16] This global interdependence made systems efficient — but also fragile.

Demographics: The Aging Workforce

[00:06:21] There’s also a demographic angle. Skilled engineers and technicians are aging out.

[00:06:35] In about 15 years, we’ll see significant skill gaps. Even if minerals and fabs are available, we might not have the people to keep things running.

[00:06:58] The story isn’t just about where resources are — it’s about who can use them.

The Illusion of Resilience

[00:07:06] For decades, efficiency ruled. Tech companies built “just-in-time” supply chains, outsourcing to low-cost, reliable suppliers.

[00:07:21] That gave us cheap smartphones and rapid innovation — but also brittle systems.

[00:07:38] A few reminders of fragility:

2011: Tsunami in Japan disrupts semiconductor production. 2021: Drought in Taiwan forces fabs to truck in water. 2022: War in Ukraine cuts off neon supplies. 2020–2023: Global chip shortage reveals how fragile everything truly is.

[00:08:18] AI at scale only magnifies this fragility. Even one constrained resource, like gallium, can halt model training — regardless of how advanced the algorithms are.

The Splinternet Still Needs a Global Supply Chain

[00:08:48] Even as the Internet fragments into regional “Splinternets,” supply chains remain global.

[00:09:18] You can wall off your data, but you can’t build advanced tech entirely within one nation’s borders.

Examples include:

A U.S. data center using chips refined with Chinese minerals. A Chinese smartphone using European lithography tools. An EU startup running on GPUs packaged in Southeast Asia.

[00:09:46] Fragmentation adds complexity, not independence.

The Myth of Digital Sovereignty

[00:09:46] The idea of total “digital sovereignty” sounds empowering — but it’s misleading.

[00:10:07] You can control protocols, standards, and regulations.
But you can’t control:

Minerals you don’t have Fabricators you can’t build Workforces you can’t train Designing Resilient Regional Systems

[00:10:14] So, what’s the alternative? Regional diversity.

Instead of one global, fragile chain, we can build multiple overlapping regional systems:

U.S.: The CHIPS and Science Act investing in domestic semiconductor manufacturing. EU: The Raw Materials Alliance strengthening mineral supply and recycling. Japan & South Korea: Building redundancy in battery and material supply. India: Launching its “Semiconductor Mission.” Australia & Canada: Expanding refining capacity for critical minerals.

[00:11:38] Yes, these efforts are costlier and slower — but they build buffers. If one region falters, another can pick up the slack.

The Takeaway: Infinite AI is a Myth

[00:12:06] That airplane conversation sums it up. The myth of infinite AI isn’t just science fiction — it’s a misunderstanding of how technology works.

[00:12:17] AI, like the Internet, is bounded by the real world — by chips, minerals, power, and people.

[00:12:45] Even as the Internet fragments, its supply chains remain irreducibly global.

[00:13:02] The challenge isn’t escaping these limits — it’s designing systems that thrive within them.

Closing Thoughts

[00:13:27] The real bottleneck in technology isn’t protocols — it’s supply chains.

[00:13:48] AI is just the most visible example of how finite our digital ambitions are.

[00:14:13] So, the next time you hear someone talk about “infinite AI” or a “sovereign Internet,” remember:

Computers are not infinite. Supply chains cannot be sovereign.

[00:14:19] The real question isn’t how to escape those facts — it’s how to build systems that can thrive within them.

Outro

[00:14:19] Thanks for listening to The Digital Identity Digest.

If you enjoyed the episode:

Share it with a colleague or friend. Connect with me on LinkedIn @hlflanagan. Subscribe and leave a rating wherever you listen to podcasts.

[00:15:02] You can also find the full written post at sphericalcowconsulting.com.

Stay curious, stay engaged — and let’s keep the conversation going.

The post Why Tech Supply Chains, Not Protocols, Set the Limits on AI and the Internet appeared first on Spherical Cow Consulting.

You’ve probably seen that pop-up asking you to verify your identity when signing up for a new banking app or wallet. That’s KYC, short for Know Your Customer. It helps businesses confirm that users are real, not digital impostors trying to pull a fast one.

In the old days, this meant long queues, forms, and signatures. Today, KYC verification online makes that process digital, instant, and painless.

Here’s how the two compare.

Feature Traditional KYC Online KYC Verification Time Taken Days or weeks A few minutes Method Manual paperwork Automated verification Accuracy Prone to error AI-based precision Accessibility Branch visits required Anywhere, anytime Security Paper-based Encrypted and biometric

According to Deloitte’s “Revolutionising Due Diligence for the Digital Age”, digital verification and automation can drastically improve compliance efficiency and customer experience, both of which are central to modern financial services.

That’s why KYC verification online has become the backbone of secure onboarding for fintechs, banks, and even government platforms.

 

How KYC Verification Online Actually Works

When you perform a KYC check online, it feels quick and effortless, but behind that simple process, powerful AI is doing the hard work. It matches your selfie with your ID, reads your details using OCR, and cross-checks everything with trusted databases, all in seconds.

Here’s what’s really happening:

You upload your ID (passport, driver’s license, or national ID).

You take a quick selfie using your phone camera.

The system compares your selfie to the photo on your ID using advanced facial recognition.

OCR (Optical Character Recognition) extracts the text from your ID to verify your name, address, and date of birth.

Data is validated against government or regulatory databases.

You get approved often in under two minutes.

That’s KYC authentication in action: fast, secure, and contact-free.

According to the NIST Face Recognition Vendor Test (FRVT), today’s leading algorithms are over 20 times more accurate than those used just a decade ago. That leap in precision is one reason why eKYC verification is now trusted by global banks and fintech companies.

Why Businesses Are Switching to KYC Verification Online

No one enjoys filling out endless forms or waiting days for approvals. That’s why businesses everywhere are turning to KYC verify online systems; they make onboarding smoother for customers while cutting costs for organizations.

Some of the biggest reasons behind this shift include:

Faster onboarding times that enhance customer experience.

Greater accuracy from AI-powered checks.

Enhanced fraud detection through biometric validation.

Regulatory compliance with frameworks like GDPR.

Global accessibility for users to verify KYC online anytime, anywhere.

Research by Deloitte Insights notes that organizations automating due diligence and verification processes reduce manual costs while increasing compliance accuracy, a huge win for financial institutions managing high user volumes.

Simply put, online KYC check systems help companies onboard customers faster while minimizing human error and fraud.

Technology Behind Modern KYC Verification Solutions

Every smooth verification process is powered by some serious tech muscle.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) helps detect fraudulent IDs and spot manipulation patterns in photos. Machine learning continuously improves accuracy by learning from new data. Facial recognition verifies your selfie against your ID photo with pinpoint precision, tested under the NIST FRVT benchmark.

Meanwhile, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) pulls data from your documents instantly, and encryption technologies protect that data as it moves across systems.

For developers and organizations wanting to implement their own KYC verification solutions, Recognito’s face recognition SDK and ID document recognition SDK are reliable tools that simplify integration.

You can also explore Recognito’s GitHub repository to see how real-time AI verification systems evolve in practice.

 

How to Verify Your KYC Online Without the Hassle

If you haven’t tried KYC verification online yet, it’s simpler than you think. Just open the app, upload your ID, take a selfie, and let the system handle the rest.

Most platforms now allow you to check online KYC status in real time. You’ll see exactly when your verification moves from “in review” to “approved.”

Curious about how it all works behind the scenes? Try the ID Document Verification Playground. It’s an interactive way to see how modern KYC systems scan, process, and authenticate IDs no real data required.

According to Allied Market Research, the global eKYC verification market is expected to reach nearly $2.4 billion by 2030, growing at over 22% CAGR. That surge shows just how essential digital KYC has become to the future of online services.

The Future of KYC Authentication

The next generation of KYC authentication is going to feel almost invisible. Biometric technology and AI are merging to make verification instant; imagine unlocking your account just by looking at your camera.

In India, systems like UIDAI’s Aadhaar e-KYC have already transformed how millions of users open bank accounts and access government services. It’s fast, paperless, and secure.

Global research by PwC on Digital Identity predicts that the world is moving toward a unified digital identity model, one verified profile for all services, from banking to healthcare.

This is the future of KYC identity verification: a seamless, secure, and user-friendly process that builds trust without slowing you down.

 

Final Thoughts

In the end, KYC verification online is about more than compliance; it’s about confidence. It ensures that businesses and customers can interact safely in an increasingly digital world.

It eliminates paperwork, reduces fraud, and makes onboarding faster and smarter. That’s progress everyone can appreciate.

If you’re a business exploring modern KYC verification solutions, check out Recognito. Their AI-powered technology helps companies verify identities accurately, comply with regulations, and create frictionless user experiences.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

1. How does KYC verification online work?

You upload your ID, take a selfie, and the system checks both using AI. KYC verification online confirms your identity in just a few minutes.

 

2. Is eKYC verification safe to use?

Yes, eKYC verification is secure since it uses encryption and biometric checks. Your personal data stays protected throughout the process.

 

3. What do I need to verify my KYC online?

To verify KYC online, you only need a valid government ID and a selfie. The rest is handled automatically by the system.

 

4. Why are companies using online KYC checks now?

Businesses use online KYC check systems because they’re faster and help prevent fraud. It also makes onboarding easier for users.

 

5. What makes a good KYC verification solution?

A great KYC verification solution should be fast, accurate, and compliant with privacy laws. It should make KYC identity verification simple for both users and companies.

The post FedRAMP Levels Explained & Compared (with Recommendations) appeared first on 1Kosmos.

The RevOps Tightrope: When "Just Connect It" Becomes a Breach Vector

If you're in Revenue Operations, Marketing Ops, or Sales Ops, your core mandate is velocity. Every week, someone needs to integrate a new tool: "Can we connect Drift to Salesforce?" "Can we push this data into HubSpot?" "Can you just give marketing API access?" You approve the OAuth tokens, you connect the "trusted" apps, and you enable the business to move fast. You assume the security team has your back.

But the ShinyHunters extortion spree that surfaced this year, targeting Salesforce customer data, exposed the deadly vulnerability built into that convenience-first trust model. This wasn't just a "cyber event" for the security team; it was a devastating wake-up call for every operator who relies on that data. Suddenly, every connected app looks like a ticking time bomb, filled with sensitive PII, contact records, and pipeline data.

Anatomy of the Attack: Hacking Authorization, Not Authentication

The success of the ShinyHunters campaign wasn't about a software bug or a cracked password. It was about trusting the wrong thing. The attackers strategically bypassed traditional MFA by exploiting two key vectors: OAuth consent and API token reuse.

Path 1: The Fake "Data Loader" That Wasn't (OAuth Phishing)

The most insidious vector involved manipulating human behavior through advanced vishing (voice phishing).

Attackers impersonated internal IT support, creating urgency to trick an administrator. Under the pretext of fixing an urgent issue, the victim was directed to approve a malicious Connected App—often disguised as a legitimate tool like a Data Loader.

The result was the same as a physical breach: the employee, under false pretenses, granted the attacker’s malicious app a valid, persistent OAuth access token. This token is the backstage pass—it gave the attacker free rein to pull vast amounts of CRM data via legitimate APIs, quietly and without triggering MFA or login-based alerts.

Path 2: Token Theft in the Shadows (API Credential Reuse)

The parallel vector targeted tokens from already integrated third-party applications, such as Drift or Salesloft.

Attackers compromised these services to steal their existing OAuth tokens or API keys used for the Salesforce integration. These stolen tokens act like session cookies: they are valid, silent, and allow persistent access to Salesforce data without ever touching a login page. Crucially, once stolen, these tokens can be reused until revoked, representing an open back door into your most valuable data.

Both paths point to a single conclusion: your digital ecosystem is built on convenience-first trust, and in the hands of sophisticated attackers, trust is the ultimate exploitable vulnerability.

The Trust Problem: Securing Logins, Not Logic

For years, security focused on enforcing strong MFA and password rotation. But the ShinyHunters campaign proved that this focus is too narrow.

You can enforce the best MFA, rotate passwords monthly, and check all your compliance boxes. But if an attacker can:

Convince an employee to approve a fake OAuth app, or Steal a token that never expires from an integration

...then everything else is just window dressing.

The uncomfortable truth for RevOps is that attackers are not exploiting a zero-day; they are hacking how you work. The industry-wide shift now, led by NIST and CISA, is toward phishing-resistant authentication. Why? Because the weak spots exploited in this breach - reusable passwords and phishable MFA - are eliminated when you replace them with cryptographic, device-bound credentials.

Where HYPR Fits In: Making Identity Deterministic, Not Trust-Based

HYPR was built for moments like this—when the mantra "never trust, always verify" must transition from a slogan into an operational necessity. Our Identity Assurance platform delivers the deterministic certainty needed to stop both forms of token theft cold.

Here’s how HYPR's approach prevents these breach vectors:

Eliminating Shared Secrets: HYPR Authenticate uses FIDO2-certified passwordless authentication. There is no password or shared secret for attackers to steal, replay, or trick a user into approving. This automatically eliminates the phishable vector used in Path 1. Domain Binding Stops OAuth Phishing: FIDO Passkeys are cryptographically bound to the specific URL of the service. If an attacker tries to trick a user into authenticating on a malicious domain (OAuth phishing), the key will not match the registered domain, and the authentication will fail instantly and silently. Deterministic Identity Proofing for High-Risk Actions (HYPR Affirm): Granting new app privileges is a high-risk action. HYPR Affirm brings deterministic identity proofing—using live liveness checks, biometric verification, and document validation—before any credential or app authorization is granted. This stops social engineering attacks aimed at the help desk or an administrator because you ensure the person making the request is the rightful account owner. No Unchecked Trust (HYPR Adapt): Every high-risk action - whether it’s a new device enrollment, a token reset, or a highly-privileged connected app approval - can trigger identity re-verification. If your HYPR Adapt risk engine detects anomalous API activity (Path 2), it can dynamically challenge the user to re-authenticate with a phishing-resistant passkey, immediately revoking the session/token until certainty is established.

This platform isn't about simply locking things down; it's about building secure, efficient systems that can verify who is on the other end with cryptographic certainty.

Next Steps for RevOps: Championing the Identity Perimeter

The Salesforce breach was about trust at scale. As RevOps leaders, you need to protect not just the data, but how that data is accessed and shared.

Here is what you must prioritize now:

Revisit Your Integrations: Know which connected apps have offline access and broad permissions (e.g., refresh_token, full) to your Salesforce data - and ruthlessly trim the list to only essential tools. Automate Least Privilege: Implement a policy for temporary tokens and expiring scopes. Move away from permanent credentials where possible, forcing periodic re-consent. Champion Phishing-Resistant MFA: Make FIDO2 Passkeys the minimum baseline for every high-value user and administrator. Anything less is a calculated risk you can’t afford.

The uncomfortable truth is: Attackers did not utilize brute force - they strategically weaponized OAuth consent and token theft. The good news is that passwordless, phishing-resistant authentication would have stopped both paths cold.

Unlock the pipeline velocity you need with the deterministic security you can trust.

👉 Request a Demo of the HYPR Identity Assurance Platform Today.

Wind Tunnel gets reports, automation, multiple conductors

All the hard work put into Wind Tunnel, our scale testing suite, is starting to become visible! We’re now collecting metrics from both the host OS and Holochain, in addition to the scenario metrics we’d already been collecting (where zome call time and arbitrary scenario-defined metrics could be measured). We’re also running scenarios on an automated schedule and generating reports from them. Our ultimate goals are to be able to:

monitor releases for performance improvements and regressions, identify bottlenecks for improvement, and turn report data into release-specific information you can use and act upon in your app development process.

Finally, Wind Tunnel is getting the ability to select a specific version of Holochain right from the test scenario, which will be useful for running tests on a network with a mix of different conductors. It also saves us some dev ops headaches, because the right version for a test can be downloaded automatically as needed.

Holochain 0.6: roughly two (ideal) weeks remaining

Our current estimates predict that Holochain 0.6’s first release will take about two team-weeks to complete. Some of the dev team is focused on Wind Tunnel and other tasks, so this may not mean two calendar weeks, but it’s getting closer. To recap what we’ve shared in past Dev Pulses, 0.6 will focus on:

Warrants — reporting validation failures to agent activity authorities, who collect and supply these warrants to anyone who asks for them. As soon as an agent sees and validates a warrant, they retain it and block the bad agent, even if they aren’t responsible for validating the agent’s data. If the warrant itself is invalid (that is, the warranted data is valid), the authority issuing the warrant will be blocked. Currently warrants are only sent in response to a get_agent_activity query; in the future, they’ll be sent in response to other DHT queries too. Blocking — the kitsune2 networking layer will allow communication with remote agents to be blocked, and the Holochain layer will use this to block agents after a warrant against them is discovered. Performance improvements — working with Unyt, we’ve discovered some performance issues with must_get_agent_activity and get_agent_activity which we’re working on improving.
Open-source Holo Edge Node

You have probably already seen the recent announcements from Holochain and Holo (or the livestream), but if not, here’s the news from the org: Holo is open-sourcing its always-on node software in an OCI-compliant container called Edge Node.

This is going to do a couple things for hApp developers:

make it easier to spin up always-on nodes to provide data availability and redundancy for your hApp networks, provide a base dockerfile for devs to add other services to — maybe an SMS, email, payment, or HTTP gateway for your hApp, and allow more hosts to set up nodes, because Docker is a familiar distribution format

I think this new release connects Holo back to its roots — the decentralised, open-source values that gave birth to it — and we hope that’ll mean more innovation in the software that powers the Holo network. HoloPort owners will need to be handy with the command line, but a recent survey found that almost four fifths of them already are.

So if you want to get involved, either to bootstrap your own infrastructure or support other hApp creators and users, here’s what you can do:

Download the latest HolOS ISO for HoloPorts, other hardware, VMs, and cloud instances. Download the Edge Node container for Docker, Kubernetes, etc. Get in touch with Rob from Holo on the Holo Forum, the Holo Edge Node Support Telegram, Calendly, or the DEV.HC Discord (you’ll need to self-select Access to: Projects role in the #select-a-role channel, then go to the #always-on-nodes channel). Join the regular online Holo Huddle calls for support (get access to these calls by getting in touch with Rob above). Soon, there’ll be a series of Holo Forge calls for people who want to focus on building the ecosystem (testing, modifying the Edge Node container, etc).
Next Dev Office Hours: 15 Oct 2025

Join us on the DEV.HC Discord at 16:00 UTC for the next Dev Office Hours call — bring your ideas, questions, projects, bugs, and hApp development challenges to the dev team, where we’ll do our best to respond to them. See you there!

Decentralized identity is becoming the backbone of how organizations, governments, and individuals exchange trusted information.

In this live workshop, Agne Caunt (Product Owner, Dock Labs) and Richard Esplin (Head of Product, Dock Labs) guided learners through the foundations of decentralized identity: how digital identity models have evolved, the Trust Triangle that powers verifiable data exchange, and the technologies behind it: from verifiable credentials to DIDs, wallets, and biometric-bound credentials.

Below are the core takeaways from the session.

Hey folks 👋

Following the rapid-fire releases in the last few newsletters, we have a quieter one for you this edition.

Everyone’s busy working on some bigger features and editions to Kin, meaning not much has gone out in the last two weeks.

So instead, this’ll be a sneak peek into what’s coming really soon - with the usual super prompt at the end for you.

What (will be) new with Kin 🕑 Your Kin, expanded 🌱

The biggest change coming up is our rollout of Kin Accounts. Don’t worry: these accounts won’t store any of your conversation data - just some minimal basics that we’ll keep secure.

We’ll be introducing Kin Accounts to lay the groundwork for multi-device sync (which inches closer!), more integrations into Kin, and eventually Kin memberships.

More information on Kin Accounts, and what we mean by “minimal basics” will come out soon too, so you stay fully informed

More personal advisors and notifications 🧩

Off the back of the positive feedback for the advisor updates covered in the last edition, we’re continuing to expand their personalities and push notification abilities.

Very soon, you’ll notice that each advisor feels even more unique, more understanding of you, and more suited to their role - both in chat and in push notifications.

And in case you missed it, you have full control over the push notification frequency. If you want to hear from an advisor while outside Kin more, you can turn it up in each advisor’s edit tab from the home screen - and if you want to hear less from them, you can turn it down more.

Memory continues to grow 🧠

Memory appears in these updates almost every time - and that’s because we really are working on it almost every week.

The imminent update will continue to work toward our long-standing goal of making Kin the best personal AI at understand time in conversations - something we’ve explained in more depth in previous articles.

More on this when the next stage of the update rolls out!

Journaling, refined by you yet again 📓

Similarly, Journaling also makes another appearance as we continue to re-work it according to your feedback. Guided daily and weekly Journals will help you track your progress, more visible streak counts will help keep you involved, and a new prompting system will help entries feel more insightful. You’ll hear more about exactly what’s changing once we’ve released some of it.

Start a conversation 💬

I know this reminder is in every newsletter - but that’s because it’s integral to Kin.

Kin is built for you, with your ideas. So, your feedback is essential to helping us know whether we’re making things the way you like them.

The KIN team is always around at hello@mykin.ai for anything, from feature feedback to a bit of AI discussion (though support queries will be better helped over at support@mykin.ai).

To get more stuck in, the official Kin Discord is still the best place to interact with the Kin development team (as well as other users) about anything AI.

We have dedicated channels for Kin’s tech, networking users, sharing support tips, and for hanging out.

We also regularly run three casual calls every week - you’re welcome to join:

Monday Accountability Calls - 5pm GMT/BST
Share your plans and goals for the week, and learn tips about how Kin can help keep you on track.

Wednesday Hangout Calls - 5pm GMT/BST
No agenda, just good conversation and a chance to connect with other Kin users.

Friday Kin Q&A - 1pm GMT/BST
Drop in with any questions about Kin (the app or the company) and get live answers in real time.

Kin is yours, not ours. Help us build something you love!

Finally, you can also share your feedback in-app. Just screenshot to trigger the feedback form.

Our current reads 📚

Article: OpenAI admits to forcibly switching subscribers away from GTP 4 and 5 models in some situations
READ - techradar.com

Article: San Diego State University launch first AI responsibility degree in California
READ - San Diego State University

Article: Australia’s healthcare system adopting AI tools
READ - The Guardian

Article: California’s AI laws could balance innovation and regulation
READ - techcrunch.com

This edition’s super prompt 🤖

This week, your Kin will help you answer the question:

“How can I better prepare for change?”

If you have Kin installed and up to date, you can tap the link below (on mobile!) to explore how you think about pressure, and how you can keep cool under it.

As a reminder, you can do this on both iOS and Android.

Open prompt in Kin

We build Kin together 🤝

If you only ever take one thing away from these emails, it should be that you have as much say in Kin as we do (if not more).

So, please chat in our Discord, email us, or even just shake the app to get in contact with anything and everything you have to say about Kin.

With love,

The KIN Team

The 6-month plan to go from zero to traction (with weekly tasks you can start today)

Continue reading on Medium »

In our recent live podcast, Richard Esplin (Dock Labs) sat down with Andrew Hughes (VP of Global Standards, FaceTec) and Ryan Williams (Program Manager of Digital Credentialing, AAMVA) to unpack the new ISO standards for mobile driver’s licenses (mDLs).

One topic dominated the discussion: server retrieval.

Why Knowledge Without Action Is Just Expensive Entertainment

Continue reading on Medium »

The Art of Unconventional Advertising That Actually Works

Continue reading on Clubwritter »

The journey from a signed contract to a fully deployed security solution is one of the most challenging in enterprise technology. For a mission-critical function like identity, the stakes are even higher. It requires more than just great technology; it demands a true partnership to drive change across massive, complex organizations.

I sat down with HYPR’s SVP of Worldwide Sales, Doug McLaughlin, to discuss what it really takes to get from the initial sale to the finish line, and how HYPR works with customers to manage the complexities of procurement, organizational buy-in, and full-scale deployment for millions of users.

Let’s talk about the initial hurdles – procurement and legal. These processes can stall even the most enthusiastic projects. How do you get across that initial finish line?

Doug: By the time you get to procurement and legal, the business and security champions should be convinced of the solution's value. These teams aren't there to re-evaluate whether the solution is needed; they're there to vet who is providing it and under what terms. The biggest mistake you can make is treating them like a final sales gate.

Our approach is to be radically transparent and prepared. We have our security certifications, compliance documentation, and legal frameworks ready to go well in advance. We’ve already proven the business value and ROI to our champions, who then become our advocates in those internal procurement meetings. It’s about making their job as easy as possible. When you’ve built a strong, trust-based relationship across the organization, procurement becomes a process to manage efficiently, not an obstacle to overcome. The contract signature is less the "end" and more the "official beginning" of the real work.

You’ve navigated some of the largest passwordless deployments in history. Many people think the deal is done when the contract is signed. What’s the biggest misconception about that moment?

Doug: The biggest misconception is that the signature is the finish line. In reality, it’s the starting gun. For us, that contract isn’t an endpoint; it’s a formal commitment to a partnership. You've just earned the right to help the customer begin the real work of transformation.

In these large-scale projects, especially at global financial institutions or manufacturing giants, you’re not just installing software. You’re fundamentally changing a core business process that can touch every single employee, partner, and sometimes even their customers. If you view that as a simple handoff to a deployment team, you're setting yourself up for failure. The trust you built during the sales cycle is the foundation you need for the change management journey ahead.

When you’re dealing with a global corporation, you have IT, security, legal, procurement, and business units all with their own priorities. How do you start building the consensus needed for a successful rollout?

Doug: You have to build a coalition, and you do that by speaking the language of each stakeholder. I remember working with a major global bank. Their security team was our initial champion; they immediately saw how passkeys would eliminate phishing risk and secure their high-value transactions. But one of the key stakeholders was wary. Their primary concern was a potential surge in help desk calls during the transition, which would blow up their budget.

Instead of just talking about security with them, we shifted the conversation entirely and early. We presented the case study from another financial services deployment showing a 70-80% reduction in password-related help desk tickets within six months of rollout. We framed the project not as a security mandate, but as an operational efficiency initiative that would free up the team's time.

We connected the dots for them. Security got their risk reduction. IT saw a path to lower operational costs. The business leaders saw a faster, more productive login experience for their bankers. When each department saw its specific problem being solved, they became a unified force pushing the project forward. That's how you turn individual stakeholders into a powerful coalition.

That leads to the user. How do you get hundreds of thousands of employees at a global company to embrace a new way of signing in?

Doug: You can’t force change on people; you have to make them want it. A great example is a Fortune 500 manufacturing company we worked with. They had an incredibly diverse workforce. From corporate executives on laptops to factory floor workers using shared kiosks and tablets. Compounding this further, employees spanned the globe, from US, to China to LatAm and beyond. Let’s face it, a single, top-down email mandate was never going to work.

We partnered with them to create a phased rollout that respected these different user groups. For the factory floor, we focused on speed. The message was simple: "Clock in faster, start your shift faster." We trained the shift supervisors to be the local experts and put up simple, visual posters near the kiosks.

For the corporate employees, we focused on convenience and security, highlighting the ability to log in from anywhere without typing a password. We identified influential employees in different departments to be part of a pilot program. Within weeks, these "champions" were talking about how much easier their sign-in experience was. That word-of-mouth was more powerful than any corporate memo. The goal is to make the new way so demonstrably better that people are actively asking when it's their turn. That’s when adoption pulls itself forward.

Looking back at these massive, multi-year deployments, what defines a truly "successful" partnership for you?

Doug: Success isn’t the go-live announcement. It's six months later when the CISO tells you their help desk calls are down 70%. It's when an employee from a branch in Singapore sends unsolicited feedback about how much they love the new login experience. It’s when the customer’s security team stops seeing you as a vendor and starts calling you for advice on their entire identity strategy.

That's the real finish line. It's when the change has stuck, the value is being realized every day, and you’ve built a foundation of trust that you can continue to build on for years to come.

What's the biggest topic that keeps coming up in your customer conversations these days?

Doug: I'm having a lot of fun clarifying the difference between simply checking a document and actually verifying a person's identity. Many companies believe that if they scan a driver's license, they're secure. But I always ask, "Okay, that tells you the document is probably real, but how do you really know who's holding it?" That question changes everything. Between the rise of AI-generated fakes, or the simple reality that people lose their wallets, relying on a single document is incredibly fragile. The last thing you want is your top employee stranded and locked out of their accounts because their license is missing.

I move the conversation to a multi-factor approach. We check the document, yes, but then we use biometrics to bind it to the live person in front of the camera, and then we cross-reference that against another trusted signal, like the phone they already use to sign in. It gives you true assurance that the right person is there. More importantly, it provides multiple paths so your employees are never left helpless. It’s about building a resilient system that’s both more secure and more practical for your people.

Bonus question! What’s one piece of advice you’d give to someone just starting to manage these complex sales and deployment cycles?

Doug: Get obsessed with your customer's business, not your product. Understand what keeps their executives up at night, what their biggest operational headaches are, and what their long-term goals are. If you can authentically map your solution to solving those core problems, you stop being a salesperson and start being a strategic partner. Everything else follows from that.

Thanks for the insights, Doug. It’s clear that partnership is the key ingredient to success!

Keywords

PAM, IGA, CyberArk, Palo Alto, identity security, AI, machine identity, cybersecurity, information flows, behavioral analysis

Summary

In this episode of the Analyst Brief Podcast, Simon Moffatt and David Mahdi discuss the significant changes in the cybersecurity landscape, particularly focusing on Privileged Access Management (PAM) and Identity Governance and Administration (IGA). They explore the recent acquisition of CyberArk by Palo Alto, the evolution of identity security, and the convergence of various identity management solutions.

The conversation highlights the importance of information flows, and the need for a mindset shift in the industry to effectively address identity security challenges.

Takeaways

The cybersecurity landscape is rapidly changing due to AI. PAM and IGA are evolving but remain siloed. The acquisition of CyberArk by Palo Alto signifies a shift in identity security. Organizations struggle with integrating disparate identity technologies. Behavioral analysis is crucial for identifying security threats. AI will play a significant role in optimizing identity security. Defensive acquisitions are common in the cybersecurity industry. The future of identity security relies on understanding information flows.

Chapters

00:00 Welcome Back and Industry Changes

02:01 The Evolution of Privileged Access Management (PAM)

10:41 The Convergence of Cybersecurity and Identity

16:13 The Future of Identity Management Platforms

24:23 Understanding Information Flows in Cybersecurity

28:12 The Role of AI in Identity Management

33:42 Navigating Mergers and Acquisitions in Tech

39:50 The Future of Identity Security and AI Integration

September 2025 Are markets ready for tokenised stocks’ global impact?

Nasdaq has filed with the SEC to tokenise every listed stock by 2026. If approved, this would be the first time tokenised securities trade on a major U.S. exchange, a milestone that could transform global capital markets. Under the proposal, investors will be able to choose whether to settle their trades in traditional digital form or in tokenised blockchain form.

As, more and more firms are tokenising stocks. The implications are potentially huge:

24/7 trading of tokenised equities Instant settlement Programmable ownership Full shareholder rights, identical to traditional shares

This is a large overhaul of market infrastructure. Sounds great, but the reality is much more complex.

How to tokenise stocks?

Tokenised stocks today can be structured in several ways, including:

Indirect tokenisation: The issuer raises money via the issuance of a financial instrument different from the stocks, typically a debt instrument (e.g. bond/note), and buys the underlying stocks with the raised funds. The tokens may either be the financial instrument itself or represent a claim on that financial instrument. The token does not grant investors direct ownership of the underlying stock. However, it is simple to launch. Direct tokenisation: Stocks are tokenised directly at the stock company level, preserving voting, dividends, and reporting rights. Although this method tends to be more difficult to implement due to legal and infrastructure requirements.

Both structures have their benefits and drawbacks. The real issue, however, is how the tokens are managed post-issuance.

Permissionless vs permissioned tokens

While choosing a structure for tokenised stocks is important, the true success of tokenisation depends on whether the tokens are controlled or free to move, because this determines compliance, investor protection, and ultimately whether the market can scale safely.

Permissionless: Tokens can move freely on-chain after issuance. Token holders gain economic exposure, but not shareholder rights. Secondary market trading is not controlled, creating compliance risks. The legitimate owner of the security is not always clear. Permissioned: Compliance and eligibility are enforced at every stage, embedding rules directly into the token. Crucially, permissioned tokens also guarantee investor safety by making ownership legally visible in the issuer’s register. For issuers, this model also fulfils their legal obligation to know who their investors are at all times. Transfers to non-eligible wallets are blocked, maintaining regulatory safety while preserving trust.

While permissionless tokens may be quicker to launch, they carry significant legal risks, weaken investor trust, and fragment growth. By contrast, permissioned tokens should be considered as the only sustainable approach to tokenising stocks, because they combine compliance, investor protection, and long-term scalability.

The right way forward – compliance at the token level

Nasdaq’s SEC filing shows the path to do this right. Tokenised stocks will only succeed if eligibility and compliance are enforced in both issuance and secondary trading.

That’s where open-source standards like ERC-3643 come in:

Automated compliance baked in: Rules are enforced automatically at the protocol level, not manually after the fact Eligibility checks: Only approved investors can hold the asset, enabling ownership tracking efficiently Controlled transfers: Tokens cannot be sent to non-eligible investors, even in the secondary market Auditability: Every transaction can be monitored in real time, ensuring trust with regulators

This is how tokenised stocks can operate safely at scale, with compliance embedded directly into the digital infrastructure, no matter if it’s through direct or indirect tokenisation. This provides safety at scale, unlocked liquidity, efficiency, and regulatory alignment.

Why this matters now?

Investor demand for tokenised assets is surging. Global banks are exploring issuance, Coinbase has sought approval, and now Nasdaq is moving ahead under the SEC’s umbrella. Tokenisation will be at the core of financial markets.

But shortcuts built on permissionless, freely transferable tokens will only invite regulatory backlash, slowing innovation and preventing the market from scaling.

The future of tokenised shares will be built on:

Carrying full shareholder rights and guaranteeing ownership Automatic, enforced compliance on every trade Integrating directly into existing market infrastructure

That is what true tokenisation means, not synthetic exposure, but embedding the rules of finance into the share itself.

We believe this is the turning point. Nasdaq’s move validates what we’ve been building toward: a global financial system where tokenisation unlocks liquidity, efficiency, and access, not at the expense of compliance, but because of it.

The race is on. The winners won’t be those who move fastest, but those who build markets that are trusted, compliant, and scalable from day one.

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October 9th, 2025 | 🇺🇸 United States of America

Register Now ERC3643 Association Recap

ERC-3643 is recognized in Animoca Brands Research’s latest report on tokenised real-world assets (RWAs).

The report highlights ERC-3643 as a positive step for permissioned token standards, built to solve the exact compliance and interoperability challenges holding the market back.

Read the story here

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Previous Newsletter  Oct10 Are markets ready for tokenised stocks’ global impact? September 2025 Are markets ready for tokenised stocks’ global impact? Nasdaq has filed with the SEC to tokenise every listed stock by 2026. If approved,… Sep1 SkyBridge Tokenises $300m Hedge Funds with Tokeny and Apex Group August 2025 SkyBridge Tokenises $300m Hedge Funds with Tokeny and Apex Group Last month, together with Apex Group, we introduced Apex Digital 3.0, the first… Aug1 Apex Digital 3.0 is Live – The Future of Finance Starts Now July 2025 Apex Digital 3.0 is Live – The Future of Finance Starts Now To truly scale tokenisation, we need a global force at the… Jul1 Real Estate Tokenization Takes Off in Dubai June 2025 Real Estate Tokenization Takes Off in Dubai Dubai’s real estate market is breaking records. According to data shared by Property Finder, Dubai recorded…

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Most people think of digital identity as a mobile driver’s license or app on their phone. But identity isn’t just a credential, it’s infrastructure. Like roads, broadband, or electricity, digital identity frameworks must be built, governed, and funded as public goods.

Today, the lack of a unified identity system fuels fraud, inefficiency, and distrust.  In 2023, the U.S. recorded 3,205 data breaches affecting 353 million people, and the Federal Trade Commission reported $12.5 billion in fraud losses, much of it rooted in identity theft and benefit scams.

These aren’t isolated incidents but symptoms of fragmentation: every agency and organization maintaining its own version of identity, duplicating effort, increasing breach risk, and eroding public trust.

We argue that identity should serve as public infrastructure: a government-backed framework that lets residents prove who they are securely and privately, across contexts, without unnecessary data collection or centralization. Rather than a single product or app, this framework can represent a durable set of technical and statutory controls built to foster long-term trust, protect privacy, and ensure interoperability and individual control.

From Projects to Public Infrastructure

Governments often launch identity initiatives as short-term projects: a credential pilot, a custom-built app, or a single-agency deployment. While these efforts may deliver immediate results, they rarely provide the interoperability, security, or adoption needed for a sustainable identity ecosystem. Treating digital identity as infrastructure avoids these pitfalls by establishing common rails that multiple programs, agencies, and providers can build upon.

A better approach is to adopt a framework model, where digital identity isn’t defined by a single product or format but by adherence to a shared set of technical and policy requirements. These requirements, such as selective disclosure, minimal data retention, and individual control, can apply across many credential types, from driver’s licenses and professional certifications to benefit eligibility and guardianship documentation.

This enables credentials to be iterated and expanded on thoughtfully: credentials can be introduced one at a time, upgraded as standards evolve, and tailored to specific use cases while maintaining consistency in protections and interoperability.

Enforcing Privacy Through Law and Code

Foundational privacy principles such as consent, data minimization, and unlinkability must be enforced by technology, not just policy documents. Digital identity systems should make privacy the default posture, using features (depending on the type of credential) such as:

Selective disclosure (such as proving “over 21” without showing a birthdate) Hardware-based device binding Cryptographically verifiable digital credentials with offline presentation Avoid architectures that risk exposing user metadata during verification.

By embedding security, privacy, and interoperability directly into the architecture, identity systems move beyond compliance and toward real-world protection for residents. These are not optional features, they are statutory expectations brought to life through secure protocols.

Open Standards, Broad Interoperability

Public infrastructure should allow for vendor choice and competitive markets that foster innovation. That’s why modern identity systems should be built on open, freely implementable standards, such as ISO/IEC 18013-5/7, OpenID for Verifiable Presentations (OID4VP), W3C Verifiable Credentials, and IETF SD-JWTs.

These standards allow credentials to be portable across wallet providers and verifiable in both public and private sector contexts, from airports and financial institutions to universities and healthcare. Multi-format issuance ensures credentials are accepted in the widest range of transactions, without compromising on core privacy requirements.

A clear certification framework covering wallets, issuers, and verifiers can ensure compliance with these standards through independent testing, while maintaining flexibility for providers to innovate. Transparent certification also builds trust and ensures accountability at every layer of the ecosystem.

Governance Leads, Industry Builds

Treating digital identity as infrastructure doesn’t mean the public sector has to (or even should) build everything. It means the public sector must set the rules, defining minimum standards, overseeing compliance, and ensuring vendor neutrality.

Wallet providers, credential issuers, and verifiers can all operate within a certified framework if they meet established criteria for security, privacy, interoperability, and user control. Governments can maintain legal authority and oversight while encouraging healthy private-sector competition and innovation.

This governance-first approach creates a marketplace that respects rights, lowers risk, and is solvent. Agencies retain procurement flexibility, while residents benefit from tools that align with their expectations for usability and safety.

Why This Matters

Digital identity is the entry point to essential services: healthcare, education, housing, employment, and more. If it’s designed poorly, it can become fragmented, invasive, or exclusionary. But if it’s designed as infrastructure with strong governance and enforceable protections, it becomes a foundation for inclusion, trust, and public value.

Well-governed digital identity infrastructure enables systems that are:

Interoperable across jurisdictions and sectors Private by design, not retrofitted later Transparent, with open standards and auditability Resilient, avoiding lock-in and enabling long-term evolution

Most importantly, it is trustworthy for residents, not just functional.

A Foundation for the Future

Public infrastructure requires alignment between law, technology, and market design. With identity, that means enforcing privacy in code, using open standards to drive adoption, and establishing certification programs that ensure accountability through independent validation without stifling innovation.

This is more than a modernization effort. It’s a transformation that ensures digital identity systems can grow, adapt, and serve the public for decades to come.

Ready to Build Trustworthy Digital ID Infrastructure?

SpruceID partners with governments to design and implement privacy-preserving digital identity systems that scale. Contact us to explore how we can help you build standards-aligned, future-ready identity infrastructure grounded in law, enforced by code, and trusted by residents.

Contact Us

About SpruceID: SpruceID is building a future where users control their identity and data across all digital interactions.

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With the European Union mandating digital wallets by the end of 2026, and Verifiable Credentials offering new, powerful, and cost-effective ways to solve identity fraud and simplify operations, you may be thinking it’s time to embrace decentralized identity and build your own Verifiable Credential system. You’ve got a developer team, they understand security — so it couldn’t be that difficult, right?

By Helen Garneau

It’s tempting to do things yourself. But there’s a reason a professional painter will almost certainly do a better and quicker job at painting your house than you will. And, when you price how much time it would take you, there’s a good chance a professional will probably end up costing you less too.

The same logic applies to building decentralized identity systems with Verifiable Credentials.

If you have a talented team of engineers, it’s easy to think, “we’ve got this.” They understand security, they can code, issuing and verifying a few credentials sounds simple enough.

But once you start digging into credential formats, protocols, interoperability, global standards, regulations, and governance, what seems like a quick project for a few developers quickly becomes a long, complex, and costly effort to build and maintain a secure, standards-compliant system.

How fast “We got this” turns into “Why did we do this?”

Decentralized identity makes data portable and cryptographically verifiable without the need for certificate authorities or centralized data management. Its vehicle is the Verifiable Credential, a way of sealing any kind of information in a digital container so that it cannot be altered and you can be certain of its origin.

If you trust the origin of the credential — say a passport office or a bank — you can trust that the information placed in the credential has not been altered. Verifiable Credentials are held in digital wallet apps and can be shared by the consent of the holder, whether a person or an organization, in privacy-preserving ways.

Verifiable Credentials are most commonly used to create instantly authenticatable versions of trusted documents, such as passports, driver’s licenses, but they can be created and held by devices for secure data sharing, or robots and AI agents, for authentication and permissioned data access.

The point of all this is that it transforms authentication, fraud prevention, privacy, security, and operational efficiency. You are able to remove usernames and passwords, centralized storage and multi-factor authentication and combine authentication and fraud prevention in a seamless, instant process.

A decentralized ecosystem consists of three parts: an issuer that creates and digitally signs the credential, a holder who keeps it in a digital wallet and presents it for authentication and access to resources, and a verifier or relying party that needs to authenticate the information presented for some purpose.

When building an ecosystem for a use case — say systems account access — here’s what you need to consider: There are, presently, three major credential formats, each with differing communications protocols. They’ve got to interoperate with each other and across different digital wallets according to whatever standards you want to align with. Which are you going to pick?

Then, you need to get them into people’s wallets. Which wallet? An existing one or do you need an SDK?

If you want to verify credentials, you should be able to verify thousands — perhaps tens of thousands — simultaneously. How do you do this when mobile devices don’t have fixed IP addresses? How are you going to establish offline verification? And how are you going to establish governance so that participants know who is a trusted issuer of a credential?

This is just a basic implementation — a foundation to build the kind of solutions the market wants. Are you also prepared to then develop integrated payments, integrated biometrics, digital travel credentials, document validation, and identity and delegated authority for AI agents and robots? You better be, because that’s where the market is now at.

There’s a reason Indicio was the first (and still the only) company to launch a complete, off-the-shelf solution for implementing Verifiable Credentials in both the Amazon and Google Cloud Marketplaces: We built a team composed of pioneers and leaders in decentralized identity, engineers and developers deeply engaged with the open source codebases and communities that have shaped this technology. They live and breathe this stuff every day. And even so, it still took years to build an interoperable, multi-credential, multi-protocol, system that can scale to country-level deployments.

If your team isn’t already familiar with the open-source codebases and the evolving international specifications and standards, how are they going to deliver in a realistic time frame at an acceptable cost?

The probability that your team is going to do all that we did in six months is… low.

The likelihood that they will end up blowing through a lot of your budget attempting to do this is… high.

Interoperability — everyone expects it

No one is going to buy a proprietary, siloed system. Decentralized identity is an architecture for data sharing and integrating markets into functioning ecosystems; if your solution can’t do this, can’t interoperate or scale, it’s missing out on key features that drive business growth. Sure, you may want to start by securing your SSO with a Verifiable Credential, but why limit the power of verification?

For example, one of the key failures of the mobile driver’s license (m/DL) in the U.S. is that so many implementations failed to make verification open to other parties. Think of all the ways an m/DL could be used to prove age or identity. A digital identity that’s locked into a narrow use case and proprietary verification is a wasted opportunity not least because verification can be monetized (Indicio’s m/DL is easily verifiable anywhere).

To make a system work with the rest of the world, it has to speak the relevant languages. That means following multiple standards and protocols that define how credentials are created, stored, and exchanged and, depending on what your needs are, for whatever specific credential workflow you want to deploy, keeping up with some or all of the following:

W3C Verifiable Credential Data Model (VCDM) — defines how credentials are structured and signed.

ISO/IEC 18013-5 and ICAO DTC — govern mobile driver’s licenses (mDL) and Digital Travel Credentials, ensuring global interoperability across borders and transport systems.

DIDComm and DID methods — specify how secure, peer-to-peer communication and decentralized identifiers work.

OpenID for Verifiable Credentials (OID4VC and OID4VP) — bridges decentralized identity with mainstream authentication systems like OAuth and OpenID Connect.

Each of these comes with its own working groups, test suites, and compliance updates. Building your own system means keeping pace with all of them and making sure your implementation doesn’t break every time a standard changes.

With off-the-shelf, you implement in days

Indicio Proven® eliminates the DIY risk. You have a way to start implementing a POC in days, pilot in weeks, launch in months. We’ve spent years doing the heavy lifting so you don’t have to. It’s the mature, field-tested Verifiable Credential infrastructure that governments, airports, and financial institutions already use.

Instead of building from scratch, you have everything you need to start building a solution, a product, or a service so your team is free to focus on things that make you money.

Indicio Proven can already handle country-level deployments and multi-credential workflows. It has been DPIA’d for GDPR. It comes with document validation and biometric authentication, a white-label digital wallet if you need one, a mobile SDK to add Verifiable Credentials to your apps. We’ve already mastered:

Multiple credential formats (AnonCreds, SD-JWT VC, JSON-LD, mdoc/mDL) DIDComm and OID4VC/OID4VP communications protocols Digital Travel Credentials aligned with ICAO DTC-1 and DTC-2 specifications. Decentralized ecosystem governance Hosting on premise, in the cloud or as a SaaS product. A global, enterprise-grade blockchain-based distributed ledger for anchoring credentials Certified training in every aspect of decentralized identity Support packages Continuous updates

In one package, you get everything you need to build, deploy, and stay current with evolving standards, so your team doesn’t have to chase every update.

Deploy with confidence

There’s no shame in DIY, but for Verifiable Credentials, the smarter move is to build on top of something that already works. Indicio does the heavy lifting so you can focus on what matters: using trusted digital identity to deliver value to your users. A Verifiable Credential system should give you trust, not technical debt.

In short: don’t reinvent the tech. Build with what’s already proven.

Want to do it right the first time? Let’s talk.

The post Your authentication dilemma: DIY or off-the-shelf decentralized identity? appeared first on Indicio.

In a recent client call, we were asked whether our platform could help a local government issue digital IDs. 

To answer that, Richard Esplin (Head of Product) put together a live demo.

Instead of complex architectures or long timelines, he showed how a city could issue a digital residency credential and use it instantly across departments. From getting a library card to scheduling trash pickup.

The front end for the proof-of-concept was spun up in an afternoon with an AI code generator. 

Behind the scenes, we handled verifiable credential issuance, verification, selective disclosure, revocation, and ecosystem governance, proving that governments can move from paper processes to reusable, privacy-preserving digital IDs in days, not months.

The UK's Online Safety Act triggered a staggering 1,800% surge in VPN signups within days of implementation.

The UK’s Online Safety Act was introduced to make the internet “safer,” especially for children. It forces websites and platforms to implement strict age verification measures for adult and “harmful” content, often requiring users to upload government IDs, credit cards, or even biometric scans.

While the goal is protection, the method feels intrusive. 

Suddenly, every UK citizen is being asked to share sensitive identity data with third-party verification companies just to access certain sites.

The public response was immediate. 

Within days of implementation, the UK saw a staggering 1,800% surge in VPN signups. 

ProtonVPN jumped to the #1 app in the UK App Store. NordVPN reported a 1,000% surge. In fact, four of the top five free iOS apps in the UK were VPNs. 

Millions of people literally paid to preserve their privacy rather than comply.

This backlash reveals a fundamental flaw in how age verification was implemented.

People are rejecting what they perceive to be privacy-invasive ID uploads. They don’t want to hand over passports, driver’s licenses, or facial scans just to browse.

Can we blame them?

The problem isn’t age verification itself. The problem is the method, which pushes people to circumvent the rules with VPNs or even fake data.

But here’s the thing: we already have better options.

Government-issued digital IDs already exist. Zero-knowledge proofs let you prove you’re 18+ without revealing who you are. Verifiable credentials combine reliability (government-backed trust) with privacy by design.

With this model, the website never sees your personal data. 

The check is still secure, government-backed, and reliable, without creating surveillance or new honeypots of sensitive data.

The VPN surge is proof that people value their digital privacy so much that they’ll pay for it.

If governments want compliance and safety, they need to meet people where they are: with solutions that respect privacy as much as protection.

The UK’s privacy backlash demonstrates exactly why verifiable ID credentials are the way forward. 

They can resolve public resistance while maintaining both effective age checks and digital rights.

In our recent live podcast, Richard Esplin (Dock Labs) spoke with Andrew Hughes (VP of Global Standards, FaceTec) and Ryan Williams (Program Manager of Digital Credentialing, AAMVA) about the rollout of mobile driver’s licenses (mDLs) and what comes next.

One idea stood out: derived credentials.

mDLs are powerful because they bring government-issued identity into a digital format. 

But in practice, most verifiers don’t need everything on your driver’s license. 

A student bookstore doesn’t need your address, it only needs to know that you’re enrolled.

That’s where derived credentials come in. 

They allow you to take verified data from a root credential like an mDL and create purpose-specific credentials:

A student ID for campus services. An employee badge for workplace access. A travel pass or loyalty credential.

Andrew put it simply: if you don’t need to use the original credential with everything loaded into it, don’t. 

Ryan added that the real benefit is eliminating unnecessary personal data entirely, only passing on what’s relevant for the transaction.

Derived credentials also make it possible to combine data from multiple credentials into one, enabling new use cases. 

For example, a travel credential could draw on both a government-issued ID and a loyalty program credential, giving the verifier exactly what they need in a single, streamlined interaction.

This approach flips the model of identity sharing. 

Instead of over-exposing sensitive details, derived credentials enable “less is more” identity verification: stronger assurance for the verifier, greater privacy for the user.

Looking ahead, Andrew revealed that the ISO 18013 Edition 2 will introduce support for revocation and zero-knowledge proofs, enhancements that will make derived credentials even more practical and privacy-preserving.

Bottom line: mDLs are an important foundation, but the everyday future of digital ID lies in derived credentials.

Thales and StandardAero’s StableLight™ Autopilot chosen by leading helicopter operator Heli Austria prezly Thu, 10/09/2025 - 11:00 Civil Aviation Austria

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Facebook X Whatsapp Linkedin Email URL copied to clipboard 09 Oct 2025 Heli Austria selects the StableLight 4-Axis Autopilot from for its single-engine H125 helicopter Next-gen safety & performance: cutting pilot workload and boosting mission capability Proven FAA-certified system now entering EASA validation for European operators

Thales and StandardAero are pleased to announce the StableLight 4-Axis Autopilot system has been selected by Heli Austria, a leading European helicopter operator. The system is currently being installed on one of Heli Austria’s H125 helicopters at their facility in Sankt Johann im Pongau, Salzburg, Austria.

Based on Thales’s Compact Autopilot System, the StableLight 4-Axis Autopilot system combines several robust features into a lightweight system ideally suited for light category rotorcraft. ​ The system transforms the flight control experience of the helicopter with its stability augmentation. Adding stabilized climb flight attitude recovery, auto hover, and a wide range of other sophisticated features, significantly decreases pilot workload. This enhances mission capability and can help to reduce risks in critical flight phases and adverse conditions such as Inadvertent entry into Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IIMC). StableLight has a Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

“Operational and pilot safety are very important to Heli Austria. ​ We have been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to be the European launch customer of this proven product. The added safety features and reliability is a welcomed advantage to our pilots.” Roy Knaus, CEO, Heli Austria.

“At Thales, integrating cutting-edge technologies to deliver safety and trust is fundamental to who we are. By uniting Thales’s advanced expertise with StandardAero’s deep industry knowledge, we harness a powerful combination to provide Heli Austria’s pilots with the autopilot solution they have eagerly awaited.” Florent Chauvancy, Vice President Flight Avionics Activities, Thales.

“We are thrilled to be working with Heli Austria, a renowned operator in the European market. The adoption of our StableLight autopilot system demonstrates their commitment to safety and innovation. Once certified by EASA, European H125 operators will be able to reach a new level of safety and efficiency of helicopter operations with the StableLight system.” ​ Andrew Park, General Manager, StandardAero.

About Thales

Thales (Euronext Paris: HO) is a global leader in advanced technologies for the Defence, Aerospace, and Cyber & Digital sectors. Its portfolio of innovative products and services addresses several major challenges: sovereignty, security, sustainability and inclusion.The Group invests more than €4 billion per year in Research & Development in key areas, particularly for critical environments, such as Artificial Intelligence, cybersecurity, quantum and cloud technologies. Thales has more than 83,000 employees in 68 countries. In 2024, the Group generated sales of €20.6 billion.

About StandardAero

StandardAero is a leading independent pure-play provider of aerospace engine aftermarket services for fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft, serving the commercial, military and business aviation end markets. StandardAero provides a comprehensive suite of critical, value-added aftermarket solutions, including engine maintenance, repair and overhaul, engine component repair, on-wing and field service support, asset management and engineering solutions. StandardAero is an NYSE listed company, under the symbol SARO. For more information about StandardAero, go to www.standardaero.com.

View PDF market_segment : Civil Aviation ; countries : Europe > Austria https://thales-group.prezly.com/thales-and-standardaeros-stablelight-autopilot-chosen-by-leading-helicopter-operator-heli-austria thales-and-standardaeros-stablelighttm-autopilot-chosen-leading-helicopter-operator-heli-austria On Thales and StandardAero’s StableLight™ Autopilot chosen by leading helicopter operator Heli Austria

$OCEAN can be de-pegged and re-listed on exchanges

Singapore, 9 October 2025

Effective immediately, Ocean Protocol Foundation has withdrawn its designated directors and resigned as a member from the Superintelligence Alliance (Singapore) Ltd, aka the “ASI Alliance”. The ASI Alliance was founded on voluntary association and collaboration to promote decentralized AI through a token merger.

Ocean has worked closely with the other members of the Alliance to seek technology integration, joint podcasts and run community events such as the Superintelligence Summit and ETHGlobal NYC hackathon in the past year.

Moving forward, funding for future Ocean development efforts is fully secured. A portion of profits from spin-outs of Ocean derived-technologies will be used to buyback and burn $OCEAN, offering a permanent and continual supply reduction of the $OCEAN supply.

Since 7/2024, 81% of the $OCEAN token supply has been converted into $FET, yet there are still 37,334 $OCEAN token holders representing 270 million $OCEAN, that have not yet converted to $FET on the existing $OCEAN token contract (0x967da … b9F48).

As independent economic actors, former $OCEAN holders can fully decide to continue to hold $FET or not.

At the time of this announcement, the token bridge, fully managed and controlled by Fetch.ai, remains open for $OCEAN holders to convert to $FET at the rate of 0.433226 $FET/$OCEAN.

Any exchange that has de-listed $OCEAN may assess whether they would like to re-list the $OCEAN token. Acquirors can currently exchange for $OCEAN on Coinbase, Kraken, UpBit, Binance US, Uniswap and SushiSwap.

Community questions to be sent to https://t.me/OceanProtocol_Community.

Press questions can be sent to inquiries@oceanprotocol.com.

Ocean Protocol Foundation withdraws from the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance was originally published in Ocean Protocol on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.