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US sanctions the developer of Iran’s CBDC
February 16, 2024
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On Wednesday the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions on Informatics Services Corporation (ISC). The company is a subsidiary of the Central Bank of Iran and developed its central bank digital currency (CBDC) and other payment systems.

In addition to the ISC, two firms in Dubai and one in Turkey are also sanctioned for procuring technology on behalf of ISC. The UAE based entities are Advance Banking Solution Trading and Freedom Star General Trading. OFAC says ISC procured information security items subject to national security and anti-terrorism controls.

The Central Bank of Iran has played a critical role in providing financial support to the IRGC-QF (Revolutionary Guard-Qods Force) and Hizballah, two key actors intent on further destabilizing the Middle East,” said Brian E. Nelson, Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.

CBDC is one of the tools that Iran plans to use to circumvent U.S. sanctions. The country joined the BRICS intergovernmental organization this year. One of its first moves was to encourage cooperation around payment systems, digital currencies and common currencies.

At the same meeting, Russia emphasized the conclusion from the previous BRICS meeting to promote the use of local currencies rather than the U.S. dollar. 

Last January, there were Russian reports that Iran and Russia might use a gold-backed currency to trade with each other. At the time, we noted that Russia’s regulation on Digital Financial Assets (tokenized real world assets) prohibited using DFAs for payments. However, in April Russia published a draft law to allow DFAs to be used for cross border payments.

Meanwhile, Iran started piloting its CBDC in 2022. It reportedly uses Hyperledger Fabric.

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⚠️ Ripple appearance at the Headquarters of the Bank of Spain

⚠️ Ripple appearance at the Headquarters of the Bank of Spain, Co-organised by the Reinventing BRETTON WOODS Committee⚠️
September 10 and 11, 2019

Full video: https://youtu.be/kUx1pJ9wadQ?si=FrqIfoeWJHtgBZXa

00:07:08
📽️ One of the most important things we’ve done at Pyth is help bring U.S. GDP onchain 🏛️

Working with the U.S. Department of Commerce to publish official economic data on a public blockchain is a powerful signal of where global market infrastructure is headed. When core economic indicators become cryptographically verifiable, composable, and accessible in real time, it opens the door to a more transparent and more efficient financial system for everyone.

Thanks to Roundtable and Jackson Hinkle for hosting a thoughtful conversation on how this came together and what it means for the future of market data.

In a conversation with Jackson Hinkle

Full interview link: https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/policy/why-washington-is-experimenting-with-public-blockchains-for-economic-data

00:04:14
Patent US10144532B2 | Craft using an inertial mass reduction device

🚀 The Mind-Blowing Patent That Could Revolutionize Space Travel: US Navy's Anti-Gravity Craft! 🛸

December 4, 2018 - The day physics got weird

🤯 What If I Told You...

The US Navy patented a spacecraft that could bend the laws of physics as we know them? No, this isn't science fiction or the latest Marvel movie – this is US Patent US10144532B2, and it's about to blow your mind! 💥

🎯 The Patent That Made Physicists Go "Wait, WHAT?!"

Filed on April 28, 2016, and granted on December 4, 2018, this patent describes a "Craft Using an Inertial Mass Reduction Device" – which is fancy talk for "spaceship that can make itself lighter than physics allows."

Invented by Salvatore Cezar Pais and assigned to the US Department of Navy, this isn't your average paper airplane design. We're talking about technology that could theoretically allow spacecraft to travel at extreme speeds by literally manipulating the fabric of spacetime itself! ⚡

🔬 The Science Behind the Magic✨

👉Here's where it gets really wild:

🌀 The ...

00:05:23
👉 Coinbase just launched an AI agent for Crypto Trading

Custom AI assistants that print money in your sleep? 🔜

The future of Crypto x AI is about to go crazy.

👉 Here’s what you need to know:

💠 'Based Agent' enables creation of custom AI agents
💠 Users set up personalized agents in < 3 minutes
💠 Equipped w/ crypto wallet and on-chain functions
💠 Capable of completing trades, swaps, and staking
💠 Integrates with Coinbase’s SDK, OpenAI, & Replit

👉 What this means for the future of Crypto:

1. Open Access: Democratized access to advanced trading
2. Automated Txns: Complex trades + streamlined on-chain activity
3. AI Dominance: Est ~80% of crypto 👉txns done by AI agents by 2025

🚨 I personally wouldn't bet against Brian Armstrong and Jesse Pollak.

👉 Coinbase just launched an AI agent for Crypto Trading

🚨 Ripple Drops $2.7 B Cash-and-Stock Deal for Full-Stack Financial Platform 🚨

Ripple has agreed to buy (subject to CFIUS and EC clearance) a yet-unnamed “full-stack” payments, FX and treasury-suite provider—valued at $2.7 B, its largest acquisition to date—to fold fiat rails, card issuing and 200+ country licenses directly into the XRP Ledger ecosystem, according to Crypto Threads’ unnamed sources close to the board.

🔑 Key points

🔹 Target profile:

  • 1,100 employees, 42 offices; owns EMI licenses in EU/UK, MSB registrations in 47 U.S. states, PI/PF licenses in Singapore, HK, UAE; processes $48 B annual payments volume, 65 % B2B cross-border.

  • Proprietary FX engine aggregates 450+ correspondent-bank routes plus four CSD access points (Fedwire, TARGET2, BOJ-NET, CHATS); average FX markup 18 bps vs Ripple ODL’s current 60 bps.

  • White-label card platform (Visa Fintech Fast-Track member) with 3.2 M virtual cards issued; instant push-to-debit rails in 70 countries.

🔹 Deal ...

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💯 It’s all a scam to keep you enslaved‼️ 💯

The founders are shaking their heads in disgrace.. 🫨

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🚨 Institutional Bitcoin Futures Activity Climbs on Clarity Act Markup 🚨

CoinGape reports a 38 % spike in CME Bitcoin futures open interest (OI) to 9.4 B and a record 25,600-lot block trade last week as hedge funds and asset-managers price in passage of the “Financial Innovation and Technology (FIT) Clarity Act,” whose House committee markup added explicit legal definitions for digital-commodity exchanges, broker-dealers and custody.

🔑 Key points

🔹 Volume surge:

CME BTC OI +38 % WoW to 128k contracts (≈ 9.4 B notional); ETH OI +27 % to 4.1 B; both exceed pre-ETF launch levels.

Macro funds behind 62 % of gross longs; net-short ratio among prop desks fell from 0.79 to 0.46, biggest drop since Oct-2021.

🔹 Block-trade record: 25,600-contract (1.9 B) Mar-26 expiry printed via TP ICAP on 14 Jan—largest single-leg institutional BTC futures trade in CME history; counterparties listed as “two large U.S. pensions” per broker note.

🔹 FIT Clarity catalyst:

House Ag & Financial Services committees ...

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🚨David Grusch on The Megyn Kelly Show🚨

Earlier this week, UFO/UAP whistleblower David Grusch appeared on The Megyn Kelly Show for a brief but revealing interview. During the conversation, Grusch named individuals he claimed were involved in managing the alleged UFO/UAP Legacy crash retrieval program, statements that immediately drew attention across the disclosure community.

Most notably, Grusch asserted that former Vice President Dick Cheney played a central role in overseeing the program. Cheney’s name has circulated within UFO/UAP research circles for years, but this marks the first time it has been spoken publicly by a former intelligence official who claims direct knowledge of the issue. It is also notable that just weeks ago, journalist Ross Coulthart independently referenced Cheney in a similar context, lending additional weight to the consistency of these claims.

Grusch also named former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, stating that Clapper was not only aware of the crash retrieval issue, but managed it and helped place individuals into key roles, both publicly and behind the scenes. These are serious assertions that warrant scrutiny and further investigation, given their potential implications for disclosure.

Please watch the full interview and consider its significance within the broader context of the disclosure conversation. Please note that the interview concludes with a paid promotional pitch, and Grusch does not provide any additional comments after the pitch.

 

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Stellar CEO Reveals Where Real Opportunity Lies in Crypto Market: Details

In a recent tweet, Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) CEO and Executive Director Denelle Dixon defines what "real opportunity" is in blockchain as a new financial future beckons.

The SDF CEO was reacting to a recent Bloomberg report on Bank of New York Mellon Corp (BNY), Nasdaq, S&P Global and iCapital participation in a new $50 million investment round by Digital Asset Holdings. This comes as some of Wall Street’s biggest names embrace the technology that underpins cryptocurrencies to handle traditional assets.

Reacting to this development, Stellar Foundation CEO Denelle Dixon stated that every blockchain investment is a bet on a different financial future. Dixon added that seeing banks explore blockchain technology validates what has been known over the years.

Real opportunity defined

While Wall Street’s biggest names betting on blockchain might be one of the most significant adoption milestones in the digital asset market, Dixon defines what real opportunity is and what it is not.

According to the SDF executive director, real opportunity is not replicating old systems on new rails but rather building open networks that fundamentally expand global finance participation.

"But the real opportunity isn’t replicating old systems on new rails—it’s building open networks that fundamentally expand who gets to participate in global finance. That’s the opportunity," Dixon tweeted.

At the Meridian 2025 event, Stellar outlined its long-term privacy strategy, committing to investing in critical privacy infrastructure and building foundational cryptographic capabilities.

Stellar eyes privacy upgrade

A new protocol upgrade is on the horizon for the Stellar network: X-Ray, which lays the groundwork for developers to build privacy applications on Stellar using zero-knowledge (ZK) cryptography.

The protocol timeline testnet vote is anticipated for Jan. 7, 2026, while the mainnet vote is expected for Jan. 22, 2026.

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XDC Network's acquisition of Contour Network

XDC Network's acquisition of Contour Network marks a silent shift to connect the digital trade infrastructure to real-time, tokenized settlement rails.

In a world where cross-border payments still take days and trap trillions in idle liquidity, integrating Contour’s trade workflows with XDC Network Blockchains' ISO 20022 financial messaging standard to bridge TradFi and Web3 in Trade Finance.

The Current State of Cross-Border Trade Settlements

Cross-border payments remain one of the most inefficient parts of global finance. For decades, companies have inter-dependency with banks and their correspondent banks across the world, forcing them to maintain trillions of dollars in pre-funded nostro and vostro balances — the capital that sits idle while transactions crawl across borders.

Traditional settlement is slow, often 1–5 days, and often with ~2-3% in FX and conversion fees. For every hour a corporation can’t access its own cash increases the cost of financing, tightens liquidity that could be used for other purposes, which in turn slows economic activity.

Before SWIFT, payments were fully manual. Intermediary banks maintained ledgers, and reconciliation across multiple institutions limited speed and volume.

SWIFT reshaped global payments by introducing a secure, standardized messaging infrastructure through ISO 20022 - which quickly became the language of money for 11,000+ institutions in 200 countries.

But SWIFT only fixed the messaging — not the movement. Actual value still moves through slow, capital-intensive correspondent chains.

Regulated and Compliant Stablecoin such as USDC (Circle) solves the part SWIFT never could: instant, on-chain settlement.

Stablecoin Settlement revamping Trade and Tokenization

Stablecoin such as USDC is a digital token pegged to the US Dollar, still the most widely used currency for trade, enabling the movement of funds instantly 24*7 globally - transparently, instantly, and without the need for any intermediaries and the need to lock in trillions of dollars of idle cash.

Tokenized settlement replaces multi-day reconciliation with on-chain finality, reducing:

  • Dependency on intermediaries
  • Operational friction
  • Trillions locked in idle liquidity

For corporates trapped in long working capital cycles, this is transformative.

Digital dollars like USDC make the process simple:

Fiat → Stablecoin → On-Chain Transfer → Fiat

This hybrid model is already widely used across remittances, payouts, and treasury flows.

But one critical piece of global commerce is still lagging:

👉 Trade finance.

The Missing link is still Trade Finance Infrastructure.

While payments innovation has raced ahead, trade finance infrastructure hasn’t kept up. Document flows, letters of credit, and supply-chain financing remain siloed, paper-heavy, and operationally outdated.

This is exactly where the next breakthrough will happen - and why the recent XDC Network acquisition of Contour is a silent revolution.

It transforms to a new era of trade-driven liquidity through an end-to-end digital trade from shipping docs to payment confirmation – one infrastructure that powers all.

The breakthrough won’t come from payments alone — it will come from connecting trade finance to real-time settlement rails.

The XDC + Contour Shift: A Silent Revolution

  • Contour already connects global banks and corporates through digital LCs and digitized trade workflows.
  • XDC Blockchain brings a settlement layer built for speed, tokenization, and institutional-grade interoperability and ISO 20022 messaging compatibility

Contour’s digital letter of credit workflows will be integrated with XDC’s blockchain network to streamline trade documentation and settlement.

Together, they form the first end-to-end digital trade finance network linking:

Documentation → Validation → Settlement all under a single infrastructure.

XDC Ventures (XVC.TECH) is launching a Stable-Coin Lab to work with financial institutions on regulated stablecoin pilots for trade to deepen institutional trade-finance integration through launch of pilots with banks and corporates for regulated stable-coin issuance and settlement.

The Bottom Line

Payments alone won’t transform Global Trade Finance — Trade finance + Tokenized Settlement will.

This is the shift happening underway XDC Network's acquisition of Contour is the quiet catalyst.

Learn how trade finance is being revolutionised:

https://www.reuters.com/press-releases/xdc-ventures-acquires-contour-network-launches-stablecoin-lab-trade-finance-2025-10-22/

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