August 9, 2026 @ 9:44 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

The Digital Assets sector had plenty to say on stablecoins, the Coldcard hack, and crypto investing this week. Stablecoins “It’s a demand-side story for treasuries at exactly the moment the traditional buyers are stepping back. “The traditional U.S. marginal debt buyer was the foreign official sector,… Read More

August 2, 2026 @ 9:42 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

South American stablecoin usage rising “Brazil’s regulators are already tightening control over stablecoin flows and virtual-asset service providers, and they’re doing it in tiers. Under Resolution 561, virtual assets can no longer settle transactions inside the regulated eFX system, so cross-border payment and receipt flows… Read More

August 2, 2026 @ 9:34 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

Freehand lands $75M for AI agents Freehand’s AI agents manage supply-chain spend for Fortune 500 enterprises. The round was co-led by Battery Ventures and NewRoad Capital Partners, with participation from former U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker’s venture capital PSP Growth, Nexus Venture Partners and others…. Read More

July 31, 2026 @ 10:11 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

Klarna/Apple Upgrade Klarna is the leasing provider behind the Apple Upgrade program, a new hardware leasing option available from Apple in the United States. Apple Upgrade offers a new way to pay for eligible iPhone, Mac, iPad, and Apple Watch. Customers can select from 12-… Read More

July 27, 2026 @ 3:53 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

Fintech innovators were busy integrating AI agents into their products and expanding into new markets. Wondergate’s Payment SaaS platform Payment SaaS platform is designed to help payment platforms and merchants rapidly build global acquiring capabilities. It contains Hong Kong MSO and US/Canada MSB licenses. A… Read More

July 26, 2026 @ 9:48 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

Regulation was on digital assets’ minds this week. They shared their thoughts on the CLARITY and the GENIUS Act and how they compare with the European Union’s MiCA regulation [Markets in Crypto Assets]. Other topics included AI and investing. Markets and investing “Capital is beginning to… Read More

July 25, 2026 @ 9:37 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

Ant’s $1.2 Billion Series A The financing supports expansion of its global payments and financial services business and positions the Alibaba-backed fintech unit for a potential future IPO. Participants included Ant Group and Alibaba Group. Parafin’s $300M forward-flow funding agreement Parafin recently surpassed 50,000 funded… Read More

July 24, 2026 @ 4:18 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

  Regulators are coming with questions about financial institutions’ Artificial Intelligence processes that many will struggle to answer, warns QAwerks CEO Konstantin Klyagin. More documented hallucinations, customer complaints of banking doom loops, and the CFPB’s determination that inaccurate Artificial Intelligence chatbot responses may be federal… Read More

July 21, 2026 @ 8:59 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

While fraud continues to evolve (with AI playing its part), Veriff fraud platform lead, Ira Bondar-Mucci, said familiar methods still reign supreme. Veriff’s identity verification platform supports more than 3,000 businesses, including Western Union, Bumble, Blockchain, Stake, Instacart and AWS. Veriff’s 2026 Identity Fraud Report… Read More

July 20, 2026 @ 3:53 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

Brokerage infrastructure provider Alpaca raises $135M Peak XV led the raise with participation from Elefund, Opera Tech Ventures, the venture capital arm of BNP Paribas Group, and Unbound. It follows Alpaca’s $150 million Series D from January, which valued the company at $1.15 billion. Flex… Read More

July 19, 2026 @ 9:31 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

Fresh off the holiday, digital assets insiders returned to the grind, with fresh thoughts on the CLARITY and GENIUS Acts, AI, PayPal/Stripe, and more. CLARITY Act “The US Senate is set to deliberate on the CLARITY Act on July 20. The bill’s key debates center on… Read More

July 18, 2026 @ 2:30 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

Elliptic launches continuous monitoring Elliptic’s solution gives crypto compliance teams a continuously accurate view of customer risk rather than a picture frozen at the last screening. It pairs event detection with fully configurable alerting. Continuous Monitoring detects the full range of risk-changing events rather than… Read More

July 15, 2026 @ 10:00 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

When designing Entrust Biometric Authentication, the company acknowledged some realities critical to the marketplace, senior director of product management Rima Pawar said. These included Artificial Intelligence’s (AI) impact and the importance of ease of adoption. Entrust Biometric Authentication blends biometrics with adaptive risk-based authentication to… Read More

July 13, 2026 @ 9:03 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

Digital asset insiders were in holiday mode this week, but a couple still weighed in on crypto investing and the ongoing saga of the CLARITY Act, crypto market infrastructure legislation that remains stalled in the US Senate. Crypto investing “After a relentless six-month rally, AI… Read More

July 12, 2026 @ 10:31 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

An interesting integration connecting Payfuture and Shopify highlights this week’s fintech partnerships and product announcements. Payfuture launches Indian Shopify integration Merchants using Shopify can now enable Indian payment methods, including Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and NetBanking, through a single connection with Payfuture’s payment app. Stablecoin… Read More

July 10, 2026 @ 9:58 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

A busy week for Klarna highlights this week’s fintech raises and acquisitions. Klarna announces €900M German facility It’s Klarna’s first forward flow and warehouse financing agreement in Germany. Under the two-year agreement, Klarna has sold a portfolio of its German Fair Financing term loans and… Read More

July 8, 2026 @ 8:00 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

Colombia’s Addi closes $85M Series D Addi is a Colombian commerce, credit and BNPL platform. The round was led by Citius, co-led by BTG Pactual, and included participation from GIC, Monashees and others. Addi also received authorization from the Superintendencia Financiera de Colombia to operate… Read More

July 6, 2026 @ 5:12 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

A new report from Onbe and NRG illustrates how consumer preferences for how they receive corporate payouts have changed in the digital age. 2026 Payouts Landscape: How mobile-first behavior is rewiring consumer expectations for corporate payouts is available here. Roughly 89% of consumers prefer digital… Read More

July 5, 2026 @ 3:49 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

Security firm Microblink’s report Mapping the Rise of AI-Powered Identity Fraud describes how AI’s widespread availability and ease of use have changed how criminals commit fraud, and how security companies stop them. AI has erased human limitations. It is now easy to operate across multiple… Read More

July 4, 2026 @ 2:04 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

This week, Digital minds were focused on acronyms – AI, MiCA, BTC and OUSD. AI “Everyone is focused on whether OpenAI or Anthropic reaches the public markets first, but that assumes the future of AI will be decided by model providers. Whether that’s the right assumption… Read More