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Bloomberg: Trump prepares for possible escalation of military actions against Iran after the US-Israel elections

According to Bloomberg, the United States is increasing deployments in preparation for a possible resumption of military strikes against Iran. Trump has repeatedly hinted that U.S. forces may resume strikes against Iran after the November 3 midterm elections and has sent a third aircraft carrier strike group and an additional 10,000 sailors and Marines toward the Persian Gulf to provide commanders with more options, although the exact timing remains uncertain.U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper visited Israel this week without prior announcement and met with Netanyahu. Israel will hold elections on October 27. Meanwhile, after Iran-backed Houthi forces expanded the conflict to Saudi Arabia, attacking airports and energy facilities, the U.S. State Department has ordered the evacuation of some diplomatic personnel and their families stationed in Saudi Arabia.A source familiar with Iran's thinking stated that Iran is preparing for a new round of bombings that may occur before and after the U.S. midterm elections and is planning retaliatory actions in the Middle East, including against Israel and the United Arab Emirates. This individual believes that the period from the end of the U.S. elections until the new Congress is sworn in in January will be the most difficult phase, with a way out being to reach an agreement that allows both sides to claim victory. Some officials from Gulf countries are concerned that the intensity of the conflict after its resumption may exceed that before the pause.Recent diplomatic attempts to end the conflict have failed to yield results. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif stated this week that if there is sufficient evidence showing that the U.S. genuinely wishes to reach a fair, dignified, and permanent resolution to end the conflict, Iran is willing to give diplomacy another chance, but he also noted that there is currently not much reason to expect progress.The conflict has disrupted energy transportation in the Persian Gulf, pushing Brent crude oil prices up more than 80% this year and raising U.S. gasoline prices and living costs. A Pew Research Center survey conducted from September 28 to October 4 shows that about two-thirds of Americans disapprove of Trump's handling of the Iran conflict, and about half of respondents expect the war to last more than a year. Reports indicate that concerns over military escalation are once again driving up oil prices and affecting the Republican Party's prospects in the midterm elections.
2026-10-24

first_img Australia Savings Bank: Starting from October 1, the additional fee for designated card network transactions will be canceled

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) stated in the frequently asked questions document regarding retail payment regulation conclusions that the removal of surcharges for the designated card networks eftpos, Mastercard, and Visa starting from October 1, 2026, is in the public interest. The RBA will lift the ban on the "no surcharge" rule for the aforementioned networks from that date, with the changes based on Standard No. 3 of 2016 and the revisions to the merchant card payment costs and surcharge standards in 2026. eftpos, Mastercard, and Visa have all decided to implement the no surcharge rule from that date, generally applicable to their credit, debit, and prepaid cards, including cards issued overseas.American Express, UnionPay, and PayPal have also decided to eliminate surcharges, but are currently not formally regulated by the RBA. American Express and UnionPay will withdraw from their existing commitments with the RBA on October 1, 2026, while PayPal's no surcharge rule will take effect on October 5, 2026. This scope is limited to fees charged due to customer card payments and does not include surcharges for weekends, public holidays, booking fees, or service fees. Merchants must comply with the new card organization rules unless exceptions apply; businesses, non-profit organizations, and inter-business card payments do not receive a general exemption.The reforms will be implemented in phases. Starting from October 1, 2026, a lower interchange fee cap will apply to domestic card transactions; from October 30, designated card networks and large acquirers must publish the specified card payment fee information on their websites. From January 30, 2027, large acquirers must disclose how the decrease in interchange fees is passed on to merchant service fees; starting April 1, the interchange fee cap will apply to transactions involving overseas-issued cards acquired in Australia, and acquirers must also provide merchants with more detailed statements. The RBA stated that businesses can still factor the costs of accepting card payments into their overall pricing and may offer discounts for specific payment methods.

Coinbase report: Stablecoins transfer over 400 million dollars on average per hour, with 73% of transactions occurring outside of U.S. banking hours

According to a report by The Block, Coinbase released a report titled "The Always-On Dollar" indicating that in the third quarter of 2026, the average hourly transfer amount of organic stablecoin transactions exceeded $400 million. Over the past 12 months, as of July 31, approximately 73% of filtered stablecoin transfer volume occurred outside of U.S. banking hours, highlighting the demand for 24/7 stablecoin payments.The report shows that the adjusted quarterly transfer volume of stablecoins has grown to four times its original amount since the beginning of 2023, reaching $891 billion in the third quarter of 2026. At the current growth rate, this figure is expected to reach $1.5 trillion by the end of 2027. The report also noted that using USDC to remit $200 through the Base network can save about 86% in fees compared to traditional payment channels. Furthermore, if 80% of global international transactions shift to stablecoin payment networks, the global annual GDP could increase by an additional $155 billion.Looking ahead, the report believes that stablecoins are likely to become an important payment infrastructure for the AI agent economy. McKinsey estimates that by 2030, between $3 trillion to $5 trillion in B2C commercial transactions will be facilitated by AI agents, with stablecoins supporting small transactions such as payment task fees between agents, purchasing API calls, and on-demand access to data and computing power.

X-Agent on-chain data is growing rapidly, x402 payments have surpassed 680,000 transactions

X-Agent's latest Dune data shows that as of October 20, the platform's related on-chain activities have reached 1,268,897 transactions, with the number of Agentic Wallets reaching 39,649. At the same time, a total of 680,285 x402 payments and 233,188 AI Activity Syncs have been generated.From the Dune trend data, X-Agent's on-chain activity saw significant growth in October, with Transactions rapidly increasing in volume for the month, and x402 Payments also experiencing notable growth recently. Compared to traditional AI products that mainly measure user numbers, conversation volume, and model invocation counts, what is more noteworthy in this data set is that AI Agents within the X-Agent ecosystem are gradually generating real, verifiable on-chain economic activities.Through the infrastructure of Agentic Wallet, x402 payments, and AI Activity Sync, Agents are evolving from mere information exchange tools to economic participants capable of executing tasks, using wallets, initiating payments, and generating on-chain records. This further validates the path of the Agent Economy that X-Agent is promoting: Build → Act → Pay → Verify. From "creating AI Agents" to "enabling Agents to truly execute and transact," X-Agent is attempting to connect Agent capabilities, on-chain execution, and payment settlement into a complete closed loop.As the scale of x402 payments and Agentic Wallet continues to grow, the Agent Economy is gradually transforming from a concept into real network activities that can be directly observed and measured by on-chain data.

first_img Ripple integrates the Privy wallet under Stripe with the XRP Ledger, AI payments exceed 14 million transactions

Ripple announced the integration of the wallet technology from Privy, a subsidiary of Stripe, into the XRP Ledger, allowing financial applications and AI agents to create accounts, hold cryptocurrency assets, and complete payments without users needing to manage wallet software themselves. Developers can create wallets within their own products and authorize transfers involving XRP, the US dollar stablecoin RLUSD issued by Ripple, and other network assets. Privy is responsible for the wallet infrastructure, reducing the workload for application developers while supporting the export of private keys or mnemonic phrases for wallet migration to other platforms.This integration also allows AI agents or automated bots to hold funds and automatically pay for online data and service fees. Privy documentation states that wallets running on enterprise servers can allow software to hold and spend funds, including purchasing data access services through the x402 payment standard. J. Ayo Akinyele, head of engineering at RippleX, stated that the network has processed over 13 million agent payments via x402, accounting for about 25% of ledger activity. Data from the XRPL AI Hub operated by payment infrastructure developer t54 shows that as of Wednesday, cumulative transactions exceeded 14.3 million, covering 169 registered merchants.However, the cumulative transfer amount is much smaller than the scale suggested by the number of transactions, with the dashboard recording cumulative payments of approximately 6,991 XRP and 12,752 RLUSD, most transaction amounts being very small. Ripple began providing related tools to developers in June and expanded support for payment standards developed by Stripe and payment blockchain Tempo in September.
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