AARP estimates that financial exploitation costs older Americans more than $28 billion each year. As of 2025, 16 states have sweeping reporting requirements that require nearly everyone who becomes aware of mistreatment to report it. And every state requires at least certain categories of people to report abuse. Mandatory reporting aims to overcome the many reasons people might otherwise stay silent such as fear of retaliation, reluctance to damage relationships, or simple unwillingness to get involved. By making reporting a legal duty, states hope to turn bystanders into protectors. Repealing mandatory reporting statutes may not be politically realistic but amending them is. States should reconsider blanket mandates and focus on situations where victims are at ongoing risk or are genuinely unable to act for themselves. Wisconsin’s approach, which allows would-be reporters to consider whether reporting is in the victim’s best interest, could be a model for other states seeking to achieve a better balance between protecting older adults on one hand, and respecting their privacy and right to self-determination on the other. Modernizing reporting mandates, however, is only the first step. Ultimately, the success of mandatory reporting laws depends on the strength of the systems that respond to reports when made. If APS lacks resources to investigate and offer services, or if the services offered have limited value, then reports (even if dutifully made) may not result in meaningful protection. Accordingly, it is important to think about how to expand the tools that are available to APS. One promising approach is being pioneered by the RISE Collaborative model. The approach pairs older adults who have experienced mistreatment with a professional “advocate” who helps the older adult embrace a desire for improvement and identify goals. The advocate can then work with the older adult to help achieve those goals including repairing relationships that may have been damaged by the abuse.
The convergence of institutional asset tokenization, mature stablecoin infrastructure and government digital currency initiatives shifts crypto from speculative toward practical financial services integration
Three key developments that are harbingers of change to come: BlackRock already has a tokenized U.S. treasury vehicle with over $1b in assets. This makes it the largest tokenized firm of its kind. But the big news is Blackrock is reportedly looking to tokenize its ETFs. This would change how ETFs are traded. It would allow them to be traded 24/7 – and represent an explosion in relevant assets. Robinhood is making similar moves, launching both tokenized versions of stocks and ETFs over the summer. Interestingly, it includes those of private companies like OpenAI or SpaceX. The market for tokenized assets already grew 85% last year to $15 billion (excluding stablecoins). McKinsey estimates tokenized markets could reach $2 trillion by 2030. The World Economic Forum projects tokenization could represent 10% of global GDP as soon as 2027. Tokenization is moving from fringe experimentation, into a likely mainstay of some of the world’s largest asset managers. Stablecoins represent more than $250 billion in value today. More than 500 million wallets now hold stablecoins, with emerging markets driving much of that growth. While in the past crypto wallets were for speculation, many use cases today are mainstay financial services across treasury, settlements, cross-border payments. For corporates, they enable instant settlement with transparency. For banks, they radically reduce counterparty risk. For investors, they provide stability in volatile markets. Apps like Dollar App are building on top of stablecoins to allow users to save and spend in US dollars. Stripe is incubating Tempo, a new Layer-1 blockchain designed for payments. Its design partners include Visa, Deutsche Bank, Shopify, Revolut, Nubank, DoorDash, OpenAI, and Anthropic. Stripe has also spent over a billion dollars acquiring stablecoin infrastructure — including its $1.1 billion acquisition of Bridge. Circle, Visa, and others are experimenting with proprietary blockchains to reduce costs and accelerate settlement. More quietly, but likely far more transformative are central bank actions. One hundred and thirty-seven countries, representing 98% of global GDP, are now exploring central bank digital currencies. As governments adopt digital money, banks, fintechs and corporates will likely follow.
US biometric card market projected to reach $3 million by 2026 targeting high-net-worth customers willing to pay premium to bypass PIN requirements
Although the biometric payment cards market is expanding, the higher cost of these cards can be prohibitive; at present, many banks don’t want to offer it widely because of the economics, Rahul Pandita, marketing manager at Future Market Insights said. Cost, however, could be expected to drop over time, assuming market volume increases, says Frédéric Martinez, head of innovative payment cards at Thales. Additionally, while fingerprint sensor cards have their supporters, they aren’t the only biometric game in town. Many consumers prefer to pay with their phones, forgoing a physical card altogether. Momentum is also rising for other biometric payment methods, such as palm and face-recognition technology, Pandita said. “The growth is subdued, but the growth is still there,” Pandita told. High-net-worth individuals who have high credit limits and tend to be big spenders could be a good target market, says David Shipper, strategic advisor in the retail banking and payments practice at Datos Insights. Some of these consumers prefer a physical card rather than paying with their phone, and most customers still want both options, he said. A bank could differentiate itself by offering a biometric card to high-net-worth individuals, he said. Frequent travelers could also be interested in biometric cards, said Martinez. Biometric cards could be especially good for people who travel to areas of the world that impose a pin requirement. They could also reduce the friction that can happen when consumers are traveling within the U.S. and card issuers decline transactions outside the user’s home area due to suspected fraud, Martinez said. Shipper said, “There’s definitely a market in the U.S. for this. It’s just smaller than outside the U.S.”
Paid’s ‘results-based billing’ automation enables agent providers to charge based on “points of margin saved” rather than per-user fees, solving the unit economics problem where unlimited usage could drive AI companies into losses due to LLM usage and cloud costs
Manny Medina, founder of sales automation startup Outreach ($4.4 billion valuation), has wowed investors with his young startup, Paid. Paid just closed an oversubscribed $21.6 million seed round led by Lightspeed. The startup’s valuation is over $100 million. Paid came out of stealth in March offering an interesting contribution to the AI agentic world: The company doesn’t offer agents. It offers a way for agent makers to charge their customers for these worker algorithms, based on the value their agents provide. This is a growing theme in AI, sometimes called “results-based billing.” Paid promises to help agent makers “start charging for points of margin saved by their customers,” Medina describes. It’s a new way of charging for software for the AI age. This is instead of the unlimited use, per-user fees of the SaaS era, or the unlimited use, buy-it-once-and-install-it fees of the client/server era. Per-user fees don’t work because agent makers pay usage fees to the model providers as well as to cloud providers. Unlimited use could drive them into the red. (The vibe coding startup world tends to suffer from this issue.) Agent providers instead “need to show the value the agent is delivering to your customers, because agents are running in the background for the most part,” Medina tells TechCrunch. If agents do work as advertised, then they’ll be assigned increasingly more, with their growing workloads going unnoticed. Paid is also starting to see success with SaaS companies looking at agents for their next big growth. The startup just landed ERP vendor IFS as a new customer.
‘Soulbound tokens’ (SBT) are non-transferable user controlled blockchain credentials enabling wallet-level identity binding and cross-platform verification without centralized data storage thereby reducing institutional risk
Soulbound tokens, or SBTs, are non-fungible tokens issued to a specific wallet address on a blockchain. They can represent one or several attributes associated with an individual or entity, such as credentials, certifications, memberships, age, affiliation or credit history — the specifics would depend on the issuer and the use case. A key feature is that they cannot be transferred; they “belong” to your wallet address. They can, however, be revoked should user characteristics change. The tokens would be issued by any entity that needs to verify information attached to an on-chain account. An example is asset manager WisdomTree, which issues SBTs to verified users of its WisdomTree Connect platform. This smooths the purchase and transfer of any of the firm’s tokenized funds, putting the “whitelist” at the wallet level and reducing the centralized compliance burden. It also enables the peer-to-peer transfer of assets, while ensuring they only occur between verified accounts. Looking forward, WisdomTree could enter into agreements with third parties to expand the token utility — allowing its SBT-identified wallets to be compatible with other asset managers and their funds, and vice versa. Approved decentralized applications could recognize WisdomTree’s SBTs and offer compliant peer-to-peer lending or swap services. Looking beyond institutional finance, SBTs could be used by decentralized lending platforms to assign on-chain credit scores, even for those without bank accounts. They could be used by protocols to automatically assign voting rights according to ecosystem activity, rather than just an economic stake. NFT platforms could give first priority for new series to accounts with an “elite user” SBT. By decentralizing compliance, SBTs leverage blockchain technology’s flexibility and “composability,” which refers to the relative ease with which different tokens and applications can connect and interact with each other, creating new services. They also potentially stem the escalation of compliance costs while offering a better client service and enabling new lines of business. And zooming out, they represent yet another example of how new technologies change the lens through which we view societal concepts and interactions we once took for granted. By encoding and fragmenting identity, SBTs change our understanding of the concept while enhancing our appreciation of its utility — in turn, this is likely to open up even further avenues of innovation.
Cloudera’s unified data abstraction layer enable seamless hybrid cloud-on-premise operations with AI-powered natural language interfaces, eliminating traditional data engineering complexity for financial institutions
Cloudera Inc. is overseeing a convergence between the data center and the cloud. The proliferation of artificial intelligence tools has created the need for more accessible and interconnected data architectures. Cloudera’s solution is a strong data foundation with a simple interface. Sergio Gago, chief technology officer of Cloudera. “Instead of the traditional ingest, prepare, curate, distribute data, just a single interface that makes it easy to get insights from the data because at the end of the day, that is what we’re trying to do, get value from insights.” Gago describes three eras of data, based on governance, convenience and now, convergence. In the era of governance, Cloudera and Hortonworks built data platforms that could manage company workflows and data catalogs. Cloud platforms ushered in the era of convenience, making it possible to run workloads with “one swipe.” The next step, according to Gago, is to merge the data and compute. “We’re bringing that cloud experience into the data center and vice versa,” he explained. “You can run your pipelines, you can store your data, you can manage your models, you can do everything with the same governance and controls that you had in the first era, but also with the simplicity you had in the second era. We call that the era of convergence.” This era is driven by generative AI, which has brought a unique set of challenges for data providers. The user experience is growing increasingly thin, as developers gain the ability to communicate with the system itself through AI interfaces. Cloudera has created an abstraction layer that enables developers to access their data anywhere. AI is, naturally, a part of this experience, functioning as a kind of “Jiminy Cricket” on the developer’s shoulder.
Cloud Security Alliance launches standardized 41-control security framework for regulated SaaS platforms enabling secure embedded payments integration across six domains including identity management, data privacy and incident response
SaaS firms and financial incumbents are pushing payments deeper into software flows, for example, via embedded payments. SaaS providers, particularly vertical ones, are realizing that embedding payments not only streamlines checkout for users but turns the payment plumbing into a revenue stream and loyalty lever. By turning core capabilities into API-based services, companies like FIS can monetize usage, tier functionality and embed payments elements to clients. Likewise, in the vertical SaaS space, partnerships are multiplying to embed payments directly into workflows. For SaaS models to scale in financial services, trust is critical, especially because financial SaaS often processes sensitive data, handles settlement flows and integrates with banking rails. The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) launched the SaaS Security Capability Framework (SSCF). The SSCF defines 41 customer-facing, configurable security controls across six domains, including change control and configuration management; data security and privacy lifecycle management; identity and access management; interoperability and portability; logging and monitoring; and security incident management. By bringing standardization to how SaaS security is evaluated, the SSCF may help accelerate SaaS adoption in regulated sectors like financial services. Customers and third-party risk teams have a consistent baseline to compare offerings. Security teams get a clearer implementation roadmap.
Robinhood’s prediction markets cross 4 billion contracts milestone; its regulated prediction market infrastructure can transform speculative betting into legitimate financial instruments through standardized event contracts and institutional-grade clearing
Robinhood has announced that the company has crossed 4 billion contracts that have been traded all-time. According to a comment by the CEO, Vlad Tenev, on X, the company registered more than $2 billion in the third quarter alone. “Robinhood Prediction Markets just crossed 4 billion event contracts traded all-time, with over 2 billion in Q3 alone. And we’re just getting started,” Tenev announced on X. Elsewhere, recent reports showed that Kalshi has overtaken Polymarket to become the leading platform in prediction market and event-based contract trading, capturing nearly two-thirds of the sector’s volume as regulated platforms gain ground over offshore competitors. The surge reflects growing adoption of U.S.-regulated platforms and changing trading behaviors in the market. According to Dune Analytics data, Kalshi accounted for 62% of total prediction market volume from September 11–17, processing over $500 million in weekly trading while maintaining an average open interest of $189 million. Polymarket, by comparison, generated $430 million in volume with average open interest of $164 million, suggesting slower turnover and “sticker positions” among its traders. “Event contracts have generated high demand because they provide a maximally direct way to get exposure to events that affect businesses, people, and the economy, and they provide the most accurate signal on what the likelihood of future events is,” said Jack Such from Kalshi, responsible for Business & Media Development.
DoorDash launches proprietary delivery robot built to travel on bike lanes, roads, sidewalks and driveways that is specifically designed for local delivery
DoorDash is expanding its autonomous delivery efforts from partnerships with tech providers to an in-house-developed robot. The global on-demand delivery platform is launching “Dot,” an autonomous robot built to travel on bike lanes, roads, sidewalks and driveways that is specifically designed for local delivery. At one-tenth the size of an average car, Dot can reach speeds of up to 20 mph with an all-electric design and can use artificial intelligence to optimize its delivery route. Beginning with an early access program in Tempe and Mesa, Ariz., DoorDash intends to bring the use of Dot into multiple new markets over time. According to DoorDash, robotic delivery is part of a broader global multi-modal delivery platform strategy that integrates human drivers, drones, and autonomous robots in an effort to meet increasing demand while lowering costs and emissions. According to DoorDash, human drivers (which the company calls “dashers”) will continue to complete the vast majority of its millions of daily deliveries. DoorDash intends for autonomous delivery technology to increasingly allow dashers to focus more on high-value orders that require human judgment and care.
California’s AI Bill 53 lays out a clearer path to harmonize California’s standards with federal ones but the reporting requirements could be onerous for startups and tilt the playing field toward established giants that already employ large compliance teams
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the California AI bill into law on Monday, requiring leading AI companies to disclose safety details about their most advanced systems, placing the state once again at the forefront of tech regulation. Those in support of the new law, Senate Bill 53, known as the Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act, highlight that it provides the needed safeguards while still allowing innovation to flourish. Critics warn it could impose compliance burdens that will ripple through the industry nationwide. This AI law could establish a new baseline for AI standards across the United States. The California AI bill could mark the start of a “Sacramento effect” in AI. Proponents argue the bill increases accountability without stifling innovation. By focusing on transparency, it avoids freezing a rapidly evolving field. Chris Lehane, chief global affairs officer at OpenAI, posted on LinkedIn that the law “lays out a clearer path to harmonize California’s standards with federal ones. Detractors, particularly some industry voices, caution that the reporting requirements could be onerous for startups and tilt the playing field toward established giants that already employ large compliance teams. Collin McCune, head of government affairs at the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, echoed the concerns with fragmentation posting on X: “The biggest danger of SB 53 is that it sets a precedent for states, rather than the federal government, to take the lead in governing the national AI market – creating a patchwork of 50 compliance regimes that startups don’t have the resources to navigate.”