Swiss lender PostFinance has broadened its digital-asset offering to 22 cryptocurrencies, adding Algorand, Arbitrum, NEARProtocol, Stellar, USDC, and Sui to its platform. The expansion strengthens its position as one of the most comprehensive retail crypto offerings among Swiss banks.
Direct cryptocurrency access was introduced in early 2024, making the institution the first systemically important bank in Switzerland to provide such services. Further additions followed mid-year, reflecting growing client demand for regulated exposure to digital assets.
More than 36,000 custody accounts have been opened since launch, generating over 565,000 trades. According to Alexander Thoma, the bank continues to broaden its selection as customers increasingly prefer to manage crypto through their primary banking provider.
Trading is available via e-finance and the PostFinance app, with a minimum entry level of $50 for both savings plans and individual orders, a move aimed at lowering barriers and widening retail participation.
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A fresh analysis from Arthur Hayes argues that Bitcoin is signalling mounting stress in the global fiat system as it diverges from the Nasdaq 100. Hayes says Bitcoin is the most sensitive market gauge of credit supply, making its decoupling a possible early warning of systemic stress.
He links the risk to accelerating AI-driven layoffs among knowledge workers. Data cited from CBS News shows firms attributed roughly 55,000 job cuts in 2025 to AI adoption, a sharp rise from two years earlier.
A significant drop in employment, he argues, could translate into large mortgage and consumer-credit losses for US banks.
Estimates suggest a 20% drop in US knowledge workers could trigger about $557 billion in credit losses, hitting bank capital and regional lenders first. Hayes expects instability to force the Federal Reserve to add liquidity, a move he says could lift Bitcoin to new highs.
Beyond the flagship cryptocurrency, Hayes said his firm Maelstrom may allocate stablecoin reserves to Zcash and Hyperliquid once monetary policy shifts, although timing and price targets remain unspecified.
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Narendra Modi presented the new MANAV Vision during the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi, setting out a human-centred direction for AI.
He described the framework as rooted in moral guidance, transparent oversight, national control of data, inclusive access and lawful verification. He argued that the approach is intended to guide global AI governance for the benefit of humanity.
The Prime Minister of India warned that rapid technological change requires stronger safeguards and drew attention to the need to protect children. He also said societies are entering a period where people and intelligent systems co-create and evolve together instead of functioning in separate spheres.
He pointed to India’s confidence in its talent and policy clarity as evidence of a growing AI future.
Modi announced that three domestic companies introduced new AI models and applications during the summit, saying the launches reflect the energy and capability of India’s young innovators.
He invited technology leaders from around the world to collaborate by designing and developing in India instead of limiting innovation to established hubs elsewhere.
The summit brought together policymakers, academics, technologists and civil society representatives to encourage cooperation on the societal impact of artificial intelligence.
As the first global AI summit held in the Global South, the gathering aligned with India’s national commitment to welfare for all and the wider aspiration to advance AI for humanity.
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A retired software quality assurance engineer asked Google Gemini 3 Flash whether it had stored his medical information for future use.
Rather than clearly stating it had not, the AI model initially claimed the data had been saved, only later acknowledging that it had made up the response to ‘placate’ the user rather than correct him.
The user, who has complex post-traumatic stress disorder and legal blindness, set up a medical profile within Gemini. When he challenged the model on its claim, it admitted that the response resulted from a weighting mechanism (sometimes called ‘sycophancy’) tuned to align with or please users rather than to strictly prioritise truth.
When the behaviour was reported via Google’s AI Vulnerability Rewards Program, Google stated that such misleading responses, including hallucinations and user-aligned sycophancy, are not considered qualifying technical vulnerabilities under that programme and should instead be shared through product feedback channels.
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At an AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, Stuart Russell, a computer science professor at the University of California, Berkeley and a prominent AI safety advocate, said the ongoing AI arms race between big tech companies carries ‘existential risk’ that could ultimately threaten humanity if super-intelligent AI systems overpower human control.
He argued that while CEOs of leading AI developers, whom he believes privately recognise the dangers, are reluctant to slow development unilaterally due to investor pressure, governments could work together to impose collective regulation and safety standards.
Russell characterised the current trajectory as akin to ‘Russian roulette’ with humanity’s future and urged political action to address both safety and ethical concerns around AI advancement.
He also highlighted other societal issues tied to rapid AI deployment, including potential job losses, surveillance concerns and misuse. He pointed to growing public unease, especially among younger people, about AI’s dehumanising aspects.
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The European Commission has proposed changes to the GDPR and the EU AI Act as part of its Digital Omnibus Package, seeking to clarify how personal data may be processed for AI development and operation across the EU.
A new provision would recognise AI development and operation as a potential legitimate interest under the GDPR, subject to necessity and a balancing test. Controllers in the EU would still need to demonstrate safeguards, including data minimisation, transparency and an unconditional right to object.
The package also introduces a proposed legal ground for processing sensitive data in AI systems where removal is not feasible without disproportionate effort. Claims that strict conditions would apply, requiring technical protections and documentation throughout the lifecycle of AI models in the EU.
Further amendments would permit biometric data processing for identity verification under defined conditions and expand the rules allowing sensitive data to be used for bias detection beyond high-risk AI systems.
Overall, the proposals aim to provide greater legal certainty without overturning existing data protection principles. The EU lawmakers and supervisory authorities continue to debate the proposals before any final adoption.
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Environmental groups, including Beyond Fossil Fuels and Stand.earth, have published a report challenging claims that AI will meaningfully address climate change. The analysis argues that rapid data centre expansion is being justified by overstated promises of ‘AI for climate’ benefits.
Researchers found that many cited emissions reductions relate to older forms of machine learning rather than energy-intensive generative AI systems. At the same time, rising electricity demand from large-scale AI deployment is driving increased fossil fuel use.
The report also questions evidence presented by corporations and institutions such as the International Energy Agency, stating that projected climate gains are often weak or exaggerated. Companies are reported to be drifting away from climate targets even when renewable energy offsets are included.
Campaigners say framing AI as a climate solution risks distracting from corporate decisions that increase pollution and digital infrastructure growth. They call for stronger accountability and clearer scrutiny of environmental claims linked to emerging technologies.
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Fraudsters are using a fake AI chatbot posing as Google’s Gemini to promote a bogus ‘Google Coin’ cryptocurrency presale. The automated assistant delivers convincing investment projections and directs victims to send irreversible crypto payments.
The scam site copies Google branding and claims the token will surge in value after launch, despite Google having no cryptocurrency project. Visitors are shown fabricated presale stages, countdowns and token sales figures to create urgency.
When questioned about regulatory or company details, the chatbot avoids providing verifiable information and instead repeats scripted claims about security and transparency. Tougher queries are redirected to a supposed ‘manager’, suggesting human operators step in to close larger payments.
Researchers warn that AI tools are making crypto scams more scalable and more challenging to detect. Consumers are urged to verify claims on official websites and to avoid sending digital assets in exchange for promised returns.
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As governments and tech leaders gather at global forums such as the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, one assumption dominates discussion: the more computing power poured into AI, the better it will become. In his blog ‘‘The elephant in the AI room’: Does more computing power really bring more useful AI?’, Jovan Kurbalija questions whether that belief is as solid as it seems.
For years, the AI race has been driven by the idea that ever-larger models and vast GPU farms are the key to progress. That logic has justified enormous energy consumption and multi-billion-dollar investments in data centres. But Kurbalija argues that bigger is not always better, especially when everyday tasks often require far less computational firepower than frontier models provide.
He points out that most people rely on a limited vocabulary and a small set of reasoning tools in their daily work. Smaller, specialised AI systems can already draft emails, summarise meetings, or classify documents effectively. The push for trillion-parameter models, he suggests, may reflect ambition more than necessity.
There are also technical limits to consider. Adding more computing power can lead to diminishing returns, and some prominent researchers doubt that simply scaling up large language models will lead to human-level intelligence. More hardware, Kurbalija notes, does not automatically solve deeper conceptual challenges in AI design.
The economic picture is equally complex. Training cutting-edge proprietary models can cost hundreds of millions of dollars, while newer open-source systems have been developed at a fraction of that price. If cheaper models can deliver similar performance, questions arise about the sustainability of current spending and whether investors are backing efficiency or hype.
Beyond cost and performance lies a broader ethical issue. Even if massive computing power could eventually produce superintelligent systems, the key question is whether society truly needs them. Kurbalija warns that technological possibilities should not be confused with social desirability, and that innovation without a clear purpose can create new risks.
Rather than escalating an arms race for ever-larger models, the blog calls for a shift toward needs-driven design. Right-sized tools, viable business models, and ethical clarity about AI’s role in society may prove more valuable than raw computing muscle.
In challenging the prevailing narrative, Kurbalija urges policymakers and industry leaders to rethink whether the future of AI depends on scale alone or on smarter priorities.
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Derived from the Latin word ‘superanus’, through the French word ‘souveraineté’, sovereignty can be understood as: ‘the ultimate overseer, or authority, in the decision-making process of the state and in the maintenance of order’ – Britannica. Digital sovereignty, specifically European digital sovereignty, refers to ‘Europe’s ability to act independently in the digital world’.
In 2020, the European Parliament already identified the consequences of reliance on non-EU technologies. From the economic and social influence of non-EU technology companies, which can undermine user control over their personal data, to the slow growth of the EU technology companies and a limitation on the enforcement of European laws.
Today, these concerns persist. From Romanian election interference on TikTok’s platform, Microsoft’s interference with the ICC, to the Dutch government authentication platform being acquired by a US firm, and booming American and Chinese LLMs compared to European LLMs. The EU is at a crossroads between international reliance and homegrown adoption.
The issue of the EU digital sovereignty has gained momentum in the context of recent and significant shifts in US foreign policy toward its allies. In this environment, the pursuit of the EU digital sovereignty appears as a justified and proportionate response, one that might previously have been perceived as unnecessarily confrontational.
In light of this, this analysis’s main points will discuss the rationale behind the EU digital sovereignty (including dependency, innovation and effective compliance), recent European-centric technological and platform shifts, the steps the EU is taking to successfully be digitally sovereign and finally, examples of European alternatives
Rationale behind the move
The reasons for digital sovereignty can be summed up in three main areas: (I) less dependency on non-EU tech, (ii) leading and innovating technological solutions, and (iii) ensuring better enforcement and subsequent adherence to data protection laws/fundamental rights.
(i) Less dependency: Global geopolitical tensions between US-China/Russia push Europe towards developing its own digital capabilities and secure its supply chains. Insecure supply chain makes Europe vulnerable to failing energy grids.
More recently, US giant Microsoft threatened the International legal order by revoking US-sanctioned International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan’s Microsoft software access, preventing the Chief Prosecutor from working on his duties at the ICC. In light of these scenarios, Europeans are turning to developing more European-based solutions to reduce upstream dependencies.
(ii) Leaders & innovators: A common argument is that Americans innovate, the Chinese copy, and the Europeans regulate. If the EU aims to be a digital geopolitical player, it must position itself to be a regulator which promotes innovation. It can achieve this by upskilling its workforce of non-digital trades into digital ones to transform its workforce, have more EU digital infrastructure (data centres, cloud storage and management software), further increase innovation spending and create laws that truly allow for the uptake of EU technological development instead of relying on alternative, cheaper non-EU options.
(iii) Effective compliance: Knowing that fines are more difficult to enforce towards non-EU companies than the EU companies (ex., Clearview AI), EU-based technological organisations would allow for corrective measures, warnings, and fines to be enforced more effectively. Thus, enabling more adherence towards the EU’s digital agenda and respect for fundamental rights.
Can the EU achieve Digital Sovereignty?
The main speed bumps towards the EU digital sovereignty are: i) a lack of digital infrastructure (cloud storage & data centres), ii) (critical) raw material dependency and iii) Legislative initiatives to facilitate the path towards digital sovereignty (innovation procurement and fragmented compliance regime).
i) lack of digital infrastructure: In order for the EU to become digitally sovereign it must have its own sovereign digital infrastructure.
In practice, the EU relies heavily on American data centre providers (i.e. Equinix, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services) hosted in the EU. In this case, even though the data is European and hosted in the EU, the company that hosts it is non-European. This poses reliance and legislative challenges, such as ensuring adequate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data when it is in transit to the US. Given the EU-US DPF, there is a legal basis for transferring EU personal data to the US.
However, if the DPF were to be struck down (perhaps due to the US’ Cloud Act), as it has been in the past (twice with Schrems I and Schrems II) and potentially Schrems III, there would no longer be a legal basis for the transfer of the EU personal data to a US data centre.
Previously, the EU’s 2022 Directive on critical entities resilience allowed for the EU countries to identify critical infrastructure and subsequently ensure they take the technical, security and organisational measures to assure their resilience. Part of this Directive covers digital infrastructure, including providers of cloud computing services and providers of data centres. From this, the EU has recently developed guidelines for member states to identify critical entities. However, these guidelines do not anticipate how to achieve resilience and leave this responsibility with member states.
ii) Raw material dependency: The EU cannot be digitally sovereign until it reduces some of its dependencies on other countries’ raw materials to build the hardware necessary to be technologically sovereign. In 2025, the EU’s goals were to create a new roadmap towards critical raw material (CRM) sovereignty to rely on its own energy sources and build infrastructure.
Thus, the RESourceEU Action Plan was born in December 2025. This plan contains 6 pillars: securing supply through knowledge, accelerating and promoting projects, using the circular economy and fostering innovation (recycling products which contain CRMs), increasing European demand for European projects (stockpiling CRMs), protecting the single market and partnering with third countries for long-lasting diversification. Practically speaking, part of this plan is to match Europe and or global raw material supply with European demand for European projects.
iii) Legislative initiatives to facilitate the path towards digital sovereignty:
Tackling difficult innovation procurement: the argument is to facilitate its uptake of innovation procurement across the EU. In 2026, the EU is set to reform its public procurement framework for innovation. The Innovation Procurement Update (IPU) team has representatives from over 33 countries (predominantly through law firms, Bird & Bird being the most represented), which recommends that innovation procurement reach 20% of all public procurement.
Another recommendation would help more costly innovative solutions to be awarded procurement projects, which in the past were awarded to cheaper procurement bids. In practice, the lowest price of a public procurement bid is preferred, and if it meets the remaining procurement conditions, it wins the bid – but de-prioritising this non-pricing criterion would enable companies with more costly innovative solutions to win public procurement bids.
Alleviating compliance challenges: lowering other compliance burdens whilst maintaining the digital aquis: recently announced at the World Economic Forum by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, EU.inc would help cross-border business operations scaling up by alleviating company, corporate, insolvency, labour and taxation law compliance burdens. By harmonising these into a single framework, businesses can more easily grow and deploy cross-border solutions that would otherwise face hurdles.
Power through data: another legislative measure to help facilitate the path towards the EU digital sovereignty is unlocking the potential behind European data. In order to research innovative solutions, data is required. This can be achieved through personal or non-personal data. The EU’s GDPR regulates personal data and is currently undergoing amendments. If the proposed changes to the GDPR are approved, i.e. a broadening of its scope, data that used to be considered personal (and thus required GDPR compliance) could be deemed non-personal and used more freely for research purposes. The Data Act regulate the reuse and re-sharing of non-personal data. It aims to simplify and bolster the fair reuse of non-personal data. Overall, both personal and non-personal data can give important insight that research can benefit from in developing European innovative sovereign solutions.
European alternatives
European companies have already built a network of European platforms, services and apps with European values at heart:
Category
Currently Used
EU Alternative
Comments
Social media
TikTok, X, Instagram
Monnet (Luxembourg)
‘W’ (Sweden)
Monnet is a social media app prioritises connections and non-addictive scrolling. Recently announced ‘W’ replaces ‘X’ and is gaining major traction with non-advertising models at its heart.
Email
Microsoft’s Outlook and Google’s gmail
Tuta (mail/calendar), Proton (Germany), Mailbox (Germany), Mailfence (Belgium)
Replace email and calendar apps with a privacy focused business model.
Search engine
Google Search and DuckDuckGo
Qwant (France) and Ecosia (German)
Qwant has focused on privacy since its launch in 2013. Ecosia is an ecofriendly focused business model which helps plant trees when users search
Video conferencing
Microsoft Teams and Slack a
Visio (France), Wire (Switzerland, Mattermost (US but self hosted), Stackfield (Germany), Nextcloud Talk (Germany) and Threema (Switzerland)
These alternatives are end-to-end encrypted. Visio is used by the French Government
Writing tools
Microsoft’s Word & Excel and Google Sheets, Notion
Most of these options provide cloud storage and NexCloud is a recurring alternative across categories.
Finance
Visa and Mastercard
Wero (EU)
Not only will it provide an EU wide digital wallet option, but it will replace existing national options – providing for fast adoption.
LLM
OpenAI, Gemini, DeepSeek’s LLM
Mistral AI (France) and DeepL (Germany)
DeepL is already wildly used and Mistral is more transparent with its partially open-source model and ease of reuse for developers
Hardware
Semi conductors: ASML (Dutch) Data Center: GAIA-X (Belgium)
ASML is a chip powerhouse for the EU and GAIA-X set an example of EU based data centres with it open-source federated data infrastructure.
A dedicated website called ‘European Alternatives’ provides exactly what it says, European Alternatives. A list with over 50 categories and 100 alternatives
Conclusion
In recent years, the Union’s policy goals have shifted towards overt digital sovereignty solutions through diversification of materials and increased innovation spending, combined with a restructuring of the legislative framework to create the necessary path towards European digital infrastructure.
Whilst this analysis does not include all speed bumps, nor avenues towards the road of the EU digital sovereignty, it sheds light on the EU’s most recent major policy developments. Key questions remain regarding data reuse, its impact on data protection fundamental rights and whether this reshaping of the framework will yield the intended results.
Therefore, how will the EU tread whilst it becomes a more coherent sovereign geopolitical player?
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