French startup Mistral AI closes $415M funding round

December 11, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Blockchain is fueling this emerging tech hub in Portugal: Madeira Blockchain 2023

December 10, 2023 Coin Telegraph

EU officials reach ‘historic’ AI regulation deal

December 9, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Robinhood launches crypto trading services in Europe

December 7, 2023 Coin Telegraph

France’s third-largest bank, Société Générale, launches euro pegged stablecoin

December 6, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The euro-pegged stablecoin will be the first of its kind in the region and will be available to the bank’s wide customer base for trading use.

Société Générale, France’s third-largest bank, has debuted its native euro-pegged stablecoin, making it one of the first European banking giants to foray into the stablecoin market.

The euro-pegged stablecoin, EUR CoinVertible, will debut on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp crypto exchange, the Financial Times reported.

Jean-Marc Stenger, the CEO of Société Générale Forge, noted that the new stablecoin highlights the bank’s role in the evolving crypto domain while stressing the necessity for a stablecoin denominated in euros.

The private crypto stablecoin market is dominated by United States dollar-pegged stablecoins, with Tether and Circle being the only two key significant players.

The CEO highlighted that the new stablecoin has been developed with a focus on its usage in settling trades involving digital bonds, funds, and various assets.

Axa Investment Managers used the native Eur CoinVertible stablecoin to invest in the bank’s digital green bond. The bond has a value of 10 million euros (around $11 million) and a maturity of three years.

How generative AI allows one architect to reimagine ancient cities

December 4, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Art

Cointelegraph spoke with architect and designer Tina Marinaki about her work using generative AI and text-to-image prompts to reimagine the ancient Athenian cityscape.

The emergence of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has presented modern society with new means for understanding and visualizing the world.

Meta, the parent company of social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, recently introduced new AI video and image-generating tools for creators, while OpenAI updated the premium version of its popular AI model ChatGPT to include powerful text-to-image generating capabilities.

As the pace of AI development continues to accelerate rapidly, many artists are faced with the challenge of embracing the new tools as a part of their workflow while still managing to keep their unique vision.

One such artist is the New York-based Greek architect Tina Marinaki, who has incorporated AI tools into her creative work and, in the process, created an online community of nearly 20,000 users on Instagram through “Athens Surreal,” which follows her reimagination of the ancient Athenian cityscape.

Cointelegraph spoke with Marinaki about incorporating AI into her work and how she reenvisions her home city using emerging technology.

She explained that the concept of Athens Surreal stemmed from the desire to understand “the way the different AI tools work” while testing ideas for a “different, sometimes romantic, sometimes utopian, futuristic Athens.”

Technical difficulties

According to Marinaki, one of the primary difficulties working with text-to-image AI systems is “translating” an image description to communicate a vision with the AI systems.

“Other challenges are found in algorithmic ethnicity, gender or other biases when algorithms are trained using biased data.”

For example, she reported that a greater number of men can appear in AI-generated images even when a user’s parameters have no mention of gender, and in some cases, AI can create “racist or stereotypical images.”

Despite its biases in text-to-image generation, these weaknesses can lead to strengths if trained correctly.

Crypto payment firm Alchemy Pay adds SEPA deposits in Europe

November 30, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Alchemy Pay has introduced new deposit options, including the Euro Instant solution, SEPA Instant, and the U.K. fast money transfer option, Faster Payments.

Cryptocurrency payment platform Alchemy Pay is scaling its payment options by integrating new on-ramps — or new ways to buy crypto — in Europe and the United Kingdom.

Alchemy Pay has introduced new deposit options, including the Euro Instant solution, Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) Instant, and the U.K. fast money transfer option, Faster Payments.

Announcing the news on Nov. 29, Alchemy Pay noted that the new payment options aim to simplify purchasing cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), enabling transfers to be processed in “seconds to a few minutes.”

With SEPA Instant, European Alchemy Pay customers can buy up to 5000 euros ($5,460) in cryptocurrency, while Faster Payments has a transfer limit of up to 5000 British pounds ($6,320). These two new channels are accessible to users in 30 European countries and the U.K. after completing Know Your Customer checks.

Europe’s SEPA Instant and Faster Payments in the U.K. join a range of supported local payment channels such as the Polish Blik payment system, Bancontact, Skrill and others.

“This move further amplifies Alchemy Pay's payment network throughout Europe, surpassing emerging markets and broadening its influence,” the announcement notes.

According to the announcement, Alchemy Pay currently supports 300 fiat payment channels across 173 countries, mostly in Southeast Asia. The platform is actively expanding its payment service worldwide, adding new licenses in the United States recently, including the states of Iowa and Arkansas.

In February 2023, Alchemy Pay also obtained licenses in operating markets like Indonesia and Lithuania.

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Amnesty International head says AI innovation vs. regulation is ‘false dichotomy’

November 28, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Amnesty’s secretary-general said the EU has a chance to lead with new AI regulations and member states shouldn’t “undermine” the forthcoming AI Act.

The secretary-general of Amnesty International, Anges Callamard, released a statement on Nov. 27 in response to three European Union member states pushing back on regulating artificial intelligence (AI) models.

France, Germany and Italy reached an agreement that included not adopting such stringent regulations for foundation models of AI, which is a core component of the EU’s forthcoming EU AI Act.

This came after the EU received multiple petitions from tech industry players asking the regulators not to over-regulate the nascent industry.

However, Callamard said the region has an opportunity to show “international leadership” with robust regulation of AI, and member states “must not undermine the AI Act by bowing to the tech industry’s claims that adoption of the AI Act will lead to heavy-handed regulation that would curb innovation.”

“Let us not forget that ‘innovation versus regulation’ is a false dichotomy that has for years been peddled by tech companies to evade meaningful accountability and binding regulation.”

She said this rhetoric from the tech industry highlights the “concentration of power” from a small group of tech companies who want to be in charge of the “AI rulebook.”

Amnesty International has been a member of a coalition of civil society organizations led by the European Digital Rights Network advocating for EU AI laws with human rights protections at the forefront.

Callamard said human rights abuse by AI is “well documented” and “states are using unregulated AI systems to assess welfare claims, monitor public spaces, or determine someone’s likelihood of committing a crime.”

“It is imperative that France, Germany and Italy stop delaying the negotiations process and that EU lawmakers focus on making sure crucial human rights protections are coded in law before the end of the current EU mandate in 2024.”

Recently, France, Germany and Italy were also part of a new set of guidelines developed by 15 countries and major tech companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic, which suggest cybersecurity practices for AI developers when designing, developing, launching and monitoring AI models.

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IBM brings ‘utility-scale’ quantum computing to Japan as China and Europe struggle to compete

November 27, 2023 Coin Telegraph

China

Experts predict the global quantum computing sector will have grown from about $930 million in 2023 to $6.5 billion by 2030, but some global markets may be better poised for growth than others.

IBM announced the completed installation of a 127-qubit quantum computing system at the University of Tokyo on Nov. 27. According to the company, this marks the arrival of the first “utility-scale” quantum system in the region.

[Article] The University of Tokyo Completes Installation of 127-Qubit IBM Quantum Eagle Processorhttps://t.co/TrFAnEQ3wq
— UTokyo | 東京大学 (@UTokyo_News_en) November 27, 2023

The system, dubbed a “Quantum System One” by IBM and featuring the company’s Eagle processor, was installed as part of an ongoing research partnership between Japan and IBM. According to a blog post from IBM, it will be used to conduct research in various fields, including bioinformatics, materials science and finance.

Per Hiroaki Aihara, executive vice president of the University of Tokyo:

“For the first time outside North America, a quantum computer with a 127-qubit processor is now available for exclusive use with QII members… By promoting research in a wide range of fields and realizing social implementation of quantum-related technologies, we aim to make a broad contribution to a future society with diversity and hope.”

While Japan and the University of Tokyo reap the benefits of working with a U.S. quantum computing partner, China’s second-largest technology firm, Alibaba, has decided to shutter its own quantum computing laboratory and will reportedly donate its equipment to Zhejiang University.

Local media reports indicate the Alibaba move is a cost-cutting measure and that dozens of employees associated with the quantum research lab have been laid off. This follows the cancellation of a planned cloud computing spinoff earlier this month, with Alibaba stating that the partial United States export ban on computer chips to China has contributed to “uncertainty.”

The quantum computing sector is expected to grow by more than $5.5 billion between 2023 and 2030, according to estimates from Fortune Business Insights. This has led some experts to worry over the state of quantum computing research in areas outside of the U.S. and China.

Koen Bertels, founder of quantum computing accelerator QBee and a professor at the University of Ghent in Belgium, recently opined that Europe had already lost the artificial intelligence race and couldn’t afford to lose at quantum computing.

“In addition to being behind in funding, talent, and strategy,” wrote Bertels, “Europe isn’t only competing against the US.”

European regulator: CASPs should work on protocol interoperability, self-hosted wallets

November 24, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Banks

The proposed new industry guidelines are intended to address issues around AML and CFT rules.

The European Union’s banking regulator, the European Banking Authority (EBA), wants to update existing Anti-Money Laundering and Combatting the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) rules for crypto providers.

In a consultation paper published on Nov. 24, the EBA explains that current European regulations are no longer sufficient to govern AML/CFT standards compliance among crypto providers. The proposed new industry guidelines are intended to address these issues, and the EBA has given interested parties until Feb. 26, 2024, to comment.

In particular, the EBA suggests merging the AML/CFT criteria for payment service providers and crypto asset service providers (CASPs). It also proposes obliging CASPs to “enable the transmission of information in a seamless and interoperable manner” by enhancing the interoperability of their protocols.

Under the proposed new rules, CASPs will also be required to obtain and hold information on self-hosted addresses, ensure that the transfer of crypto assets can be individually identified, and verify whether that address is owned or controlled by the CASP customer. These requirements would be enforced when the transfer amount of the self-hosted account is above the 1,000 euro mark, although the EBA doesn’t specify whether this is a monthly, daily or a single-time threshold.

After the consultation process, the new guidelines should come into force on Dec. 30, 2024.

In October, the EBA released a consultation paper assessing the suitability of management body members and shareholders or members holding qualifying stakes in issuers of asset-referenced tokens and CASPs.

In July, the EBA encouraged stablecoin issuers to voluntarily adhere to specific “guiding principles” related to risk management and consumer protection.

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Europe

Technical difficulties

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