Coinbase institutional co-head Brett Tejpaul confirms JPMorgan has moved JPMD deposits to public blockchain and issued a corporate bond on Solana settling with USDC. Five of the top 20 global banks now rely on Coinbase infrastructure; Clarity Act could unlock institutional capital. Tejpaul calls 2026 the tipping point.

India is routing part of its roughly $80 billion annual welfare budget through e-rupee pilots, while user growth continues to outpace actual transaction depth compared with UPI.

Augustus, a startup building a federally chartered clearing bank around stablecoins and programmable money, said Tuesday it has raised $180 million in a Series B round at a $1 billion valuation. The financing was led by Tiger Global, with backing from Hummingbird, QED, the founders of Nubank, Ramp, Circle, and Deel, along with crypto and fintech figures including Circle co-founder Sean Neville, former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan, and Rain’s Farooq Malik. Augustus said total funding now stands at $210 million. The company is targeting correspondent banking, the cross-border system that moves funds between institutions. Instead of launching its own stablecoin, Augustus is building infrastructure for banks and fintech firms to transact across both traditional payment rails and blockchain networks. Its API-first platform supports operating and FBO accounts, with settlement through Swift, ACH, SEPA, and stablecoins on a proprietary core banking system called Marble. The raise comes after Augustus received conditional approval in May for a U.S. national bank charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The company said it plans to use the new capital to expand across Latin America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, where access to dollars remains limited.

The Trump administration said on July 18 that it will impose a 25% Section 301 tariff on most imports from Brazil starting July 22, with Brazil’s central bank-run instant payment system Pix emerging as a central point of dispute. According to CoinDesk, Washington argues that Pix gives US card networks such as Visa and Mastercard an unfair disadvantage because the system charges individuals no fees and caps what merchants can be charged. Pix has already surpassed credit cards in transaction count in Brazil. The dispute comes with a second layer. Data from Brazil’s tax authority shows that US dollar-denominated stablecoins account for about 90% of the country’s crypto trading volume, with most of that activity tied to payments and settlement. At the same time, Brazil’s central bank is moving to tighten that channel. Resolution 561, released in May, is set to take effect on Oct. 1 and will bar payment institutions from using stablecoins or other crypto assets to settle cross-border payments. The report places the clash in a wider BRICS context, where Washington has been watching efforts to reduce reliance on dollar-based payment infrastructure, including Brazil’s Pix, China’s CIPS and Russia’s SPFS.

Chinese President Xi Jinping on July 17 announced a set of measures aimed at supporting global artificial intelligence development and capacity building. Speaking at the opening ceremony of the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance in Shanghai, Xi said the World AI Cooperation Organization had been established in the city through joint efforts from multiple parties. He described the new organization as a major step by China in response to calls from the Global South and in mobilizing the international community to advance AI development and governance. Xi also laid out plans for the next five years, including 5,000 AI-focused training slots for participants from developing countries, the construction of international AI application cooperation centers for ASEAN, the Arab League, the African Union, CELAC, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and BRICS countries, and the rollout of the “Mazu” intelligent meteorological early warning program in 30 countries.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said at the opening of the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance on July 17 that artificial intelligence should not become the "solo performance" of a single country, calling instead for global cooperation, open-source development, openness, collaboration and sharing. He said broader access should allow industries across the economy to use AI. Xi also said AI must remain under human control at all times. He called on countries to put in place legal and regulatory frameworks, technical monitoring, risk warning systems and emergency response mechanisms to prevent misuse of the technology. In the same speech, Xi opposed the expansion of national security concepts that place one country’s security above others. He said AI should not undermine cultural characteristics of different countries or the diversity of world civilizations. He also said China will work with countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and BRICS members to help developing countries build AI capacity and avoid new forms of global inequality created by AI. According to BlockBeats, U.S.-China AI competition is extending from chips and models to open-source paths and global rule-setting.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says 90% of Russia's settlements with BRICS nations were in local currencies in 2024, as the bloc accelerates dedollarization. A single BRICS currency remains premature.

Putin said nearly all Russia-China trade is now settled in rubles and yuan. Bilateral trade hit a record $245 billion in 2024, while about $200 billion in priority projects are under way or being prepared.