Nvidia is nearing a deal to acquire open-source AI platform Hugging Face for about $12.9 billion, according to a Sept. 2 Bloomberg report cited by PANews. The total value could reach roughly $14 billion if a retention package of around $1 billion for employees is included. No final agreement has been signed, and timing and terms could still change. The report stands in contrast to an earlier The Information story from late August that said the two sides had already agreed to a transaction. What makes the potential acquisition stand out is the valuation gap. The Information reported on Aug. 24 that Hugging Face’s annualized revenue had just topped $150 million, up from roughly $100 million about two months earlier. Based on those figures, the implied offer values the company at around 86 times annualized revenue and about 2.9 times its $4.5 billion valuation from its 2023 Series D round. PANews argues that the premium is not explained by near-term cash flow, but by Hugging Face’s role as the default distribution point for open-source models, datasets, tools, and increasingly compute access. If completed, the deal would also raise a larger question: whether a platform long described as neutral can remain so under the ownership of a chipmaker whose stack already shapes much of the AI market.

Visa said it is joining BLOOM, an initiative led by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), as part of an effort to expand settlement capabilities for financial institutions and improve interoperability between traditional payment systems and stablecoin payment rails. BLOOM stands for Borderless, Liquid, Open, Online, Multi-currency. Under the framework, institutions are expected to gain access to faster and programmable payment functions while keeping existing safeguards around security and compliance. Visa said Nium will become the first partner under the BLOOM framework and will work with the payments company on a pilot that uses stablecoins for settlement. The pilot will examine whether cross-border fund flows can be handled more efficiently while relying on Visa’s payment network and its security and compliance capabilities. The two companies also plan to study the use of stablecoins for seven-day settlement, including weekends and public holidays, with the stated aim of cutting delays and improving efficiency. The pilot will support regulated stablecoins backed by major currencies, including U.S. dollar- and euro-denominated tokens.

Ripple teams up with Kyobo Life Insurance to launch tokenized government bond settlement using Ripple Custody, slashing T+2 to near-real-time and reducing counterparty risk.

RLUSD is now live on South Korea’s Coinone with direct KRW pairs. A day earlier, Ripple said it partnered with Convera, putting the stablecoin into a payment network spanning 200-plus countries and territories.

Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin joins the MAS's BLOOM pilot program in Singapore, working with Unloq to automate settlement on XRP Ledger for trade finance, targeting delays and high costs.

Coinbase announced plans to list over 30 new cryptocurrencies over the coming months, including ERC20 tokens and assets like NEO and XRP, aiming to eventually support more than 90% of compliant digital assets by market cap.

Ripple has joined the Monetary Authority of Singapore's BLOOM initiative, integrating XRP Ledger (XRPL) and RLUSD stablecoin into programmable settlement models. A pilot with supply chain finance firm Unloq will test conditional payment execution for trade finance, accelerating institutional adoption of tokenized bank liabilities and regulated stablecoins.

Coinbase Business has launched in Singapore as its first international market, offering USDC payments, global payouts, payment links, and accounting tools for startups and SMEs.