This week, the story across AI and digital assets was not just about new tools, new tokens or another round of product announcements.
It was about infrastructure.
AI is now forcing serious questions about copyright, data centres, energy, land use, export controls and the economics of model usage. At the same time, digital assets are moving through a more institutional phase, with stablecoins, tokenised securities and licensing frameworks becoming part of mainstream financial market infrastructure.
The common thread is clear: the next phase of adoption will not be won by hype alone. It will be shaped by trust, cost, governance and the ability to connect emerging technology to real-world systems.
From the Network: Experts in the Loop
Testing Fable 5, agentic builds and AI tokonomics
In the latest episode of Experts in the Loop, Mark Monfort and Chris Sinclair explored the return of Fable 5 and what these newer agentic systems can actually do when pushed beyond basic prompting.
The episode included live testing of Fable 5 against Opus, experiments with interactive website generation, discussion around model routing and a closer look at the economics of token usage. One of the more interesting takeaways was that frontier models may be extremely powerful, but they are not always the right model for every job.
The bigger point was about how organisations should think about AI adoption now that the early experimentation phase is wearing off. Model selection, data governance, deidentification, local deployment, workflow design and evaluation are becoming core parts of serious AI strategy.
As AI moves from chatbot to operating layer, businesses need to ask better questions: what should be automated, what should stay human-led, which model should handle which task and how do we know the output can be trusted?
Watch and subscribe to the full episode: Experts in the Loop podcast
This week in AI news
Australia’s AI copyright fight moves into the open
Australian creatives have raised concerns over a proposed arrangement that would reportedly allow AI companies to mine copyrighted content in exchange for major data centre investment and an annual fund for artists. The proposal has triggered a sharp debate about whether Australia should trade access to creative works for AI infrastructure investment.
The government has said it has no plans to weaken copyright protections, but the story captures a much bigger tension. If AI systems are trained on the work of writers, musicians, publishers and artists, the question is not just whether the technology is useful. It is who gets paid, who gives consent and who controls the input layer of the AI economy.
Read more: Guardian Australia
Musicians call on the Prime Minister not to weaken copyright
The copyright debate continued as Australian musicians urged the government not to allow AI companies to use their work without permission. Artists are not necessarily rejecting AI outright. The issue is whether creative work can be absorbed into training datasets without consent, compensation or a proper licensing model.
This is an important distinction. The creative sector is not saying “no technology”. It is saying that if AI companies want high-quality cultural inputs, they need to respect the people and industries that created them.
Read more: Guardian Australia
AI data centres raise questions about land, power and planning
Demand for AI data centres in Australia is now raising concerns about industrial land, housing, logistics, inflation and infrastructure planning. This shifts the AI discussion away from software and into the physical economy.
AI may feel weightless when we use it through a browser, but the infrastructure behind it is anything but. It requires land, power, water, network connectivity and approvals. As more countries compete to host AI infrastructure, local planning and community impact will become part of the technology debate.
Read more: Guardian Australia
OpenAI’s Stargate UK project comes under scrutiny
OpenAI’s Stargate UK project faced fresh questions after reporting suggested that key parties had not visited a major proposed data centre site. The project had already faced concerns around energy costs and regulation, making this another example of large-scale AI infrastructure announcements being tested against practical reality.
The lesson is simple: AI infrastructure is moving from press release to due diligence. Investors, governments and communities will increasingly want to know whether the power, sites, permits, economics and delivery plans actually stack up.
Read more: The Guardian
Anthropic’s Fable and Mythos models return after export control concerns
The US Commerce Department lifted export restrictions on Anthropic’s Fable and Mythos models after earlier concerns over national security and model safeguards. Anthropic said access would be restored following enhanced protections.
This is an important signal for frontier AI. Access to advanced models is no longer just a product decision. It is becoming part of national security, export controls and geopolitical policy. Model capability, safety measures and jurisdictional access will increasingly sit together.
Read more: Reuters
Recent research: Codex points to the rise of agentic AI workflows
A recent paper on Codex usage showed how quickly agentic AI tools are being adopted across technical and organisational workflows. While the paper was published just before this week’s newsletter window, it is still worth highlighting because it supports what many builders are seeing in practice: AI is shifting from answering questions to completing tasks.
The important change is not just better code generation. It is the rise of AI systems that can plan, act, revise and keep working towards a goal. That changes how teams think about productivity, software development and internal tooling.
Read more: arXiv
This week in Blockchain news
UK FCA finalises landmark crypto rules
The UK Financial Conduct Authority has finalised a major crypto rulebook covering areas including stablecoins, trading platforms, intermediaries, custodians, staking, prudential requirements and market integrity.
This is a major step in the UK’s attempt to position itself as a credible digital asset hub. The regulatory message is clear: crypto can be part of the financial system, but it needs stronger rules, better risk management and more accountable operators.
Read more: FCA
UK softens stablecoin capital requirements
As part of its final crypto framework, the UK FCA reduced a proposed stablecoin capital requirement from 2% to 1% of issued value. This is significant because it shows regulators trying to find a balance between resilience and commercial viability.
Stablecoins are moving from crypto-native payment tools to regulated financial infrastructure. The question for regulators is how to make them safe without making them impractical.
Read more: Reuters
MiCA’s hard deadline reshapes the European crypto market
Europe’s MiCA transitional period has ended, meaning crypto-asset service providers without authorisation must stop operating in the EU. This is one of the clearest examples yet of regulation actively reshaping the digital asset market.
The industry is now moving beyond “regulation is coming”. In Europe, it has arrived. Licensing, compliance and operational resilience are becoming the new barriers to entry.
Read more: ESMA
Only a small share of EU crypto firms remain authorised
The Financial Times reported that only a small fraction of crypto firms operating in the EU were authorised to continue under MiCA as the deadline arrived. That means the rulebook is not just changing compliance paperwork. It is changing the shape of the market.
The likely result is consolidation. Licensed platforms will gain share, smaller operators may exit and customers will increasingly be pushed towards regulated providers.
Read more: Financial Times
BNY adds USDC support to its digital asset platform
BNY expanded its relationship with Circle and announced that USDC will be the first stablecoin supported on its Digital Asset Custody platform. Institutional clients will be able to store, transfer, mint and burn USDC through BNY’s platform.
This is another sign that stablecoins are becoming part of institutional financial plumbing. The story is not just about crypto payments. It is about banks, custody providers and market infrastructure firms deciding how stablecoins fit into regulated finance.
Read more: BNY
Securitize lists on the NYSE and tokenises its own stock
Securitize made its NYSE debut and brought tokenised versions of its own shares onto blockchain rails, including Avalanche and Solana. This is a useful marker for the tokenisation sector because it shifts the discussion from pilots to listed-market infrastructure.
Tokenisation is often discussed in theory. Here, a company built around tokenised assets is using those rails for its own equity. That makes it a practical example of where public markets and blockchain-based transfer infrastructure may start to overlap.
Read more: Cointelegraph via TradingView
Citi cuts Bitcoin and Ether forecasts as ETF flows weaken
Citi cut its 12-month forecasts for Bitcoin and Ether, citing weaker investor appetite, negative ETF flows and slower progress on digital asset legislation in the US.
This is a reminder that digital asset adoption is not moving in one straight line. Infrastructure and regulatory progress can continue even while market sentiment softens. That split may define the next phase of the sector: less speculative momentum, but more serious institutional build-out.
Read more: Reuters
Strategy’s valuation falls below its Bitcoin holdings
Strategy’s enterprise value fell below the value of its Bitcoin holdings, raising questions about the market’s appetite for listed Bitcoin treasury companies.
The original treasury company thesis was simple: public market investors would pay a premium for Bitcoin exposure wrapped in an equity structure. That assumption is now being tested. Investors appear to be looking more closely at liquidity, balance sheet structure, governance and whether the listed wrapper deserves a premium at all.
Read more: Reuters
Closing insights
The week’s AI and blockchain stories are more connected than they first appear.
In AI, the focus is moving from model capability to infrastructure, rights and operating costs. Data centres need land and energy. Models need governance and safeguards. Creative inputs need licensing and consent. Businesses need to understand when to use frontier models, when to use smaller systems and how to measure whether any of it is actually creating value.
In digital assets, the same maturity curve is playing out. Stablecoins are moving into banking infrastructure. Tokenised securities are appearing in public market contexts. Regulators in the UK and Europe are drawing clearer lines around who can operate, under what conditions and with what safeguards.
The big shift is that both sectors are becoming less abstract.
AI is no longer just a clever interface. Blockchain is no longer just a speculative market. Both are becoming infrastructure layers, and infrastructure has to deal with cost, trust, regulation, resilience and public legitimacy.
That is where the next phase of the digital economy will be decided.
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The Australian Blockchain & AI Network (ABAI Network) is a non-profit community organisation dedicated to increasing education and awareness of blockchain technology, specifically blockchain and AI-based projects. Their goal is to empower the Australian community with the knowledge and tools to participate in the digital economy, and to promote the adoption and growth of emerging technology in Australia and beyond.
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