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Tech Beat · 10 AM Update

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Despite a very public White House stance against a Central Bank Digital Currency, former CFTC Chairman Timothy Massad is saying the quiet part out loud — a U.S. digital dollar is coming, one way or another. The debate, he suggests, is happening behind closed doors whether politicians acknowledge it or not.

Across the Atlantic, a DWS and Galaxy-backed firm called AllUnity is moving in a different direction entirely, planning to launch a Swedish krona stablecoin called SEKAU as early as June. It's part of a broader European push to build regulated, local-currency digital tokens that don't depend on the U.S. dollar — a financial sovereignty play wrapped in fintech clothing.

And in the world of open source infrastructure, a quiet crisis nearly went unnoticed. pgBackRest, a critical backup tool for PostgreSQL — the database quietly powering much of the modern web — had its future hanging on a single maintainer. A coalition including AWS and Percona has now stepped up with funding, a reminder that the internet's foundations are often more fragile than anyone cares to admit.

Keep surfing. Tech Beat out.

Sources

  1. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/05/19/despite-trump-s-pledge-a-cbdc-is-being-explored-behind-closed-doors-says-former-ctfc-chair
  2. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/05/20/germany-s-allunity-plans-swedish-krona-stablecoin-pushes-into-ai-agentic-payments
  3. https://www.theregister.com/databases/2026/05/20/postgresql-backup-tool-gets-some-backup-of-its-own-after-sole-maintainer-sounds-alarm/5242822
  4. https://www.engadget.com/2177477/mercedes-amg-1153-hp-electric-gt-4-door-takes-on-porsche-taycan/
  5. https://antigravity.google/blog/introducing-google-antigravity-2-0
  6. https://www.economist.com/culture/2026/05/14/the-weird-wild-story-of-humanitys-obsession-with-gold
  7. https://rtlive.ru
  8. https://www.wired.com/story/data-brokers-and-ai-firms-opt-out-forms-are-built-to-fail-report-finds/
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