John Baron: I’m still investing for high inflation - Investors' Chronicle

Oct 24, 2026, 11:21 a.m. EDT2 min readJack Dorsey, co-founder and CEO of Block (CoinDesk)SummaryBlock unveiled Dessa, a voice AI trained only on human speech that talks without text and runs locally on a MacBook Pro with an M4 Max chip. Reactions split between amazement at how human it sounds and fears it could fuel scams and deception, with CZ eyeing uses in children’s education. Block hasn’t disclosed model size, benchmarks or a release date; the research preview is going first to a small group of AI safety researchers. Jack Dorsey's payments company Block XYZ$76.45·Market Closed has unveiled a voice AI model that sounds remarkably human in company demonstrations, prompting reactions ranging from amazement at its conversational abilities to warnings that such technology could make phone scams harder to detect. Called Dessa, the model was trained entirely on human speech rather than text and can listen while speaking, allowing it to handle interruptions, laughter and changes in tone during a conversation, according to the Block’s announcement. “Talking with it feels like talking with a person…full of emotion, nuance, pauses, and a natural cadence,” Dorsey wrote on X.

SummaryThe U. S. is quickly evacuating personnel across the Middle East on threat of Iranian attacks, the WSJ reported. Crypto prices are in broad decline on Saturday, with bitcoin slipping to its weakest level in more than one month. The U. S. is quickly evacuating personnel from embassies and military bases throughout the Middle East as intelligence suggests Iran is prepping attacks against Americans, the WSJ reported Saturday morning. “Iran has substantially increased efforts to target U. S. personnel,” wrote Jay Clayton, the director of national intelligence, in a Friday memo to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “The lethal plotting efforts by the Iranians against U. S. citizens have reached advanced stages in both the Middle East and certain other countries.”These evacuations appear to go well beyond reports from earlier this week that the U. S. was ordering some diplomatic staff in Saudi Arabia to vacate. President Trump, meanwhile, has threatened a re-escalation in the war against Iran after the midterms in early November. “We may do another little ‘Epic Fury,’” Trump said at a rally in Florida on Friday. Crypto prices are sinking to multi-week lows, with bitcoin now down by 2

Oct 24, 2026, 11:00 a.m. EDT4 min readMcDonalds sign (Jurij Kenda/Unsplash)SummaryThis is an excerpt from CoinDesk's new ‘Tokenization Weekly’ newsletter that will be launching soon. Sign-up details will be here when it goes live. The SEC's new framework for tokenized stock trading looked, at first glance, roughly a month ago, like a fast track to putting U. S. equities on crypto rails. The first real-world test hasn't looked particularly encouraging so far. A growing group of public companies has objected to having their shares traded on the tokenized-securities venue being built by OKX and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the owner of the New York Stock Exchange. This week’s of objections included some of the biggest names yet: Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL), Goldman Sachs (GS) McDonalds (MCD) and three others on Monday, then Wells Fargo (WFC) and Cisco (CSCO) and four more firms on Friday rejected having tokenized versions of their shares traded on OKXICE, bringing the disclosed total now to 22 objecting issuers. Seeing some of the world's largest companies say no may not exactly be the start that tokenization advocates had hoped for.

"I never once pulled anything out, no matter how bad the market got, like in 2008. I stayed the course, and it has paid off, so far."

Oct 24, 2026, 10:38 a.m. EDT2 min readSummaryAn Argentine judge dismissed the criminal probe into President Javier Milei, his sister Karina and LIBRA adviser Hayden Davis. The judge found that Milei's promotion of LIBRA did not constitute fraud, despite the attention his support drew to the token. LIBRA lost more than 95% of its value after reaching about $5, while wallets linked to its creator withdrew around $99 million in cryptocurrency. An Argentine federal judge has dismissed the criminal case against President Javier Milei over his promotion of LIBRA, a memecoin that crashed soon after its launch in February 2025. The ruling also covers Milei's sister Karina, the presidency's secretary general. U. S. businessman Hayden Davis, who described himself as an adviser to the token's launch, was also covered by the dismissal, Reuters reported. In all, 11 people were cleared, including lobbyist Mauricio Novelli and KIP Protocol CEO Julian Peh, according to Infobae. None of them had been formally questioned in the case.

Oct 24, 2026, 10:06 a.m. EDT2 min readAndrew Cuomo, co-chair of OKX-ICE and board member of OKX (Getty Images)SummaryCisco, Wells Fargo, Marvell, Arm, Intuit and Moderna opted out of OKXICE’s plans to offer blockchain-based trading of their tokenized shares, bringing the total number of objections to 22. The growing list highlights a hurdle for the joint venture of the crypto exchange and NYSE parent under the SEC’s new framework, which gives issuers 30 days to block their shares from trading on a tokenized securities venue. OKXICE co-chairman Andrew Cuomo said objections were expected, with many companies preferring to wait and see how the new market works before participating. Cisco (CSCO), Wells Fargo (WFC) and four other companies have opted out of plans by crypto exchange OKX and New York Stock Exchange parent Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) to offer blockchain-based trading of their shares, bringing the total objections to 22 as issuers weigh participation in the SEC’s new framework for tokenized stocks.