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A-Cube Raises €4million to Accelerate European Digital Tax Compliance

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A-Cube, an innovative technology partner specializing in automated digital tax compliance, has successfully secured a €4million investment round. The funding round was led by P101 SGR, a prominent Italian venture capital firm with an international focus, which will also provide strategic operational support as the startup embarks on its next phase of development. Sella Direct Ventures, an investor specializing in fintech and financial services technologies, also participated in the round and intends to leverage its global network to further accelerate A-Cube’s scale-up efforts.

This new capital injection is designed to consolidate A-Cube’s footprint across key European markets while accelerating the technological development of its API-first platform. Specifically, the company plans to integrate new Artificial Intelligence models and expand its product offerings into solutions adjacent to digital tax reporting. This expansion aims to meet the rapidly evolving regulatory framework and compliance needs of multinational companies operating in complex, multi-jurisdictional environments. Since 2019, A-Cube has already processed over 70 million invoices, currently serving more than 450 customers across over 10 countries.

Navigating a shifting regulatory landscape
Antonino Caccamo, co-founder and CTO of A-Cube

The investment arrives as the European regulatory landscape becomes increasingly defined by harmonization and digitalization. The upcoming VIDA (VAT in the Digital Age) directive, set for 2028, is estimated to generate over €110billion in additional VAT revenue over the next decade. Alongside the steady rollout of continuous transaction control models, this shift is driving the rapid, widespread adoption of e-invoicing and real-time tax reporting across the continent.

Antonino Caccamo, co-founder and CTO of A-Cube, noted that global taxation is undergoing a radical shift as regulatory changes and technological innovation converge toward increasingly digital and integrated reporting models. Caccamo highlighted that while Italy has been a pioneer in this space, the trend is now sweeping across Europe, making real-time tax reporting the standard. He stated that in this evolving scenario, A-Cube wants to provide the essential infrastructure capable of supporting companies through complex multi-country environments, ultimately turning compliance into an integrated and strategic process.

Giuseppe Donvito, partner at P101

For P101 SGR, the transaction represents a deepening commitment to the regulatory technology sector, marking its second investment in the Regtech industry following its backing of Aptus AI in 2023. The venture capital firm plans to guide A-Cube’s product development toward new application areas, evolving the platform into a comprehensive enabler of financial, tax, and operational processes.

Giuseppe Donvito, partner at P101, emphasized the strategic importance of the sector, noting that electronic invoicing is projected to be adopted by 90 per cent of European companies by 2030, creating a market valued at over €20 billion. Donvito explained that a profound technological transformation is currently underway where tax data are becoming strategic assets within emerging systems that tightly integrate digital tax reporting and digital trade. He added that through AI integration, A-Cube will bring greater automation, enhanced data quality, and powerful predictive capabilities to its growing client base.

Labor Unions Join Banking Industry In Opposition To Senate Crypto Bill, The Clarity Act

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Five of the nation’s largest labor organizations are urging the Senate to vote against a pending cryptocurrency market structure bill, warning that the legislation would expose retirement accounts to digital asset volatility ahead of a key committee vote Thursday.

The AFL-CIO, Service Employees International Union, American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association, and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees sent letters and emails to Senate Banking Committee members, according to CNBC, which obtained the correspondence first.

The crypto industry takes ‘risks’

The groups wrote that the bill “jeopardizes the stability of workers’ retirement plans, including public pensions, and introduces significant volatility to retirement savings accounts.”

“This legislation invites the cryptocurrency industry to take outsized risks, knowing that if those risky bets do not pay off, it is working people and retirees, not crypto billionaires, who will pay the price,” the unions wrote in a joint letter to all senators.

The AFL-CIO, in a separate email to Banking Committee members, warned that “absent sufficient regulation, embedding cryptocurrencies and other digital assets into the real economy will have a destabilizing effect, while benefiting issuers and platforms at the expense of working people.”

The Senate Banking Committee is scheduled to mark up and vote on the bill Thursday. Despite months of bipartisan talks, it remains unclear whether any Democrats on the committee will vote in favor of the measure. Several lawmakers say the bill needs more work on ethics, conflict-of-interest, and security provisions.

Labor groups are not the sole source of opposition. The American Bankers Association has also pushed back on updated language in the bill concerning stablecoin holdings. ABA CEO Rob Nichols wrote to bank executives on May 10 that a provision barring cryptocurrency firms from paying yield on payment stablecoins remains a threat to traditional bank deposits, arguing it would “unnecessarily incentivize the flight of bank deposits.” 

The crypto industry, in contrast, has backed the revised language, with Coinbase voicing support for the restriction.

Michael Saylor chimes in

Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor took a position in favor of the legislation. In a post on X, Saylor wrote that the bill “would unlock the next wave of Digital Capital, Digital Credit, and Digital Equity in the U.S. and globally,” calling it a framework for “STRC-powered digital yield markets” and a signal of “institutional validation for BTC.”

The crypto industry has identified the bill as its top legislative priority this session. Whether that momentum carries through committee — and into a full Senate vote — now depends on resolving opposition from organized labor, traditional banks, and a block of Senate Democrats who have yet to commit their support.

Privacy emerges as crypto’s next ‘killer app’, according to Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan

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Arc, Canton and Tempo, three blockchains focused on stablecoins and tokenization, have raised more than $1 billion combined, highlighting rising institutional demand for privacy-focused crypto infrastructure, according to Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan.

Stablecoin issuer Circle (CRCL) recently raised $222 million at a $3 billion valuation for Arc, while Digital Asset is reportedly raising $300 million at a $2 billion valuation for the Canton blockchain. Tempo, backed by Stripe and Paradigm, previously raised $500 million at a $5 billion valuation.

In a Tuesday blog post, Hougan said the fundraising wave reflects three trends: clearer U.S. regulation, growing demand for private blockchain transactions and rising competition from corporate-backed crypto networks.

Blockchains have long faced a trade-off between speed, cost and security: faster, cheaper networks often make compromises on decentralization or resilience, while more secure chains can be slower and more expensive to use.

That tension is especially important for stablecoins and tokenization, where institutions need transactions to be fast and affordable, but also private, compliant and secure enough for real-world finance.

Hougan said privacy could emerge as a “killer app” for crypto as businesses and consumers become less comfortable with fully transparent blockchains like Ethereum and Solana.

“If you’re a business broadcasting every trade before it’s complete, or a worker whose paycheck is visible to anyone with a block explorer, that transparency is a bug, not a feature,” Hougan said.

He added that the fundraising boom also reflects growing confidence after Congress passed the Genius Act in 2025, giving institutions a clearer regulatory footing to invest in crypto infrastructure.

Read more: ‘Bitcoin transactions can be monitored’: Ray Dalio explains why central banks won’t touch BTC

Clear Signing: Making Transaction Approvals Safer on Ethereum

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An Ethereum Working Group consisting of wallet developers, security firms and the Ethereum Foundation’s Trillion Dollar Security Initiative today launched an open standard designed to end blind signing — a structural flaw that has contributed to billions in user losses, including the Bybit hack. Ethereum Foundation’s Trillion Dollar Security Initiative is taking an active role as a credibly neutral steward of the Clear Signing registry.

Across major exploits in crypto and blockchain applications, the final step often isn’t a bug in code, but a user approving a transaction. Even when phishing or an infrastructure compromise initiates the breach, the last step is typically a confirmation the user cannot meaningfully understand. Approving a transaction is meant to be the last line of defense when exercising control over what happens to your assets on the blockchain. When it is done blindly, that defense does not hold.

For users and institutions to feel comfortable storing and interacting with assets on Ethereum that amount to trillions, “What You See Is What You Sign” (WYSIWYS) must be our goal, and Clear Signing must be the default.

Today, approving a transaction often means trying to understand what you’re about to do based on information that isn’t designed for people to read. In higher-risk situations, users may rely on a separate device to double-check the details, especially if the app they’re using could be compromised. In practice, this information is often shown in low-level, machine-readable formats that are accurate but difficult to interpret without technical expertise.

What is needed is a way for both existing and new applications on Ethereum to provide clear, human-readable and structured descriptions of what a transaction will do, so that wallets can present this information consistently and reliably to users. Achieving this requires a shared format for these descriptions (ERC-7730), a registry to store and distribute them, a way to verify that they are accurate, and tools that make it easy for wallets and developers to adopt this approach, alongside a credibly neutral party to support the infrastructure.

Anyone can contribute descriptors to this system. Their accuracy is verified through independent reviews and attestations, and wallets decide which sources they trust. While these descriptors are provided alongside the transaction, rather than embedded directly in it, this approach makes it possible to support both existing and new applications, while still allowing their accuracy to be independently verified.

Ethereum Foundation’s One Trillion Dollar Security Initiative is committed to hosting this infrastructure and supporting its development, with tooling built and maintained by contributors across the ecosystem, and adoption encouraged through clearsigning.org, to help make Clear Signing the default on Ethereum.

We encourage wallet developers to adopt this approach and integrate support for clear, human-readable transaction confirmations. Developers building applications are encouraged to provide accurate descriptions of what their transactions do, and security experts are encouraged to review and attest to their correctness. Information about available tooling, including Rust and TypeScript libraries funded through 1TS, can be found on clearsigning.org.

By moving to Clear Signing, we are strengthening the last line of defense and making the Ethereum ecosystem safer, more accessible, and better prepared for the next wave of users and institutional adoption.

We want to credit and acknowledge Ledger for initiating ERC-7730 and early tooling, infrastructure, and educational efforts. This is a deliberately multi-party effort with contributions across research, library development, audits, and coordination, involving teams such as ZKnox, Sourcify, Cyfrin, Zama, WalletConnect, Fireblocks, Trezor, Keycard, MetaMask, Argot, and independent contributors across the ecosystem.

Consumer habits hold steady as payment options grow

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Consumer payment behaviors, including cash use, reflect three years of stability

For about 1 in 7 payments, consumers still pay with cash despite the growing proliferation of digital payment options, according to the 2026 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice (Diary), the annual survey from Federal Reserve Financial Services measuring the evolving role of cash in the U.S. economy.

Now in its 10th year, the national survey revealed that U.S. consumer payment use remained largely consistent over the past three years. Cash remained the third-most-used payment instrument among consumers for the sixth year, with credit and debit cards accounting for two-thirds of all payments. Findings continue to demonstrate more gradual shifts in consumer habits when compared to the advancement of payment technologies and increased payment options.

“The consistency of cash and card use over the last three years suggests cash remains a stable payment method amid the rise in digital options,” said Kathleen Young, executive vice president and chief of FedCash® Services. “Cash continues to remain a primary payment method for some, while serving as a key backup payment option and store of value for many Americans. This points to the importance of consumer payments choice.”

The survey also revealed generational and demographic trends in payments. Households earning less than $25,000 per year and adults 55 and older relied more on cash than other cohorts. Rural residents tended to use cash more than their urban and suburban counterparts — making an average of nine cash payments per month, compared to six cash payments made by consumers in suburban and urban areas.

Other key findings included:

  • In recent years, U.S. consumers’ preferences for in-person payment methods have stabilized, though the survey also reveals noticeable shifts over the past decade. More consumers now say they prefer using credit cards in person (38% compared to 24% in 2016), nearly equal to the amount who say they prefer debit (40%).
  • Most consumers (76%) carried cash in their pocket, purse or wallet in 2025, with the average amount totaling $69. Nearly half (45%) of consumers stored an average of $364 in cash elsewhere for savings or emergency purposes.
  • Four out of five consumers used cash in the last 30 days, and 90% plan to continue using cash in the future.

Since 2016, the Federal Reserve has conducted this annual consumer survey each October to better understand the payment habits of U.S. consumers. Participants report all payments over a three-day period, the value of their cash holdings, payment instruments used and their preferences for various types of payments.

Osero raises $13.5M in round led by Sky Ecosystem

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Osero, a stablecoin yield infrastructure project incubated by Stablewatch and Soter Labs, raised $13.5 million in a round led by the Sky Ecosystem and co-led by Plasma.

The round included angel investors representing USDT0, Maple, Accountable, Four Pillars, RedStone, The Rollup and Kairos Research, according to an announcement.

Stablecoins have grown to more than $300 billion, according to DeFiLlama data. Most yield from the assets backing those stablecoins still goes to issuers like Circle and Tether, leaving holders with no direct return and fintech firms with limited ways to offer stablecoin savings products without managing assets themselves.

Osero is launching three products. Osero Earn which lets wallets, neobanks, custodians and exchanges embed the Sky Savings Rate into their own interfaces. Osero App, which gives users direct access to the rate across chains, and Osero Foundry, which gives asset managers and structured product issuers a way to bring yield products onchain.

Osero Earn is meant to be integrated with roughly 10 lines of code, according to the company. The product routes deposits into the Sky Savings Rate while Osero handles the underlying asset-management, routing and risk infrastructure.

Osero Foundry will provide up to $2.5 billion in allocation capacity for anchor funding, swap liquidity and lending liquidity. Each deployment will go through a Basel III-inspired risk review, Osero said.

The $13.5 million raise will fund capital requirements for Osero’s first Foundry allocations. The capital will be used to underwrite the first cohort of deployments under the risk framework used for the Sky Protocol’s assessment process.

Sky, formerly MakerDAO, has been expanding the balance sheet and distribution network around USDS and sUSDS. Sky received a B- rating from S&P last year, in the first credit rating assigned by the agency to a DeFi protocol.

Sky-backed projects have also pushed into yield-bearing real-world asset products. Obex said in March it was spreading $1 billion across credit, energy and AI assets to expand stablecoin yield.

Plasma, which co-led the round, is building a stablecoin-focused blockchain. Its token sale drew $373 million last year in an oversubscribed sale.

The CFTC is in talks with every major pro sports league to crack down on insider trading

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Chairman Mike Selig of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said his agency is in talks with all major U.S. professional sports leagues as federal regulators deepen oversight of sports-related prediction markets.

The regulator is seeking broader cooperation with leagues to monitor insider trading and market manipulation tied to event contracts, Selig said Tuesday at the annual FINRA conference in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, following an earlier CFTC announcement of a data-sharing agreement with Major League Baseball in March.

“We’ve entered into a memorandum of understanding with Major League Baseball, and we’re in talks with all the professional sports leagues,” Selig said at the event, hosted by the brokerage industry’s self-regulatory organization.

The CFTC agreement with baseball was its first formal information-sharing deal with a professional sports organization. The arrangement comes as federally regulated prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket move deeper into sports contracts, triggering disputes with state gaming regulators over who controls the sector.

Selig took an aggressive stance on that legal fight. He said the CFTC has already sued “about five or six states” over attempts to block federally regulated event contracts and pledged the agency would continue bringing cases against states that challenge the commission’s authority. Under U.S. law, derivatives listed on CFTC-regulated exchanges fall under federal oversight rather than state gaming laws, he’s repeatedly argued.

“Different products, parallel regimes,” he said, comparing sports prediction contracts with traditional casino betting.

The chairman also outlined how the agency is approaching insider trading in prediction markets, an area regulators have only recently begun confronting.

Selig cited a case policed by the platform Kalshi involving YouTube creator MrBeast in which an employee allegedly traded ahead of market-moving information tied to online content releases. He also described hypothetical sports-related scenarios, including trainers or team staff trading on nonpublic injury information before games.

The exchanges themselves remain the “first line of defense,” Selig said, because they conduct know-your-customer and anti-money laundering checks that can help identify suspicious activity.

The CFTC also expects prediction markets to spread into mainstream investment products.

Selig said regulators are reviewing exchange-traded products and funds linked to prediction-market strategies and are coordinating oversight with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). SEC chair Paul Atkins is scheduled to speak at the conference later this afternoon.

Selig’s remarks signal a broader shift at the CFTC under the Trump administration, which has embraced prediction markets and crypto-linked financial products after years of regulatory resistance toward the sector.

Startup That Aims to Widen Access to Compute Draws $1.3B

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A company that aims to develop an “AI grid” that will make compute capacity more widely available, has attracted $1.3 billion in funding.

Amp, which is based in Menlo Park, California, is the brainchild of Anjney Midha, a tech entrepreneur who was previously a partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

Midha says Amp’s approach is required because so much of the computing power necessary for AI is being gobbled up by tech giants such as Google, Amazon and Meta and well-funded startups like OpenAI and Anthropic, who have repeatedly shown they are prepared to spend billions of dollars on AI data centers.

Where that leaves those without such deep pockets is Amp’s concern. Its aim is to acquire extra compute capacity from data center operators — in both the U.S. and further afield — and make it available to those who need it for their own AI projects, but can’t afford it.

This would be done by creating a pool of chips that could be used by those without extensive funding or resources, such as universities or small startups.

Related:Nscale Gets $790M in Financing for Norway AI Buildout

Amp is a public benefit corporation. Among those already intrigued by Midha’s vision are Andreessen Horowitz and startup incubator Y Combinator, which contributed to the funding.

“Some companies just can’t get the computing power they need. The world’s wealthiest and most powerful companies are hoarding the infrastructure for themselves,” as Midha told the New York Times, which, along with The Information, reported the funding.

In practical terms, Amp said it will used the funding to purchase capacity, which will be added to a pool made available to organizations or startups that choose to join the “coalition” the company is putting together.

The aim is to mirror the concept of an electrical grid, where power is shared among various customers.

Members of the coalition will also be encouraged to contribute funds, or, underscoring the collective nature of the enterprise, share other useful resources. These could be the data used to train models, or even the models themselves.

Among the founding grid members, according to Amp, are France’s Mistral, voice AI vendor ElevenLabs, and Germany’s Black Forest Labs, while the company is targeting a pool of 1.9 gigawatts over the next five years, with 200 megawatts online by the end of 2026.

Separately, Amp’s goal to ensure the benefits of AI are more widely distributed extends to the foundation of a public wealth fund, which will provide backing to local communities affected by the transition. Amp says it plans to put aside up to $500 million of Amp’s profits through 2030 for the fund.

Related:Once Trendy Shoe Company Allbirds Pivots to AI Infrastructure

 

MARA Dumps $1.5B In Bitcoin As Miner Trades Treasury Hoard For AI Power Bet

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MARA Holdings has begun to shed its pure-play bitcoin miner identity, unloading $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin in the first quarter as it refocuses on power infrastructure and artificial intelligence data centers.

The shift comes as the company reports weaker financial results and leans on its bitcoin treasury to retire debt and fund a large energy acquisition in Ohio.

The company reported first-quarter revenue of $174.6 million, an 18% drop from a year earlier, and a net loss of about $1.3 billion. Management tied that result to a roughly $1 billion negative change in the fair value of its digital assets after a double-digit slide in the bitcoin price over the period.

MARA produced 2,247 bitcoin in the quarter and lifted energized hashrate 33% year over year to 72.2 exahash per second, but those operational gains did not offset the mark-to-market hit on its holdings.

To strengthen its balance sheet, MARA sold about $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin during the quarter, including a $1.1 billion block near the end of the period used to repurchase convertible notes. 

The miner sold 20,880 bitcoin and ended the quarter with 35,303 coins, down from 38,689 earlier in the year. That sale pushed the company from the second- to the fourth-largest publicly traded holder of bitcoin, according to Bitcoin Treasuries data.

Management framed the move as a use of bitcoin as “ammunition” on the balance sheet rather than an untouchable reserve.

MARA is pivoting from bitcoin to AI 

Even as it continues to mine, MARA is signaling a strategic pivot away from aggressive expansion of dedicated mining capacity. In its earnings statement the company said it does not expect to make large purchases of new ASIC miners, a sharp contrast with the playbook miners used during the last cycle to chase hashrate growth.

Instead, MARA is steering capital toward energy and data infrastructure that can support both bitcoin mining and high-performance computing workloads.

A centerpiece of that plan is the pending $1.5 billion acquisition of the Long Ridge Energy & Power campus in Hannibal, Ohio, which includes a 505-megawatt gas-fired power plant and extensive land for expansion.

MARA says the site could support more than 600 megawatts of AI and critical IT loads through staged buildouts, with its existing mining footprint integrated into the campus. 

The company has also partnered with Starwood Capital to convert selected mining sites into AI and high-performance computing data centers, broadening its revenue base beyond block rewards.

Around 90% of MARA’s non-hosted mining capacity could eventually support AI and IT infrastructure, according to company disclosures. 

The strategy positions MARA at the center of two energy-hungry sectors, bitcoin mining and AI compute, while giving it the option to tilt power toward whichever market offers stronger returns at a given time. 

ABA Pushes Banks to Lobby Senators Over Stablecoin Yield Provisions

The American Bankers Association is lobbying US senators ahead of this week’s Senate Banking Committee markup of crypto legislation, warning that proposed stablecoin rules could incentivize consumers to move deposits out of banks.

In a Sunday message to member bank CEOs shared on X by Punchbowl News reporter Brendan Pedersen, ABA president and CEO Rob Nichols said the current version of the CLARITY Act does not adequately prevent crypto companies from offering interest-like rewards tied to payment stablecoins.

Nichols urged bankers to contact senators and encourage employees to do the same before Thursday’s committee markup, describing the issue as an “urgent advocacy fight” for the banking industry.

“The legislation would permit stablecoin issuers and associated business partners to pay interest or interest-like incentives to stablecoin holders,” Nichols wrote, adding that the provision could create “a digital asset loophole” that would allow deposits to migrate outside the traditional banking system.

Source: Brendan Pedersen

Source: Brendan Pedersen

Nichols said the ABA had been “working hard behind the scenes for months” on the issue and warned that allowing non-bank stablecoin issuers to offer interest-like incentives could threaten “economic growth and financial stability.”

The latest lobbying effort follows a Friday letter from the ABA and other major US banking associations urging Senate lawmakers to strengthen the bill’s stablecoin yield restrictions, arguing the current language still allows structures that could incentivize users to move deposits out of banks.

Related: 7 Democrats seen as ‘key’ to advancing CLARITY Act: Galaxy

CLARITY Act stablecoin yield fight continues ahead of Senate vote

The CLARITY Act, which aims to establish a federal regulatory framework for digital assets and is scheduled for a Senate Banking Committee vote on Thursday, has fueled months of debate between banks and the crypto industry over stablecoin yield provisions.

In April, the ABA criticized a White House report that said banning stablecoin yield would have only a limited impact on bank lending, while Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan warned earlier this year that such products could pull as much as $6 trillion out of the banking system.

Crypto companies, meanwhile, have pushed back against the banking industry’s position, with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong among the most vocal critics of banks for offering near-zero interest rates on customer deposits while opposing yield-bearing stablecoin products.

X post September 29, 2025. Source: Brian Armstrong
X post September 29, 2025. Source: Brian Armstrong

X post Sept. 29, 2025. Source: Brian Armstrong

Earlier this month, lawmakers attempted to strike a compromise by publishing updated stablecoin yield provisions prohibiting crypto companies from offering interest or yield solely for holding payment stablecoins while still permitting rewards tied to “bona fide activities.” However, some banking groups argued the revised restrictions did not go far enough.

While debate over stablecoin yield provisions continues, recent polling suggests support for broader crypto legislation is growing across party lines. 

A HarrisX survey of 2,008 registered US voters found that 52% support the CLARITY Act, while 47% said they would consider voting across party lines for a candidate who backed the legislation.

Prediction market Polymarket at last look gives the CLARITY Act a 65% chance of being signed into law before the end of the year, up from around 46% at the end of April. Platform users have staked $672,289 on the outcome, at last look.

Source: Polymarket
Source: Polymarket

Source: Polymarket

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