VicRoads chief Giles Thompson apologized for a week of tech failures after a network upgrade disrupted vehicle registration and driving test bookings. While services are now operational, the website still reports intermittent issues. The Australian Services Union linked the problems to VicRoads' partial privatization.
China's State Council has approved the "15th Five-Year Plan" for urban renewal, detailing plans to construct and renovate approximately 770,000 kilometers of underground utility networks. This initiative, requiring an investment of around 5 trillion yuan, is expected to stimulate GDP growth of 7.5 to 10 trillion yuan and create about 2.8 million jobs annually, significantly enhancing urban safety and resilience.
Zcash (ZEC) experienced a brief market scare due to a rumor of a chain halt, but it was actually a planned shutdown of its privacy system for a major network upgrade. The issue was a soundness vulnerability in the Orchard shielded pool, which was fixed via a hard fork. Despite broader crypto market declines, ZEC rallied, signaling market confidence in the network's resilience.
NEAR Protocol's price surged 34% to $2.32, leading AI crypto tokens in a rally. Network upgrades focused on AI, privacy, and scaling, coupled with NVIDIA's strong revenue forecast, boosted investor confidence and trading volume.
