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CoreWeave commits $6 bn to Pennsylvania data centre amid Trump AI push
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Mint
11 minutes ago
- Mint
The Bitcoin is full of contradictions. It could still climb some more.
Bitcoin is in the midst of another historic rally. Can it continue? Your guess is as good as anyone's. The bearish arguments, so far proved wrong by the market, haven't changed. The bullish arguments remain as mercurial—and contradictory—as ever. The original cryptocurrency is having another great year, with its price up more than 27%. On Friday, Bitcoin traded at $119,023, up 0.5% for the day, and only about 3% below its July 14 all-time high of $123,166. The price peg's Bitcoin's total market cap at $2.3 trillion. If Bitcoin were a stock, that would rank it sixth in the S&P 500, behind Google parent Alphabet and in front of Meta, according to FactSet data. Given all the excitement, Wall Street analysts are scrambling to put a target price on the surging asset. On Thursday, Citigroup Global Markets offered investors a framework for understanding Bitcoin's price, based on criteria like demand and macro-economic factors. But the result wasn't going to change many minds: Citi offered a bull case of $199,000, representing a gain of about 70% from today's price and a bear case of $64,000, suggesting a 50% decline. It's hard to blame Citibank's analysts for trying to cover their bases. So many of the arguments in favor of Bitcoin tend to fall back on themselves—and yet the price marches ever upwards. Take Bitcoin's latest price driver: Action in Washington. Last week President Trump signed the Genius Act, a bill designed to regulate stable coins, a form of cryptocurrency backed by real assets. Lawmakers may soon advance the Clarity Act, which is designed to resolve the question of whether regulators should treat cryptocurrencies as commodities or securities. There is even talk of crypto in 401(k)s. It's true those developments could all further mainstream adoption. Yet for anyone who has followed the crypto industry's rhetoric over the past decade, it's a little hard not to blanch at all the cheering over victories in Washington. The original aim of Bitcoin—and its cri de coeur—was to be a store of value whose price was immune to government meddling. Bitcoin's scarcity, amid the growing demand for digital assets, is another key explanation for the rally. But this argument is thorny too. Bitcoin boosters are fond of repeating that there will never be more than 21 million Bitcoins, while regular 'halvings" make Bitcoin less and less lucrative to mine. Meanwhile, demand for Bitcoin has skyrocketed in the past year thanks to the advent of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, which make it far easier for mainstream investors to bet on the cryptocurrency. The largest of these, the iShares Bitcoin Trust, has grabbed nearly $38 billion in investor dollars in the past 12 months and nearly $6 billion in the last month alone. But can this potent mix of scarcity and demand continue? While the number of Bitcoins is fixed, there is no limit on the number of copy-cat coins. CoinMarketCap tracks more than 18 million coins, according to its website, with a total market value of $1.5 trillion. So far the SEC has cleared spot ETFs for only the two most valuable cryptos: Bitcoin and Ethereum. But boosters of offerings such as XRP, Litecoin and Solana are clamoring for their own spot ETFs. Washington's new crypto-friendly attitude suggests they will soon get them. Of course, a flood of new crypto ETFs won't necessarily dampen investors' appetite for Bitcoin. Bitcoin's status and mystique as the original crypto has so far ensured it remains more valuable than its many imitators. But the potential flood does suggest that hype, more than limited supply, is what supports Bitcoin's price. Arguments for why investors should own Bitcoin (other than price speculation) are also shaky. Unlike stocks and bonds, Bitcoin doesn't throw off any cash flows. No matter, supporters have long argued. Bitcoin still has a role in your portfolio as a store of value, a form of 'digital gold." It's a view that has led some large investing firms (including Bitcoin ETF sponsors BlackRock and Fidelity) to advocate investors should consider devoting at least a small share of their overall portfolio, say 1% to 2%, to Bitcoin, to boost diversification. The Bitcoin-as-diversifier notion mirrors the longstanding arguments made in favor of owning actual gold—but there are problems with this thesis too. It's true that returns for Bitcoin and gold have resembled one another over the past year. They are both in the midst of big rallies. But, then so are plenty of risk-on assets, notably U.S. growth stocks, led by big U.S. technology names. While gold isn't a perfect hedge against stock-market declines, its reputation as a haven during times of macroeconomic turmoil has been established by academic studies looking at decades of returns. Bitcoin, invented in 2008, boasts no such extensive record. In fact, one recent study (again by BlackRock) found that, although Bitcoin's volatility had recently lessened, the coin remained about four times more volatile than gold. When the next bear market comes it seems likely investors will flee speculative assets like Bitcoin and tech stocks, not run to them for shelter. Where will Bitcoin go next? Prices may continue to march higher, just because they always have. But the arguments in favor of still-bigger gains still don't give much confidence—making sense only if you close one eye and wish away all the contradictions. Write to Ian Salisbury at
Mint
41 minutes ago
- Mint
NASA Says Thousands of Employees Set to Resign from Space Agency
(Bloomberg) -- NASA will lose roughly 3,870 employees through a voluntary resignation program, part of a broad push from President Donald Trump's administration to reduce the federal workforce. The numbers are subject to change as NASA reviews applications, including if an employee withdraws from the program or a resignation isn't approved, the US space agency said in a statement on Friday. 'Safety remains a top priority for our agency as we balance the need to become a more streamlined and more efficient organization and work to ensure we remain fully capable of pursuing a Golden Era of exploration and innovation, including to the Moon and Mars,' NASA said. NASA has offered employees two separate opportunities in 2025 to leave through the government's Deferred Resignation Program. The agency said its expected remaining civil servant workforce would be about 14,000 people, following both resignation programs, as well as normal attrition of about 500 people over the same time period. The first round came during the start of the Trump administration when federal workers received emails offering them the opportunity to take a buyout, an effort spearheaded by the Elon Musk-helmed Department of Government Efficiency. About 870 people, or 4.8% of the NASA workforce, took the offer then. NASA initiated its own second round of deferred resignation beginning in early June, with a deadline to opt in by July 25. About 3,000 personnel, or 16.4% of the workforce, took it up, the agency said Friday. Executives at the space agency, who have been working to reduce headcount to comply with the Trump administration's goal of shrinking the federal workforce, have spearheaded deferred resignation as a way to avoid layoffs. 'The reason we are doing this is to minimize any involuntary workforce reductions in the future,' NASA's former acting administrator Janet Petro said during an agency town hall on June 25, according to an audio recording obtained by Bloomberg. 'That is our whole goal, minimizing that.' NASA had sought a 'blanket waiver' in February to save all of the agency's probationary employees from layoffs. The prospect of a mass exodus of employees from NASA has raised alarm bells within the industry and at the agency, with some experts arguing that the the cuts will cause NASA to lose some of its best talent. In a letter to newly appointed NASA interim administrator Sean Duffy titled 'The Voyager Declaration,' hundreds of former and current employees warned Duffy, who is also the head of the Transportation Department, that workforce reductions could jeopardize the safety and efficiency of operations. 'Thousands of NASA civil servant employees have already been terminated, resigned or retired early, taking with them highly specialized, irreplaceable knowledge crucial to carrying out NASA's mission,' they wrote in the letter to Duffy. More stories like this are available on
Time of India
41 minutes ago
- Time of India
Trump administration expected to say greenhouse gases aren't harmful
President Trump's administration is poised to reverse the EPA's Endangerment Finding, a critical scientific basis for US climate regulations. This move, part of Project 2025, argues that the economic costs of climate regulation are too high and downplays the impact of US vehicle emissions. Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads What is the Endangerment Finding? Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads What is the Trump administration doing? Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Could they succeed? President Donald Trump's administration is preparing to upend a foundational scientific determination about the harms of greenhouse gases that underpins the US government's ability to curb climate change.A proposal from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to change the so-called " Endangerment Finding " was sent to the White House on June 30, a spokesperson told announcement is expected imminently. Here's what to know -- and what's at stake if the finding is Clean Air Act of 1970 empowered the EPA to regulate "air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare."For decades, the law applied to pollutants like lead, ozone and as climate science around the dangers of heat-trapping greenhouse gases advanced in the 2000s, a coalition of states and nonprofit groups petitioned the EPA to include them under the law, focusing on motor issue reached the Supreme Court, which in 2007 ruled that greenhouse gases qualify as air pollutants and directed the EPA to revisit its led to the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which declared greenhouse gases a threat to public health and welfare , based on overwhelming scientific consensus and peer-reviewed research."That 2009 finding formed the basis for all of EPA's subsequent regulations," Meredith Hankins, a senior attorney on climate and energy for the activist Natural Resources Defense Council, told AFP."They've issued greenhouse gas standards for tailpipe emissions from motor vehicles, smokestack emissions from power plants -- all of these individual rulemakings trace themselves back to the 2009 Endangerment Finding."The Endangerment Finding has withstood multiple legal challenges, and although Trump's first administration considered reversing it, they ultimately held the finding is now a direct target of Project 2025 , a far-right governance blueprint closely followed by the March, the EPA under Administrator Lee Zeldin announced a formal reconsideration of the finding."The Trump Administration will not sacrifice national prosperity, energy security, and the freedom of our people for an agenda that throttles our industries, our mobility, and our consumer choice while benefiting adversaries overseas," he government is expected to undo the earlier finding that greenhouse gases endanger public will argue that the economic costs of regulation have been undervalued -- and downplay the role of US motor vehicle emissions in climate fact, transportation is the largest source of US greenhouse gas emissions."If vehicle emissions don't pass muster as a contribution to climate change, it's hard to imagine what would," Dena Adler of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University told AFP."It's fatalistic to avoid taking the many actions that could cumulatively fix climate change, because none of them can individually solve the entire problem."Since 1970, the United States has emitted more vehicle-based greenhouse gases than the next nine countries combined, according to an analysis by the Institute for Policy Integrity that will soon be published in March, the EPA said it would lean on recent court rulings, including a landmark 2024 decision that narrowed federal regulatory legal experts say the administration faces an uphill battle."It will take a few years for the rule to be finalized and wind its way up to the Supreme Court for review," said Adler."If EPA loses before the Supreme Court, it gets sent back, and EPA then gets it back to the drawing board" -- by which time Trump's term may be nearing its succeed, the high court may need to overturn its own 2007 decision that led to the Endangerment of the justices who wrote the majority opinion remain on the bench, while three dissenters -- John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito -- still serve, and could spearhead a drive to upend the original then, market forces may blunt the impact of any rollback."Utilities making long-term investments and companies purchasing capital goods expected to be used for decades won't base those decisions on short-term policy changes," said John Tobin-de la Puente, a professor at Cornell University's business especially true when those swings run counter to business trends and could be undone by a future administration, he added.
