Bitcoin hits record high above $124,000
The cryptocurrency rose above its previous July record, briefly exceeding $124,500 before retreating.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Indian Express
2 hours ago
- Indian Express
US team scraps visit, trade talks with India stuck on agri hurdle
The India-US negotiations for a trade deal, which began in February after Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the United States, have come to a halt, and the US negotiators' scheduled visit to India later this month stands cancelled, a source aware of the development told The Indian Express. The breakdown in trade talks assumes significance as US President Donald Trump has announced 50 per cent tariff on Indian products, the highest on any country globally. While 25 per cent tariff has already come into effect, government officials have said the levy of another 25 per cent – for Russia oil trade — could depend on 'how geopolitical events unfold'. The Indian Express had first reported on August 8 that the negotiations for a trade agreement had hit a pause, and the arrival of the US trade team was uncertain, as no formal communication had been received from their side. The deal has been stuck over India's long-standing stance of protecting farmers in every trade agreement. The US, under Trump, is prioritising market access for its agricultural products. In his Independence Day speech on Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterated that India would not compromise on the well-being of its farmers, fisherfolk and cattle keepers, amid the standoff with the US over access for American products in India's agriculture and dairy market. On August 7, too, after Trump announced the additional 25 per cent tariff on Indian goods, Modi had said that he would not compromise 'even if it entailed paying a very heavy personal price'. The geopolitical factor The uncertainty over when the tariffs on India could ease may drag on, as Trump's high-stakes talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin did not result in a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire. However, Trump said he and Putin had made progress during the meeting in Alaska. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has warned that the secondary tariffs on India could increase if 'things don't go well' during the Trump-Putin talks. 'I think everyone has been frustrated with President Putin. We expected that he would come to the table in a more fulsome way. It looks like he may be ready to negotiate. And we put secondary tariffs on the Indians for buying Russian oil. I could see, if things don't go well, then sanctions or secondary tariffs could go up,' Bessent said in an interview with Bloomberg earlier.
Mint
2 hours ago
- Mint
A Startup Is Tapping Underground Parking Garages for Clean Energy
(Bloomberg) -- The heat held in New York's underground labyrinth of infrastructure, from hundreds of miles of subway tunnels to parking garages and malls, is a clean energy gold mine. Now, a Swiss startup wants to tap it to heat and cool buildings, all without drilling a single borehole. Globally, heating accounts for nearly half of all energy consumption. That could make decarbonizing it a half-trillion-dollar market, according to a BloombergNEF analysis. Using the Earth's heat offers one route to cut emissions, but traditional geothermal projects can be costly and require space to operate drilling equipment, making them a poor fit for cities. Startup Enerdrape's system uses energy-harvesting panels in manmade underground spaces, though, which could allow it to gain a toehold in cities. The Swiss company focuses on older multifamily buildings, which are harder to decarbonize than newer builds. In New York, residential structures built before 1960 make up more than 64% of the housing stock, though not all of it is well-suited for the panels. 'There really aren't many companies doing this,' said BNEF analyst Stephanie Diaz. 'They are truly a novel approach in how to decarbonize buildings,' though the company will have to figure out how to scale its technology to work with a wide variety of buildings. Enerdrape's technology is the product of decades of research spearheaded by Lyesse Laloui, a professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Lausanne. A five-time startup founder, he's spent the last 15 years tackling the question of how to turn underground structures into energy sources. Initially, he created a solution for new construction, but realized that it only addressed a small part of the decarbonization puzzle compared to existing buildings. He and his team developed a prototype heat-exchanging panel in 2015. Enerdrape's panels affix to concrete infrastructure, which can hold large stores of heat. (Think of how hot a subway station gets in the summer, for example.) Enerdrape taps that heat using a system of prefabricated panels that absorb geothermal energy from the ground or the air. Even when underground spaces aren't sweltering, the ground temperature, at several feet of depth, stays relatively constant throughout the year. During the summer, Enerdrape's system uses the underground as a heat sink to absorb a building's heat and cool it. In the winter, it does the opposite, using the ground like a battery to warm things up. The system requires installing one panel for roughly every 110 square feet (10 square meters) of a building's floor area. The panels are connected to heat-transferring fluid, working in tandem with one or more heat pumps. 'Enerdrape moves heat from where it's not needed to where it is,' co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Alessandro Rotta Loria said. Rotta Loria, who was Laloui's former PhD student, likened it to an underground solar panel that feeds on heat rather than the sun's rays. Enerdrape says its panels can meet 100% of the space heating, cooling and hot water needs for buildings up to 10 stories in height. The company, which launched in 2019, has projects across Europe, including with Switzerland's largest retailer, Coop Immobilier, small businesses like a dental office in Spain, utilities and multiple Swiss cities. It also teamed up with Engie, one of Europe's largest gas and renewable energy suppliers, to provide energy to 72 homes with Paris Habitat, France's largest affordable housing provider. Enerdrape said its 145 panels provide 70 megawatt-hours of heat per year and cover 25% of homes' domestic hot water needs while avoiding 15 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. Despite many urban areas setting ambitious climate goals and a growing number of residential electrification programs, few companies target affordable housing, according to a 2022 report from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. Decarbonizing heat first is the most cost-effective way to electrify affordable housing, the group found. Low-income housing tends to be old buildings that are more expensive to retrofit, said Thatcher Bell, who leads climate tech accelerator The Clean Fight's programs. High upfront cost for replacement, financial constraints and the large number of stakeholders in these buildings make operators less likely to install new technology. The accelerator selected Enerdrape for a recent cohort of startups focused on low-cost, low-construction ways to cut emissions from older units, without displacing residents. The need for those types of solutions is growing. In New York, Governor Kathy Hochul calls for building 800,000 electrified or electrification-ready homes by 2030. New York City, meanwhile, passed a law to tackle building emissions, which account for approximately 70% of the city's carbon footprint. Similar measures in cities like Boston and Seattle have followed. The majority of New York City residential buildings covered by the law are pre-war construction of six stories or less, according to the Urban Green Council. That provides plenty of opportunities for technology like Enerdrape's. However, the startup faces some challenges. Heat pump adoption is higher in parts of Europe, and Enerdrape will have to contend with slower adoption in the US due to cost. Upfront cost, which includes panel installation and heat pump connection, is typically between $100,000 and $500,000, depending on a building's available surface area that can be activated as a heat source. Political headwinds in the US are another issue, with President Donald Trump curtailing federal support for heat pumps. The system can cut electricity costs, though. According to the company, it can deliver energy at 3 to 4 cents per kilowatt hour, compared to the average US gas price of 17 cents per kWh. Enerdrape says its solution is cheaper in Europe, where fuel costs are 3 to 5 times higher than in the US. The system also won't help with larger buildings, which are some of New York's biggest energy users. 'We're not going to be able to do much' with a 60-floor high-rise, Rotta Loria said. More stories like this are available on
Mint
2 hours ago
- Mint
Lure of ‘Free Money' in Secondaries Nears a Mania
(Bloomberg) -- Demand for secondary funds focused on private markets is soaring, in part because some investors are seizing on an accounting quirk that allows them to buy assets at a discount and then revalue them at par. It's 'creating this sense that people are just picking up free money, and almost a mania,' Blue Owl Capital Co-Chief Executive Officer Marc Lipschultz said on a call with analysts recently. He said his firm avoids the practice, adding there is still a 'great business to be had being a really thoughtful buyer of secondary interest when you have more sellers today than you've ever had in the past.' The secondary market allows investors to buy or sell stakes in private-asset funds, often at a discount. It's become an increasingly popular solution to the problem that many managers faced at the end of the easy-money era, when higher interest rates made some valuations more difficult to justify — and left them unable to exit investments. Credit is expected to be the fastest-growing part of secondaries for years to come, according to Jefferies Financial Group Inc., which forecasts the number of transactions in the space to grow to more than $17 billion this year from $10 billion last year. The marketplace for fund stakes is drawing more sellers than ever before, pushing up prices, which is tempting more investors to look at disposals. Investors in private credit funds looking for liquidity are now able to shift their positions into the secondary market, clearing a bottleneck in the financing chain. The deadlock started when dealmaking stalled, forcing private company owners to hold on to assets for longer. That meant direct lenders had to extend loans for longer too and wait to cash out, crimping returns for some. One benefit for some buyers is the accounting treatment which allows them to mark up the acquisitions, bolstering the value of the assets. 'It's true that secondary transactions are often completed at a discount to NAV, and yes, that can create an initial unrealized gain for the buyer,' private capital investor Hamilton Lane wrote on its website last month. 'But this isn't artificial. It represents real value and can enhance returns for the fund.' More broadly, the wider secondaries trend has proven fruitful recently. The strategy was the best performing for Blackstone Inc. in the second quarter, the alternative asset manager said in a presentation last month. The firm is considering a standalone pool of capital to buy second-hand private credit funds through its Strategic Partners unit, Bloomberg News reported last month. London-based Coller Capital Ltd. closed a deal for a $3 billion continuation fund with direct lender TPG Twin Brook Capital Partners this past week that will transfer a portfolio of loans from the US firm's previous vintages into a new fund. It's the largest such vehicle in private credit secondaries to date. Other signs of appetite for the strategy include Pantheon, a manager of more than $70 billion, raising three times its original target of $750 million for its third credit secondaries fund. Ares Management Corp., meanwhile, has so far raised more than $3.5 billion for its debut credit secondaries fund and related vehicles, Chief Executive Officer Michael Arougheti said on an earnings call last month. The secondaries group 'remains one of our strongest growth vectors for the foreseeable future,' he said. More stories like this are available on
