Latest news with #Goldi
IOL News
24-07-2025
- Business
- IOL News
PIC sells down Astral stake after chicken ban ends
Chicken producer Astral Foods has notified shareholders that South Africa's largest asset manager, the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), has sold down its stake from 27% to 24%. This comes after a ban on poultry imports from Brazil was recently lifted, enabling shipments to start entering South Africa again from about 10 days ago. Astral Foods produces several well-known chicken brands, including Goldi, County Fair, Festive, and Mountain Valley. They also market and distribute chicken products under the brand name Supa Star. A ban on all poultry imports from Brazil was instituted some two months ago after an outbreak of avian influenza, which affected the supply of mechanically deboned meat (MDM) and chicken. MDM is the raw ingredient for polony and viennas and can now be shipped into South Africa again, after an eight-week suspension.
Time of India
15-06-2025
- Science
- Time of India
Ocean worlds beyond Earth: NASA's hunt for life through water
Water, the cradle of life as we understand it, is no longer unique to Earth. From subsurface oceans on frozen moons to water vapor in extraterrestrial atmospheres, NASA's findings are redefining what we know about the universe. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now With its Ocean Worlds initiative, NASA is spearheading a high-stakes search for liquid water, thought to be the most critical factor for the presence of extraterrestrial life. (source: Let us discover the undiscovered Water in the universe With the ease of imagining Earth as the single "blue planet," it's simple to forget that water is much more prevalent than previously thought. NASA says the Orion Nebula, which is a star-forming region 1,300 light-years from Earth, churns out 60 Earth oceans' worth of water daily. That is not a romanticism but an estimate grounded in observation of water vapor clouds churning through interstellar space. These immense clouds of water are the material out of which stars, planets, and even life itself arise. The ocean world of the solar system Just a little closer to home, our solar system features a remarkable number of "ocean worlds", bodies that have liquid water present today or that have evidence of having had such in the past. Earth is only. But the others? Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, has a hidden ocean beneath its icy crust that is potentially two times the size of all Earth's oceans combined. This saltwater ocean is maintained in a liquid state due to the internal heat of the moon and potentially has the proper chemical conditions for life. Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons, is smaller than the state of Arizona and harbors a global subsurface ocean. In 2005, NASA's Cassini spacecraft picked up gigantic plumes of water vapor rising from its south pole. The plumes reported at hundreds of kilometers high carry organic compounds, hydrogen, and salt, suggesting hydrothermal activity deep within. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Then there's Ganymede (another Jupiter moon), Callisto, Titan, and even dwarf planet Ceres, all thought to have or at least to have had liquid reservoirs. Altogether, NASA now recognizes over a dozen ocean worlds in our solar system alone. Mars: The desert planet with a mysterious past Mars, the Red Planet, is now a dry and dusty world, but it wasn't always. Ancient lakebeds and riverbeds, as well as polar ice caps, indicate a watery past. A 2018 radar survey indicated that liquid water could still be present beneath the ice cap at the South Pole, buried beneath ice and rock. While only about 0.03% of all Earth's water is still visible on Mars today, the hunt goes on for underground aquifers with possibly still-existent microbial life. Did you know there is water outside the solar system? NASA's space telescopes have ventured well outside our solar neighborhood in the search for water. By analyzing spectra, scientists have identified water vapor in the atmospheres of over 10 exoplanets. Some are in the "Goldilocks Zone," where conditions may be suitable for water to exist in a liquid state on the surface, opening up the intriguing possibility of habitable alien planets. The James Webb Space Telescope will exponentially increase our capability to research such worlds, enabling scientists to scan atmospheric composition and even discern signs of biological processes if they're present. Water is not merely a molecule; it's the universal solvent that can accommodate advanced chemistry and harbor life. NASA's plan is basic but profound: "Follow the water." Wherever liquid water exists, whether under a shell of ice, in a crater, or churning in extraterrestrial clouds, it becomes the top priority in the quest for life. Missions such as Europa Clipper, which will launch in 2024, and Dragonfly, bound for Titan during the 2030s, are intended to explore these ocean worlds like never before. Equipment will take magnetometer readings, scan surface chemistry, and even try to fly through water plumes to sample them. In all, NASA has recognized at least 15 bodies in our solar system with evidence of water in some way. The number will likely increase as exploration continues. The universe, once conceived as arid and unfriendly, now seems full of the building blocks of life. The existence of water in the solar system and elsewhere is no longer speculation; it's a scientific fact. From the ancient Martian lakes to icy moons filled with vapor, water defines planetary geography and the course of space exploration. As NASA's Ocean Worlds program demonstrates, the quest for water is a quest for ourselves, for life in the universe, and for a deeper understanding of our place in it. Disclaimer: This article is drafted on the basis of information sourced from NASA's official website
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Tether, Circle to Face Intense Competition as TradFi Enters the Arena, Fireblocks Says
The competition for stablecoin dominance is entering a third phase and companies such as Tether, issuer of the largest token, and Circle, the No. 2, are setting up their positions as the industry faces increased regulation in the form of the European Union's Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regime and U.S. legislation that is working its way through Congress, according to digital asset cryptography and custody specialists Fireblocks. This latest stage will feature banks, large and small, as well as incumbent payment firms that are weighing up the best way to integrate the tokens into their existing businesses, according to Ran Goldi, SVP of payments at Fireblocks. Stablecoins, blockchain-based tokens that mimic U.S. dollars for the most part, have become big business. Tether's USDT is the clear leader, with a market cap close to $145 billion. Circle's USDC has over $60 billion in circulation and the company is considering a public listing on the New York Stock Exchange. The stablecoin market could grow to $2 trillion by the end of 2028, Standard Chartered said in a Tuesday note. 'We are going to see banks issuing stablecoins, as they are under MiCA,' Goldi said in an interview. 'You are seeing financial institutions that are fintechs entering such as Robinhood, Ripple and Revolut. By the end of this year, you are going to see maybe 50 more stablecoins." The industry has already passed through two stages, Goldi said. The first occurred when USDC went up against U.S. regulated trading firm Paxos, which had partnered with crypto exchange Binance to issue BUSD. For regulatory reasons Paxos had to drop BUSD and so Circle won that round, Goldi said, adding that Paxos' new USDG consortium is growing in stature and likely to play a major role in the future. The second stage was between Circle and Tether. 'USDC was trying to be bigger than USDT, but then USDC tumbled a bit with the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank etc. It was harder for people to accept that product, especially people outside the U.S. Meanwhile USDT has really grown tremendously. I think USDT will remain the dominant dollar stablecoin outside of the U.S. I believe Circle will have to put up a really good fight, which they've done in the past and are very good at doing.' It's worth noting, though, that USDC is licensed under MiCA, giving it access to 27 EU nations with a total population of about 450 million people. USDT is not. Stablecoins grew to prominence as an essential way of moving money between volatile cryptocurrencies, meeting a particular need given the industry's shortage of fiat on and off ramps. Dollar-pegged coins of various sorts blossomed further with the explosion of decentralized finance (DeFi). Looking further back, the early days of crypto show an evolution of payment service providers (PSPs), starting with those who wanted to use cryptocurrencies to settle their bills. This was followed by a second wave of business-to-business PSPs like Bridge, recently acquired by Stripe, and Zero Hash, Alfred Pay, Conduit and others. 'Some of these PSPs are firms you may not have heard much about, but they are actually moving billions in stablecoins, servicing businesses to pay to other businesses most of the time,' Goldi said. He pointed out that less than 20% of Fireblocks' total transaction volume was stablecoins in 2020, increasing to some 54% last year. For a typical use case, consider an importer in Brazil that wants to bring in a container and pay someone in Turkey or in Singapore. It takes the Brazilian reals, converts them to a stablecoin, and either sends the funds directly to the exporter or changes them to the destination currency and pays with that, Goldi said. Some banks have already caught on to the cross-border payments use case, with the likes of Braza Bank in Brazil, BTG Bank and DBS in Singapore catering to business clients with accounts that support stablecoins. Others are still weighing the best use case for them. 'We have been approached by dozens of banks,' Goldi said. 'They are asking whether they should be on/off ramps, or holding reserves, or perhaps they are thinking about issuing a stablecoin. There are several things banks can do to make money out of stablecoins, from credit to on/off ramps to FX.' Based on those conversations, Goldi said he believes most of the banks are writing strategic plans that will probably be submitted by the end of this quarter. 'It will be interesting to see if banks build something on their own, or use BNY Mellon, for instance, that serves banks, or a vendor like Fireblocks. I think the large tier-1 banks like JPMorgan, Citi and Morgan Stanley will build their own tech, while the tier-2 banks will want to use some hosted tech provider,' Goldi said. 'Of course they are banks and they move slowly, so I think they would be looking to approve those plans by the end of this year and perhaps do something in 2026."
