Lithium is an essential component of most rechargeable batteries, powering everything from iPhones to Teslas. However, increased lithium mining due to rising demand will deplete known land-based supplies by 2080. A team of scientists at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, in Saudi Arabia, says they already have a solution in the works: before land-based lithium runs out, shift lithium mining to the ocean.

Tether is a fraud on the scale of Madoff or Enron and we're in the middle of a bubble for the history books. Disclaimer: I have short positions on the cryptocurrency ecosystem, through MSTR and COIN puts It's something awesome to live through one of the great bubbles of history.

Few bitcoin projects illustrate the cryptocurrency's enormous climate impact better than the Greenidge power plant in upstate New York. The once-abandoned power plant was bought by private equity firm Atlas Holdings and retasked. A significant portion of Greenidge's electricity no longer powers nearby homes or businesses; rather, the plant's smokestacks are increasingly pouring pollutants into the atmosphere in the service of mining bitcoin.

The US Patent Office has today issued sportswear brand Nike's patent for its blockchain -compatible sneakers dubbed "CrpytoKicks." The patent outlines a system whereby blockchain can be used to attach cryptographically secured digital assets to a physical product, in this case a sports shoe.

In a blog post courtesy of the International Monetary Fund, IMF researchers Arnoud Boot, Peter Hoffmann, Luc Laeven, and Lev Ratnovski called for internet search history to be tied to credit score.

The BitMEX cofounder created a cryptocurrency exchange that has traded trillions. Now he's wanted by U.S. authorities, and insiders wonder whether he and his partners are villains-or victims of a two-tiered justice system that favors big banks over brash outsiders.

A coalition of big tech companies, including Microsoft is developing a COVID passport, with the expectation that a digital document linked to vaccination status will be required to travel and get access to basic services. The group is calling itself the Vaccination Credential Initiative (VCI), and includes Microsoft, Salesforce and Oracle.

ShapeShift, the Colorado-based cryptocurrency exchange that allows users to self-custody their assets, has delisted another privacy coin. Zcash has been removed from the trading platform in addition to monero and dash. Decrypt reported last Friday that XMR and DASH had been quietly removed; the delisting of ZEC was not noted.