Category Archives: Technology
China Restricts Additional Rare Earth Metals
China is continuing on its path of restricting export access to certain metals.
As of August 01, 2023 germaniun and gallium have been added to the list. This is in addition
to restrictions on various rare earth metals which began as export quotas around 2010.
China controls around 90% of the supply of rare earth minerals as well as control of technologies surrounding the manufacture of products using these metals.
China has been enacting a policy of increasing restrictions on exporting these metals and technologies
causing western countries to scramble to put together their own supply chains. A large premium has been put upon getting production into place since these various metals are essential to western defense department This puts them in the category of national security resources. Not to mention the electric vehicle explosion requires these metals as well as many other technologies developed in recent years such as wind turbines, batteries, solar devices and so on.
Here is a link to an article about the latest restrictions of germanium and gallium written by the publication TheHill.com.
TheHill.com article
Cryptocurrencies finally rebounding
It has been a long wintery sort of season for cryptocurrency holders, or hodlers as they sometimes refer to themselves. Finally however the cycles have realigned in the positive direction it appears. Bitcoin has surged in the past week and is now trading in the $8,500.00 (US) range after briefly touching $6,900.00 (US) area a couple weeks ago. This is a fairly substantial move and has likely caused many a sigh of relief among crypto fans.
Another interesting thing to note is that various alt coins are following suit with EOS now trading over $3.50 for the first time in over 2 months. EOS has been described as an ‘ethereum killer’ in the past and was designed by top blockchain expert Dan Larimer who also designed the popular blockchain social website Steem. Ethereum itself is moving along nicely with the first mover advantage having kept it ahead of much of the competition. The number of transactions on EOS is rising rapidly however, and a Chinese technology rating paper came out saying EOS was their number one pick out of 30 blockchain companies.
The sector continues to develop along the timeframe which most new technology takes for adoption according to most comments seen around the web, and great things are still expected from this technology, with real world applications beginning to take hold.
Full disclosure, the editor holds a position in EOS coins.