Latest news with #January2024
Forbes
08-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Should You Invest In Bitcoin, ETFs, Or Bitcoin Treasury Companies?
Bitcoin investors have a variety of options for gaining exposure. There Are No Solutions, Only Trade-Offs' - Thomas Sowell After many years of regulatory resistance to Bitcoin, the asset has now gained approval to enter into mainstream capital markets. Starting with the approval of spot BTC ETFs to trade on January 11, 2024, various legal wrappers for BTC exposure have emerged. Recently, a notable trend has emerged as public companies add BTC to their balance sheets. Many investors likely wonder how to get best involved with this complex set of options. There are no black-and-white answers to this, only trade-offs. In this article, we will break down the pros and cons of each. Real BTC Owning actual Bitcoin, held in a personally controlled wallet of your own custody, is the original form of owning Bitcoin. Much like owning a bar of gold in your house, this offers complete control over the asset. This was the original intent of Bitcoin, an asset independent of government control or centralized authority. If custodied properly, it can not be seized or hacked or, potentially, even known that you own it. Self-custody offers a double-edged sword for many. Properly custodying Bitcoin in cold storage can result in a complete loss of your investment if not done carefully. First, the private key can be lost and unrecoverable. This famously occurred to James Howells, who accidentally disposed of the private key to access 8000 BTC, worth over $850MM today. There is no back-up for self-custody. Just as if you lost a bar of gold, it can be lost forever with no recourse. With great power comes great responsibility. In addition, ease of access to cold storage Bitcoin means that transacting may be slow. The process of accessing, transferring, or selling Bitcoin can take hours or days, which may pose a problem for some. There are alternatives to this, but they essentially remove the benefit of owning BTC directly. This includes keeping your Bitcoin on an exchange, storing your private keys in a bank or with a lawyer, or using a private key device like a Ledger to store them. This decreases the odds of you losing your Bitcoin; it also removes the self-sovereign properties that make owning Bitcoin attractive and unique. You have to trust some other party or company to keep you secure. ETFs Bitcoin ETFs are legal wrappers that allow people to gain exposure to the price of Bitcoin. They create a legal entity that holds the Bitcoin in custody on your behalf. The ETFs are regulated by the SEC and must abide by strict compliance, reporting, and security standards to be approved. This allows regular investors to make an investment in Bitcoin without having to deal with the technological peculiarities the asset poses. These ETFs are trading on major stock exchanges and can also be accessed by retirement accounts and large financial institutions that must abide by strict investment and regulatory policies. Though ETFs simplify ownership, they also neuter much of the unique protections Bitcoin can provide. You are depending on a large set of human beings to protect you. This includes the ETF creator, a firm like BlackRock or Fidelity, for example, the custodian, which is almost always Coinbase, the regulators, and market-making firms. Though all of these groups are regulated and legitimate, their incentives are not exactly aligned with every individual who wants to own bitcoin. Changes to policy, technical errors, hacks, and fraud can all arise when so many counterparties get involved. BTC Treasury Companies The latest wave of BTC exposure has come in the form of so-called Bitcoin Treasury Companies. These are public companies that hold Bitcoin rather than only USD. These vehicles offer many of the regulated protections and mainstream accessibility of an ETF and can be traded on exchanges, but add a variety of strategies and financial engineering approaches to aim to generate greater returns. These approaches can vary widely depending on the company. It can include selling more shares of stock into the market to raise more money, selling convertible debt, offering exposure across different jurisdictions in order to tap into untouched markets, trading the bitcoin using derivatives, taking out loans with the bitcoin to buy more bitcoin, and much more. For some jurisdictions, no ETF exists, and so a simple company that just buys and holds Bitcoin for shareholders may be the best option available. All of this adds another layer of human involvement to the risk of the investment. It can also mean much greater upside if chosen properly. Some of these companies trade at 10 times the value of the actual Bitcoin they hold. Though investors may be able to make more upside with BTC treasury companies, gaining exposure to intelligent strategies and retail buying momentum, they also have more risk. The same factors that can create outsized gains can create outsized losses. These are very sophisticated financial products that leverage aspects of retail speculation, debt instruments, marketing, and legal and jurisdictional arbitrage to, hopefully, outperform Bitcoin. Some of these strategies suffer from black swan-type risk, in which they will look to be doing very well until they suddenly fail. Others will be successful far out into the future. One important aspect to consider with BTC Treasury Companies is whether they are pure-play Bitcoin holding companies or does the Bitcoin complement other business activity and income. Companies that have real income may be better positioned in the long run for stability and risk management during times when the price of BTC falters, since they have other ways to pay bills and stay in business. Companies that are pure-play vehicles may have greater upside and volatility. In the end, all of these vehicles can make sense for different types of investors, from long-term individual holders to pension funds to day traders. It's important to truly understand what the company does to generate a return for you so that you can evaluate risk with a clear perspective.
RNZ News
08-07-2025
- RNZ News
Video of murder-accused Julia DeLuney shows her on the night of her mother's death
Julia DeLuney in the High Court. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii CCTV footage shows murder-accused Julia DeLuney coming and going from her mother's home on the night of the elderly woman's death. Helen Gregory, aged 79, was killed in her Khandallah home in January 2024, and her daughter has pleaded not guilty to the crime. The jury has now seen footage recorded by a neighbour's security camera, showing DeLuney arriving by car about 6.10pm on the evening of January 24, wearing a bright green shirt. She parked on the street, and ascended the flight of outdoor stairs to the house. She descended these stairs three and a half hours later, at 9.40pm, but went once more up and down again, before driving away at 9.47pm. There was a gap of eight minutes between when she arrived back at the address with her husband at 11.26pm, and the first ambulance arriving. Earlier on Tuesday, the jury in the murder trial heard how police searched DeLuncey's apartment for clothing and evidence of cryptocurrency trading. The search of the Paraparaumu address took place nearly three weeks after 79-year-old Gregory was killed in her Khandallah home. A number of items were seized, including two green Michael Kors handbags, one with blood on it, a pink macbook, white Mi Piaci shoes, four SD cards, two diaries, her car - a Citroen - and a waste management bin. Detective constable Mary Smith told the court they were partly guided in their search by a CCTV image of DeLuney putting petrol in a car, wearing light blue jeans and a neon green shirt, which has also been shown to the jury. Smith said a full itemised list of women's clothing was made during the search, and their task of identifying women's items from men's was made easier by a clear distinction between the apartment's two bedrooms - one containing men's items, and the other, women's. By the time her apartment was searched, police had already been analysing data from DeLuney's cellphone. More information on this is expected later in the trial. The Crown's case is that DeLuney murdered her mother in a violent attack, before staging it to look like a fall from the attic, on the evening of 24 January 2024. But the defence's case is that another person caused those fatal injuries in a 90-minute window in which DeLuney said she left her mother - at this point only minorly injured from that fall - on the floor of a bedroom, to fetch her husband from their Paraparaumu home to help. The trial is in its third week, and is expected to go on for a further two at least. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
03-07-2025
- RNZ News
Khandallah murder trial: 'Blood looked staged'
science crime 29 minutes ago A forensic scientist has told the jury in the Khandallah murder trial that, in her opinion, the blood in the hallway looked staged. Julia DeLuney is accused of murdering her 79-year-old mother, Helen Gregory, who was killed at her Wellington home in January 2024. Kate Green reports.
Auto Blog
28-06-2025
- Automotive
- Auto Blog
Next-Gen Cockpit: Is a $3,000 Infotainment Upgrade Worth It?
Car Interiors Are Becoming the New Digital Playground What if your car's windshield could outsmart your smartphone—and turn rush hour into a front-row seat at a digital light show? Imagine this: In January 2024, CES attendees queued up not for a glimpse of the latest supercar, but for a seat inside the Valeo and Sennheiser ImagIn demo car—a rolling sound-and-light show that would make Pink Floyd's lighting director weep with envy. The message was clear: the cockpit is the new concert hall, and infotainment is no longer content to play second fiddle to horsepower. As Proust might have swapped madeleines for dashboard projections, today's drivers crave more than mere transport—they want immersion, a digital cocoon that blurs the line between the road and the realm of possibility. The old dashboard, with its buttons and knobs, is fading like AM radio static. In its place: augmented reality (AR) overlays, gesture controls, and voice-activated everything—a symphony of senses orchestrated by silicon and code. Source: Audi The Third-Person Cinematic Scene Picture a rainy Tuesday, somewhere on the I-405. A commuter's sedan glides through traffic, windshield streaked with city light. On the dash, navigation arrows float above the asphalt, projected in AR, gently nudging the driver toward the correct exit — no more squinting at tiny screens or deciphering cryptic beeps. In the back, a passenger waves a hand to skip a song, the gesture picked up by sensors embedded in the headliner. The car responds, seamlessly, like a butler who's read your mind. But is this digital theater a revolution in driver focus, or just a $3,000 emoji upgrade? From Buttons to Swiping Air: The Rise of Gesture and Voice The tactile era of dials and switches is being replaced by a new choreography: gesture, touch, and voice. Luxury automakers have already rolled out multimodal human-machine interfaces (HMIs), blending touchscreens, haptic feedback, and proximity sensors. The global automotive Human-Machine Interface (HMI) market reached $23.5 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow at a 12.8% CAGR from 2025 to 2034. This growth is fueled by demand for advanced user experiences, integration of augmented reality displays, voice and gesture controls, and AI-driven personalization. Automakers are rolling out systems that blend touchscreens, haptic feedback, gesture recognition, and voice control. For example, Continental launched a fully integrated HMI platform in February 2025 that combines gesture, voice, and touch into a seamless interface for electric and autonomous vehicles. Gentex in March 2025 released a next-gen smart rearview mirror with voice-activated controls and AI personalization, targeting both EV and luxury markets. The adoption of AR head-up displays and multimodal input is a key trend, with new systems designed to adapt content and controls based on driving mode and passenger preferences The goal? To create systems that are instantly intuitive — so you can adjust the climate or queue up a playlist without taking your eyes off the road, or your hands off the wheel for more than a flicker. Sidebar for the skeptics: Yes, sometimes the system mistakes your emphatic storytelling for a command to call your mother-in-law. But the tech is learning — fast. 'Augmented Reality: The Windshield as Canvas' AR head-up displays (HUDs) are moving from concept to curb. Audi's latest system projects navigation cues—arrows, lane guidance, even hazard warnings—directly onto the windshield, layered over the real world. Envisics, with backing from global giants, is developing holographic waveguide HUDs for production by 2026, promising a wide field of view and razor-sharp clarity even in full sun. The new nanophotonic lenses from AllFocal Optics, co-developed with Zeiss, beam information directly to the retina, ensuring that every driver—glasses or not—gets a perfectly focused readout. The upshot? Less distraction, more confidence, and a user interface that feels more like a sci-fi film than a spreadsheet. Source: Brian Iselin Immersion for All: The Multisensory Cabin Valeo and Sennheiser's ImagIn system is a harbinger: immersive soundscapes, ambient lighting, and projected content turn the car into a personalized lounge. Gesture-detection software and smart surfaces mean every passenger can interact with the system, not just the driver. The car becomes a shared experience — each ride a chance to curate your own digital atmosphere, whether you're crawling through rush hour or cruising the Pacific Coast Highway. Software Eats the Dashboard The shift to software-defined infotainment means over-the-air updates can add new features or fix bugs without a trip to the dealer. AI-driven personalization learns your habits — favorite routes, playlists, even your preferred cabin temperature — making each drive feel bespoke. And as 5G connectivity becomes standard, streaming, gaming, and real-time traffic updates are as fast as your home Wi-Fi. So yes, the age of immersive infotainment is here, and it's rewriting the rituals of the road. But as we surrender more senses to the silicon orchestra, the question lingers: Will all this digital dazzle deepen our connection to the drive, or just make the car another screen to scroll? For now, at least, the ride has never sounded—or looked—so good. About the Author Brian Iselin View Profile
RNZ News
26-06-2025
- RNZ News
Khandallah murder crime scene 'very confronting', says detective
Julia DeLuney in the High Court Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii Warning: This story contains graphic details. The jury in the DeLuney murder trial has been shown pictures of the broken-off tip of a fake nail - bright orange - next to the body of 79-year-old Helen Gregory. Her daughter Julia DeLuney is on trial, accused of her murder, after she was found dead at her Khandallah home in January 2024. This week, detectives gave evidence about the bloody crime scene, clumps of hair and scalp on the floor in the hall and by the body, and about how they began to treat the death as suspicious , rather than an accident. The Crown says DeLuney murdered her mother in a violent attack, before staging it to look like a fall from the attic. But the defence says another person caused those fatal injuries, in the 90-minute window in which DeLuney says she left her mother - at this point only minorly injured from a fall from the attic - on the floor of a bedroom, to fetch her husband from Kāpiti to help. A detective giving evidence said it was when she saw clumps of hair amongst the blood around the body that her mind shifted from thinking of the death as "unexplained" to "suspicious". Also found beside the body was the tip of an orange false nail. Other pictures show bloody handprints and streak marks along the walls of the hallway and the entrance to the attic, as well as on the wall at the back of that cupboard, and on various items around the house - the bed in the bedroom where Gregory was found, a mug in the kitchen, and bloody footprints on the kitchen floor. Detective Constable Kristina O'Connor said on the stand, the gravity of the situation was not lost on her. "Naturally, it's a very confronting view," she said. "I guess in my profession, you're matter-of-fact, and as you're doing it, you do it, it's very much a job, but it doesn't pass me, the gravity of - and especially looking back - the gravity of what I was standing there looking at." Forensic experts were yet to weigh in on the evidence, but the trial was set down for another three weeks at least. The house was checked top to bottom - every magazine page, every cup in every cupboard, every object itemised. O'Connor said she discovered Gregory - like many older people - kept plastic bags inside more plastic bags in the kitchen, and everything in her house was very neat and ordered. Meanwhile, the defence was also building its case around the possibility another person was involved. Lawyer Quentin Duff, cross-examining Detective Sergeant Guilia Boffa, put to her that the police never really considered someone else for the crime. The court had already heard a neighbour reported a doorknock with nobody there on the night of Gregory's death, around the same time that evening. He said there had also been a suspicious male reported by an off-duty officer at a nearby park the following day. But Boffa said their task at that point was to figure out what happened in that house, with manslaughter in mind. "We're suspecting that that's what's occurred, and we are using emergency powers to gather information to support a charge to be laid," she said. "And would you agree with me that, to the best of your knowledge, the investigation didn't ever seriously contemplate the idea that there might have been a burglar that had killed Mrs Gregory?" she was asked. "That is absolutely incorrect," Boffa replied. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
