Bitcoin rises above $42,000 for first time since April 2022

By Tom Wilson, Tom Westbrook and Chibuike Oguh LONDON/SINGAPORE/NEW YORK (Reuters) -Bitcoin rose on Monday, briefly surpassing $42,000 to reach a 20-month high, in a new surge of momentum fueled by U.S. interest rate cut expectations and traders betting that American regulators will soon approve exchange-traded spot bitcoin funds. The world’s biggest cryptocurrency rose to…

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Western start-ups seek to break China’s grip on rare earths refining

By Ernest Scheyder ALEXANDRIA, Louisiana (Reuters) -Start-up tech firms are racing to transform the way rare earths are refined for the clean energy transition, a push aimed at turbocharging the West’s expansion into the niche sector that underpins billions of electronic devices. The existing standard to refine these strategic minerals, known as solvent extraction, is…

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