Pension funds are dipping their toes into buying bitcoin, in a sign that even typically staid corners of finance are finding it hard to ignore the potential outsized returns from cryptocurrencies.

Pension schemes for the states of Wisconsin and Michigan are among the top holders of US stock market funds devoted to crypto, while some pension fund managers in the UK and Australia have also made small allocations in recent months to bitcoin using funds or derivatives.

Advisers say the surge in bitcoin last year, which more than doubled to touch $100,000, has spurred the interest of conservative trustees.

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Pension funds are dipping their toes into buying bitcoin, in a sign that even typically staid corners of finance are finding it hard to ignore the potential outsized returns from cryptocurrencies.

Pension schemes for the states of Wisconsin and Michigan are among the top holders of US stock market funds devoted to crypto, while some pension fund managers in the UK and Australia have also made small allocations in recent months to bitcoin using funds or derivatives.

Advisers say the surge in bitcoin last year, which more than doubled to touch $100,000, has spurred the interest of conservative trustees.

Read full article

Comments

Pension funds are dipping their toes into buying bitcoin, in a sign that even typically staid corners of finance are finding it hard to ignore the potential outsized returns from cryptocurrencies.

Pension schemes for the states of Wisconsin and Michigan are among the top holders of US stock market funds devoted to crypto, while some pension fund managers in the UK and Australia have also made small allocations in recent months to bitcoin using funds or derivatives.

Advisers say the surge in bitcoin last year, which more than doubled to touch $100,000, has spurred the interest of conservative trustees.

Read full article

Comments

Making the seventh Civilization game is a tall order. With six prior entries, each with a different flavor, it's challenging to create a unique identity to get people to buy it while ensuring it’s familiar enough that it doesn’t drive long-time fans away.

This week, I spent 15 hours playing Civilization VII —which is slated for release next month—through two of its three ages: Antiquity and Exploration. That’s enough time to know that this is the most radical overhaul yet in a single new release without any expansions.

Regardless, my initial impressions are that this is also a return to form for the series. Like many others, I had many gripes about Civilization VI . To be clear, VII isn’t a reset to pre- VI times; many concepts introduced in VI (like the hex-based city district system) are revisited and refined here.

Read full article

Comments

Making the seventh Civilization game is a tall order. With six prior entries, each with a different flavor, it's challenging to create a unique identity to get people to buy it while ensuring it’s familiar enough that it doesn’t drive long-time fans away.

This week, I spent 15 hours playing Civilization VII —which is slated for release next month—through two of its three ages: Antiquity and Exploration. That’s enough time to know that this is the most radical overhaul yet in a single new release without any expansions.

Regardless, my initial impressions are that this is also a return to form for the series. Like many others, I had many gripes about Civilization VI . To be clear, VII isn’t a reset to pre- VI times; many concepts introduced in VI (like the hex-based city district system) are revisited and refined here.

Read full article

Comments

Intel's Arc B580 graphics cards have been its best-reviewed to date, maintaining the aggressive pricing of the old A-series Arc cards with fewer driver bugs, fewer weird performance outliers, and fewer caveats all around.

And this appears to be translating to retail success—the B580 is sold out across the board and difficult to find at its $249 MSRP. It's hard to tell if this is because demand has been good or supply was low (Intel says it has been restocking "weekly," for what that's worth). But regardless, there's clearly been some pent-up demand for an inexpensive-but-competent entry-level graphics card with decent ray-tracing performance and power efficiency and more than 8GB of RAM.

The Arc B570 is a less-powerful, less-interesting card than the B580, with fewer of Intel's Xe-cores, less memory bandwidth, and 10GB of RAM instead of 12GB. But it offers performance very similar to the RTX 4060 for $80 less—at least, if Intel and its partners can keep it in stock at that price—which makes it a dramatically more interesting budget option than $200-ish cards like the GeForce RTX 3050 or Radeon RX 6600.

Read full article

Comments

Intel's Arc B580 graphics cards have been its best-reviewed to date, maintaining the aggressive pricing of the old A-series Arc cards with fewer driver bugs, fewer weird performance outliers, and fewer caveats all around.

And this appears to be translating to retail success—the B580 is sold out across the board and difficult to find at its $249 MSRP. It's hard to tell if this is because demand has been good or supply was low (Intel says it has been restocking "weekly," for what that's worth). But regardless, there's clearly been some pent-up demand for an inexpensive-but-competent entry-level graphics card with decent ray-tracing performance and power efficiency and more than 8GB of RAM.

The Arc B570 is a less-powerful, less-interesting card than the B580, with fewer of Intel's Xe-cores, less memory bandwidth, and 10GB of RAM instead of 12GB. But it offers performance very similar to the RTX 4060 for $80 less—at least, if Intel and its partners can keep it in stock at that price—which makes it a dramatically more interesting budget option than $200-ish cards like the GeForce RTX 3050 or Radeon RX 6600.

Read full article

Comments

Intel's Arc B580 graphics cards have been its best-reviewed to date, maintaining the aggressive pricing of the old A-series Arc cards with fewer driver bugs, fewer weird performance outliers, and fewer caveats all around.

And this appears to be translating to retail success—the B580 is sold out across the board and difficult to find at its $249 MSRP. It's hard to tell if this is because demand has been good or supply was low (Intel says it has been restocking "weekly," for what that's worth). But regardless, there's clearly been some pent-up demand for an inexpensive-but-competent entry-level graphics card with decent ray-tracing performance and power efficiency and more than 8GB of RAM.

The Arc B570 is a less-powerful, less-interesting card than the B580, with fewer of Intel's Xe-cores, less memory bandwidth, and 10GB of RAM instead of 12GB. But it offers performance very similar to the RTX 4060 for $80 less—at least, if Intel and its partners can keep it in stock at that price—which makes it a dramatically more interesting budget option than $200-ish cards like the GeForce RTX 3050 or Radeon RX 6600.

Read full article

Comments

Making the seventh Civilization game is a tall order. With six prior entries, each with a different flavor, it's challenging to create a unique identity to get people to buy it while ensuring it’s familiar enough that it doesn’t drive long-time fans away.

This week, I spent 15 hours playing Civilization VII —which is slated for release next month—through two of its three ages: Antiquity and Exploration. That’s enough time to know that this is the most radical overhaul yet in a single new release without any expansions.

Regardless, my initial impressions are that this is also a return to form for the series. Like many others, I had many gripes about Civilization VI . To be clear, VII isn’t a reset to pre- VI times; many concepts introduced in VI (like the hex-based city district system) are revisited and refined here.

Read full article

Comments