LG is building a blockchain focused on buying and selling ads, joining a wave of companies launching their own blockchains in recent years. South Korean tech giant LG Electronics is working with the Ethereum layer-2 network Arbitrum to build a blockchain-based advertising network aimed at serving the digital ad industry. Arbitrum would give advertisers and publishers a shared database of ad inventory and track how customers interact with advertisements, with the company exploring how to bring the service to market this year, Fortune reported on Thursday. “We are evaluating whether this approach can deliver meaningful value to advertisers, publishers and audiences,” said Samuel Byungsun Park, the head of LG Electronics’ blockchain research lab. Read more
A rickshaw driver drinks water as the feels-like temperature in Karachi soared past 54 degrees Celsius.—Online • Rapid warming spikes sharply up north; AJK, GB, KP record highest annual temperatures in 65 years • Extreme heat claims over 200,000 lives in Europe since 2022; El Nino threatens to compound weather extremes • Monsoon delayed in India ISLAMABAD: Pakistan recorded its second-warmest year in 65 years in 2025, intensifying extreme floods and creating a systemic risk to the nation’s economy, according to the Economic Survey 2025-26. Pakistan’s hottest year was 2024, the survey reported 2025 as the second-warmest year in 65 years, marking consecutive years of record high temperatures. The country experienced a national annual mean temperature of 23.9°C last year, 1.09°C warmer than the 22.8-degree average. Despite contributing less than 1pc to global emissions and 0.4 percent historically, Pakistan bears a disproportionately high burden of global climate change. “Climate change is no longer a distant or...
Coinbase for Agents will allow users of the crypto exchange to manage their holdings without "constant manual oversight,” autonomously performing a range of tasks. Crypto exchange Coinbase has launched a tool that allows artificial intelligence agents to make payments and trade crypto on behalf of users, as crypto companies look to ride a wave of interest in AI. Coinbase said Thursday that it is launching Coinbase for Agents, which will allow AI models like ChatGPT and Claude to connect with a user’s exchange account and be prompted to make trades or execute strategies. AI agents can also make payments using Coinbase’s AI payments protocol x402, allowing the bots to pay for data services to gather information for carrying out trading strategies without human intervention. Read more
Avalanche Treasury holds about 15 million of the blockchain’s native token, AVAX, which is trading at a five-year low. The Avalanche Treasury Company saw a rocky start as it debuted on Nasdaq under the ticker AVAT on Thursday, with shares dropping 16% by the end of the day. The new company gained access to the Nasdaq after merging with special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Mountain Lake Acquisition in a $675 million deal first announced in October. The company, with support from institutional backers including Dragonfly, Pantera, ParaFi Capital, VanEck, Galaxy Digital and Kraken, aims to give investors exposure to the Avalanche blockchain ecosystem without holding the cryptocurrency. Read more