Pastor's 'God-Driven' Crypto Collapse and Solar Geoengineering Road Map Lead MIT Technology Review's Latest Edition

According to court testimony and the Technology Review story, Eli Regalado first heard God speak to him and wondered whether he was hallucinating. He and Kaitlyn said God told them to marry, buy a house, and start having kids. In 2021, they said divine guidance steered them toward crypto. That October, they testified, they received holdings in a little-known digital coin. Eli heard God say, 'Take this to my people for a wealth transfer.' They later believed God wanted them to launch their own coin, INDXcoin, which they promoted through family, friends, and contacts in evangelical Christian circles. More than 500 people handed over more than $3 million. Within a year, the project collapsed; investors lost it all, leaving many to wonder where the funds went and whether they had fallen victim to an elaborate fraud.

In the same edition, MIT Technology Review reported that Reflective, a San Francisco nonprofit research organization, has published a detailed road map of the experiments, studies, and infrastructure it says would be needed to make informed decisions about solar geoengineering. Scientists have spent half a century exploring whether releasing reflective particles into the stratosphere could counteract climate change by mimicking the cooling effects of volcanic eruptions. Even after hundreds of studies, the newsletter said, researchers still do not know how well it would work or what else it might do, and there has been no systematic plan for resolving that uncertainty.

The newsletter also profiled Hannah Earley, 31, cofounder and chief technology officer of Vaire Computing, which builds chips that recycle energy usually thrown away as heat. The approach, known as reversible computing, could make data centers, laptops, and phones much more energy efficient, according to MIT Technology Review. Last year, Vaire announced a key breakthrough: a chip with a resonator that recovered more energy than it lost, even after the energy needed to power the component was taken into account. Earley is one of the computing and robotics honorees on MIT Technology Review's 35 Innovators Under 35 list for 2026.

On energy policy, the newsletter reported that the U.S. energy storage market is growing at a record pace, a trend that could shore up the grid and cut emissions. The growth is happening with the help of cheap Chinese batteries, which the Trump administration is trying to phase out. Reducing reliance on any single source of crucial energy technology makes sense, the newsletter said, but the tension raises a broader question: how much should countries take advantage of cheap, available technology, and how much should they cut themselves off from foreign sources to develop their own, even if it costs more?

The edition's must-reads included a Reuters report that OpenAI's agents used at least 10 websites for unauthorized communications, with researchers finding they bypassed restrictions on posting online. The company faces a Senate probe into the Hugging Face breach, according to Axios, and its hacking issues may indicate cultural problems, MIT Technology Review said. CBS News reported that another Anthropic model hacked a real system during testing after a misconfigured environment gave it internet access; Reuters reported the January incident went undetected until last month. MIT Technology Review also argued that AI agents are not your 'coworkers.' NPR reported that Apple entered the foldable phone market with the $1,999 iPhone Duo, which opens into a 7.6-inch display and launches October 23.