Good morning. Today is Giving Tuesday, and it’s giving… love for others!

Founded in 2012, Giving Tuesday is a global movement that inspires millions across the globe to give back and help out. More than $2.7 billion was donated in the US on this day last year.

And no matter who you are or where you’re from, one thing we can all agree on is that it feels good to give back. You know, the warm fuzzies that feel like a big group hug with everyone else on the planet (ok that might be too much but y’all get it, right?).

ANYways. You may not be able to gift Harleys or Rolex watches to your colleagues like Keanu Reeves, but there’s plenty you can do. Learn more about Giving Tuesday here.

In today’s edition:

• 🪙 BlockFi becomes the latest crypto domino to fall
• 🌋 The world’s biggest active volcano is erupting
• 🤔👽 Was there once life on Mars?

… and more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 3.69 minutes to read.

“The more you are grateful for what you have the more you will have to be grateful for. ”

–Hilary "Zig" Ziglar (1926-2012)

Crypto lender BlockFi and eight of its affiliates, last valued at $4.5 billion, filed for bankruptcy yesterday, becoming the latest domino to fall in the industry this year.

🤿🪙 A deeper dive… Unlike Free Willy’s leap to escape captivity, this move didn’t exactly come out of the blue. BlockFi’s bankruptcy filing has been anticipated for quite some time. And according to the filing itself, written by Mark Renzi of Berkeley Research Group, BlockFi’s proposed financial adviser in the case, there are two acts to this movie:

1. The collapse of Luna and TerraUSD stablecoin, which caused Three Arrows Capital (3AC) to crash
2. The epic-and-much-discussed collapse of FTX

Act #1 led to BlockFi taking losses of $80 million, since 3AC was one of its largest borrower clients. This caused liquidity issues for BlockFi, who then turned to FTX for a bailout. FTX ultimately extended a $400 million line of credit to BlockFi… and then, well. We all know what happened next to FTX. 

BlockFi halted customer withdrawals on November 10, the same day FTX filed for bankruptcy.

Interestingly enough, FTX not following through on actually providing the full $400 million line of credit wasn’t what caused BlockFi to ultimately file for bankruptcy – though the Sam Bankman-FraudFried-led exchange was tangentially involved. Alameda Research, the now-collapsed crypto exchange’s sister trading firm, defaulted on $680 million in collateralized loans from BlockFi in recent months, court filings show.

+Dive deeper: Into the phenomenon of financial contagion, when the failure of one institution ultimately leads to a cascade of similar failures elsewhere. The US banking crisis of 1930-31 is a great example (s/o It’s a Wonderful Life).

🇨🇳 China eased some pandemic restrictions yesterday, but also reiterated its commitment to ‘Zero Covid.’ The move came as protests against Beijing's strict pandemic policies spread to at least a dozen major cities around the world yesterday, including London, Paris, Tokyo, and Sydney. The initial catalyst for these demonstrations was an apartment fire in Xinjiang last week that killed at least 10 people, and raised questions over whether residents were allowed to flee the building, which was under Covid lockdown. On Monday, China reported its fifth consecutive record of new daily Covid cases (40,052).

🇮🇷 The niece of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini was arrested last week for anti-government activities. Two days after she was arrested, her brother posted a video message in which she called on all foreign governments to cut ties with the Iranian regime, and compared Khameini to dictators like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. More than 14,000 Iranians have been arrested for participating in widespread and ongoing anti-government protests that began in September, with at least 21 facing the death penalty.

🇪🇺 A "super cartel" controlling one-third of Europe's cocaine supply was busted by Europol. Authorities arrested a total of 49 people across six countries and seized a combined 33 tons worth of illicit substances as part of a two-year operation. While record amounts of cocaine have been seized across Europe in recent years, NBC News reports the drug’s availability on the continent has never been higher, with extremely high purity and low prices.

📈🥳 Short Squeez is giving away 25 SIGNED copies of the best finance book ever written, The Psychology of Money. As the title suggests, it's a must-read for anyone interested in finance and money.

Case in point: Over the last year, Short Squeez has recommended over 300 books in its newsletter. And the most valuable (intel-wise, of course)? The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel.🙌

🧠💵 In The Psychology of Money, Housel argues that handling money is taught as a quantitative field (math/finance). However, the way we make decisions about money is unique; at the dinner table, while traveling, in a meeting room, with perspective, experience, ego, pride and marketing. AKA there’s a lot that goes into decision making – and a lot to unpack.

Housel reinforces his findings with 19 short stories that explore how people think about money, and teaches us some timeless lessons along the way.👍

The first 25 people to sign up here get the signed book and 1-month of Short Squeez Insiders membership, for FREE!

Somebody call Aladdin ASAP, cuz an ancient giant just woke up from its slumber. Hawaii's Mauna Loa volcano, the largest active volcano in the world, has begun erupting for the first time since 1984, per the US Geological Survey.

🤔 So, what happens next?… Nobody really knows; officials said the situation on the ground could change rapidly. But so far, the current eruption is mostly contained within the mountain’s summit – a stark contrast to a 1950 Mauna Loa eruption, when its lava traveled 15 miles to the ocean in under three hours.

And speaking of past eruptions, Hawaii’s largest volcano (and the tallest mountain in the world from base to peak), has now erupted 33 times dating back to 1843. Though before 11:30-ish pm local time on Sunday, it hadn’t done so in almost 40 years, the longest quiet period on record.

🌋 Zoom out: Like TikTok, volcanoes are both terrifying and somehow essential for our planet. More than 80% of the Earth's surface – above and below sea-level – is volcanic in origin. Gaseous emissions from volcanoes also forged our planet's atmosphere.

Nowadays, there are ~500 known active volcanoes in the world, per the US Geological Survey. More than half are part of the “Ring of Fire," a region that encircles the Pacific Ocean.

Martian rocks excavated by NASA’s Perseverance rover in recent years contain the kind of organic molecules that are the foundation for life as we know it, according to a pair of new studies published in Science and Science Advances.

☝️ First things first… This discovery doesn’t necessarily confirm that life was on Mars (yet). Perseverance doesn’t have the proper instruments to tell if the organic molecules it found came from ancient life, or just from abiotic geological processes.

But here’s the key takeaway: the rock samples do contain the right chemical recipe to reveal evidence of ancient Martian life – if it ever existed – once they’re examined back on Earth, per the studies’ authors. Which, given the complications it poses, we can safely expect to happen sometime in the 2030s.

🪐 Big picture: Mars is front-and-center in NASA’s search for extraterrestrial life, due in large part to its many favorable traits. Like Earth, the red planet has polar ice caps, seasonal weather patterns, volcanoes, clouds, canyons, and other recognizable features. There’s also peer-reviewed research showing Mars was warmer, wetter, and had a much thicker atmosphere around the same time life first developed on Earth ~3.7 billion years ago.

💬 Quoted…​​ “If you want a big hat, let me know.”

• Washington Commanders rookie Brian Robinson Jr. celebrated the first 100-yard rushing game of his career on Sunday by donning an oversized hat in the locker room following the win. Robinson, who was shot twice in the leg just three months ago, also gave an impassioned speech thanking his team for their support during his recovery.

🦠 Stat of the Day: Currently, nearly 9 in 10 Covid deaths in America are people 65 or older — the highest rate ever, per a WaPo analysis of CDC data.

🤯 Did You Know?... About 25% of all known animal species are beetles.

📖 Worth a Read: I text myself all day every day — and you should, too → (The Verge)

• ☝️ You’re looking at some of the finalists for the this year’s Natural Landscape Photographer of the Year award.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📉 US stocks closed down across the board yesterday. (Dow: -1.5% | S&P: -1.5% | Nasdaq: -1.6%)
• 🏦 JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and other large US banks are creating a plan to reimburse customers who fall victim to scams on their Zelle payment network, sources told the WSJ.
• 💰 Meta was fined $275 million by Irish regulators yesterday for violating the EU’s data privacy law; Facebook’s parent company has been ordered to pay over $900 million in European fines since last year.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🐦 Twitter CEO Elon Musk wrote a series of tweets yesterday accusing Apple of threatening to remove the social media app from its App Store.
• 🎥 Legendary Entertainment, the production company behind Dune and Godzilla vs. Kong, said it has cut ties with Warner Bros. and entered a multi-year worldwide distribution partnership with Sony.
• 🧸 Here’s every country’s favorite children’s toy in 2022, per a new report from The Toy Zone based on Google searches from 161 nations.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• ✈️ ​​Rolls-Royce successfully used hydrogen instead of conventional jet fuel to power a modern aircraft engine for the first time in aviation history.
• 🦠 The World Health Organization is renaming monkeypox as “mpox” over concerns the original name could be perceived as racist; the WHO said it’ll use both terms over the next year as “monkeypox” is gradually phased out.
• 💧 The oft-repeated suggestion that you should drink at least eight glasses of water per day is probably too high for a majority of people, per a new study published last week in Science.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 📖 "Gaslighting" is Merriam-Webster's 2022 word of the year; it means manipulating someone into questioning their own sanity, memories, or perception of reality; the term was searched 1,740% more this year on the company's website than last year.
• ⚖️ A Florida woman filed a class-action lawsuit accusing Kraft Heinz of misleading advertising, based on the time it takes to prepare a single-serving cup of microwavable mac and cheese. | 🍪 Nestlé announced plans to introduce plant-based chocolate chips.
• 🫡 Saluting in solidarity: A deep dive into the rapid rise of the salute emoji.

CLICKBAIT

• 🏙️ The best & worst cities for single people.

Yesterday we examined how inflation impacted the consumer habits of Americans over the holiday weekend.

❓ Our question to you all: Has inflation impacted your holiday shopping so far this year?

• 👍 Yes: 47% | 20% of this group is purchasing more items on credit, 60% are more actively searching for deals/bargains, 88% are buying fewer or cheaper gifts, 49% are cutting spending on decorations, 15% are making more handmade gifts, 17% are changing travel plans, and 1% said all of the above.
• 👎 No: 32%
• 🤷‍♀️ Unsure/other: 21%

See the full 360° view.

+Note on sample size: We received 8,231 votes, and 283 longform responses.

A British knitting club just broke the Guinness World Record for the longest line of pompoms. 

🧶 Wait... there's a record for that? The title was claimed by the Brandon Yarn Bombers, a community beautification group based in the UK. 

• The line consisted of 45,736 hand-knit pompoms, all stitched together by volunteers. The strand was 1.35 miles long once completed🤯. 

❓ Trivia: In which century did the dodo bird go extinct?

🇺🇸 True or False?... Maine is the only state with a one-syllable name.

🤔 Riddle Me This: What is always in front of you but can’t be seen?

(keep scrolling for the answers)

👆 Check out the referral prizes you can get, just for introducing people you know to little old us. 

What to do: Copy your unique link below, then send it to anyone who you think would like the DONUT. Once you hit each milestone, you'll get an email with a link to claim your prize. (Pro tip: there's no need to ration points, you're entitled to a prize at each tier.)

Start referring.👇

❓ Trivia: The 17th century

🇺🇸 T/F: True

🤔 Riddle: The future