Unpacking bitcoin’s recent resurgence… ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Tuesday, Mar 12 2024

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Good morning. We’ve got a packed newsletter, so let’s just make like a ‘90s kid inside a gigantic tire at the top of a hill and roll.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be about a 5.23-minute read.

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💬 Daily Sprinkle

“The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.”

–Socrates (470 B.C. – 399 B.C.)

⏱💥 Speed Rounds: Quick, Impactful Stories

r/WallStreetBets is headed to Wall Street

Image: Singular.net

The social media site with a notoriously introverted community will soon face down one of its users’ biggest fears: going (out in) public. Reddit, which hosts web forums across a wide variety of topics, revealed details of its upcoming IPO in a new SEC filing.

The deets: Reddit is looking to raise up to $748 million at a valuation of $6.4 billion, which is lower than the $10 billion at which the social media platform was valued in a 2021 fundraising round. Reddit averaged ~65 million unique daily visitors and brought in ~$803 million in revenue last year, but recorded a $91 million net annual loss.

  • The company’s public offering, which is expected to occur later this month, will mark the first major tech IPO of 2024 and the first social media debut since Pinterest in 2019.

Reddit’s IPO plan also includes an unusual twist. While it’s typical for tech companies to turn to the public markets for funding, Reddit stands out from most due to its choice to set aside ~$60 million worth of shares and offer some dedicated users – including the unpaid volunteers who moderate content on each forum (mods) – the chance to buy them in its IPO.

  • This privilege is usually reserved for banks or hedge funds, who want to buy stock at a theoretically lower price before the public can purchase it.

📉📈 Zoom out: America’s IPO market needs Charles Barkley in his prime; it’s looking to rebound from a sharp downturn in recent years. Companies debuting on US stock exchanges raised $19.4 billion in 2023 and $7.7 billion in 2022, compared to an average annual rate of $50+ billion over the previous seven years.

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Around the world in 60 seconds

Image: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters

🇮🇳 India announced plans to enact a citizenship law that excludes Muslims. The law grants Indian nationality to people from six different religious minorities who entered India from Pakistan, Afghanistan, or Bangladesh before December 2014 – but excludes citizenship for Muslims, who make up a majority of those three nations. The law was passed in 2019, but the Indian government delayed its implementation in response to nationwide protests, with critics saying the law marginalizes Muslims and undermines India’s secular foundation.

🇳🇿✈️ New Zealand air authorities are investigating a mid-flight incident that injured dozens of passengers. Roughly 50 people onboard a Latam Airlines flight from Sydney to Auckland were treated by first responders, after the Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft experienced what Latam called “strong movement” caused by a technical event. The Chilean airline didn’t elaborate on the issue, though media reports quoted passengers who said the plane appeared to suddenly lose altitude mid-flight. Over a dozen passengers and crew were hospitalized, though none with life-threatening injuries.

🇮🇪 Ireland voters rejected a pair of proposals to change the constitutional definition of family. One of the failed amendments would have widened the meaning of family to include “durable relationships,” in addition to marriage. The second failed amendment proposed removing a statement that says mothers shouldn’t have to work out of necessity if it neglects their duties at home, and replacing it with a clause saying the state will support “the provision of care by members of a family to one another.” Opponents argued the amendments were poorly worded and could lead to unintended consequences.

The art of the dodge

Image: YouTube

Increasingly, drivers on toll roads are living by the mantra: “pics or it didn’t happen.”

As government agencies continue to transition away from human toll-booth operators and towards automated toll booths that snap a picture of a car’s license plate to then send an invoice in the mail, data indicates toll-dodging is going up.

  • The Dallas and San Francisco areas say they missed out on more than $33 million combined in tolls last year due to people obfuscating their license plates.
  • MTA Bridges and Tunnels, which operates seven bridges and two tunnels in New York City, lost nearly $21 million, a 137% jump from 2020.
  • Port Authority officers, who monitor facilities in NJ and NY including the George Washington Bridge and the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, in 2023 roughly doubled the number of summonses issued for obstructed, missing, or fictitious license plates from the year before.

The methods: Some toll dodgers use license plate flippers (pictured above) to trick the cameras and bypass tolls. Other drivers take a more creative route, jury-rigging their plates with face masks or duct tape. One even taped a Cheetos bag over their car’s tag (forget Oliver Twist’s Jack Dawkins, that’s the real Artful Dodger).

👀 Looking ahead… Officials are cracking down on toll-dodging. In New York, legislation has been introduced that would allow police to arrest drivers for theft of services if they were caught using a mechanical or electronic device like a flipper.

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Unpacking bitcoin’s recent resurgence

Image: Reuters

The price of bitcoin crossed $72,000 for the first time yesterday, setting a new all-time high and bringing all the crypto bros back out of hiding. Bitcoin is now up ~65% since mid-January.

What’s driving the resurgence? A large part of the recent gains can be attributed to the SEC’s mid-January approval of bitcoin exchange-traded-funds (ETFs), which enable investors to track the price of bitcoin without actually owning any of it themselves.

  • Total assets in the 10 bitcoin ETFs on the market currently sit at over $50 billion.
  • BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust eclipsed $10 billion in assets on February 29, the fastest a new ETF has ever reached that milestone.
  • As of March 1, ~4% of the global circulating supply of bitcoin was tied up in the new ETFs, according to crypto asset manager Galaxy Digital.

This bitcoin bull run could be different. The emergence of ETFs shows there is now “institutional maturity” in the cryptocurrency market, Jeff Billingham, director of strategic initiatives at research firm Chainalysis, told The Guardian. Translation: these institutions aren’t FTX and actually have some guardrails; no Bahama-based, Hype House-style freewheeling here.

👀 Looking ahead… The next bitcoin halving event, where the reward for mining bitcoin is cut in half in order to reduce new supply, is scheduled for April. Prices historically increase around halving events.

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🔥 The Hot Corner

Image: Kensington Palace/NYT

💬 Quoted… “Like many amateur photographers I occasionally experiment with editing.”

  • On Sunday, Kensington Palace released a photo of Princess Kate Middleton and her three children (👆) that it said had been taken by her husband, Prince William, to commemorate Mother’s Day in the UK. But, one day later, Catherine published a statement saying she had altered the photo herself, after five major news and photo agencies had pulled it over concerns the source might have “manipulated the image.” Catherine, who underwent abdominal surgery in January and has rarely been seen in public since, is known as an avid photographer. Experts say the photo details are consistent with an amateur splicing together different images from the same session.

✈️ Stat of the Day: After taking over retail stores across the country, self-checkout lines are now expanding to a new venue: US airports. Starting yesterday, the first self-screening TSA security lane in America began accepting passengers at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas. The six-month pilot program is aimed at improving the passenger experience and easing the growing burden on the TSA, which has screened between 1.6 million–2.7 million passengers/day so far in 2024 – more than all but three days during the same period last year.

🤔 Did You Know?... The last surviving widow of the Civil War passed away in 2020. How is that possible? Helena Jackson married a 93-year-old Civil War veteran in 1936 (when she was 17😬), and eventually lived to reach the age of 101.

📰 Worth a Read: Hustlers, grifters, and greed: How Run-D.M.C.'s Jam Master Jay met his fatal fate → (NBC News)

🍩 DONUT Holes

Images: Porsche

  • ☝️ Porsche yesterday unveiled the Taycan Turbo GT, the most powerful mass-produced car it’s ever made; the 1,093-horsepower electric vehicle set two racetrack speed records for an electric car, beating one held by a Tesla Model S by 18 seconds.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Forecaster

  • 💰 US markets closed mixed yesterday (S&P: -0.1%; Dow: +0.1%; Nasdaq: -0.4%).
  • 📈 The Consumer Price Index for February is set to be released later this morning; economists polled by Dow Jones forecast a monthly gain of 0.4% and a 3.1% annual increase.
  • 🚰 Liquid Death, the LA-based company that actually sells liquid life (water) in a can, raised $67 million in a new funding round that values the company at $1.4 billion.

*From our partners: 📈 Crypto prices have exploded again… And you could have predicted it with Forecaster. The software lets you easily analyze historical trends, data, and over-sold/bought levels to pinpoint ideal times to buy/sell. Watch how Forecaster predicted bitcoin’s latest run here.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

  • 🏈 NFL free agency: QB Kirk Cousins signed with the Falcons, RB Saquon Barkley reportedly inked a deal with the Eagles, and RB Josh Jacobs reportedly signed with the Packers. | 🥶 Twelve fans who attended January’s Dolphins-Chiefs playoff game with subzero temperatures had to undergo amputations for frostbite, per the Research Medical Center in Kansas City.
  • 🇨🇳📱 China's government has used TikTok to influence recent US elections, according to an annual threat assessment from the American intelligence community.
  • 🏆👀 The 2024 Oscars drew an average of 19.5 million viewers, the award show’s highest figure in four years.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Hedonova

  • 🌤️ This past winter was the warmest ever recorded in the mainland US (going back to the 1890s), per new data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
  • 💊 An experimental weight-loss pill from Novo Nordisk could be twice as effective as the pharma giant’s Ozempic and Wegovy injection treatments, per early results from a small-scale study. | 📅🧠 The FDA has delayed its approval decision deadline for Eli Lilly’s experimental Alzheimer’s treatment donanemab.
  • ☄️ Vibration signals that a handful of scientists believed to be associated with the 2014 crash of an object from outside our Solar System were likely caused by a truck passing by, instead of an interstellar meteor, per a new study that has yet to be peer-reviewed.

*From our partners: 📈 10 asset classes in one fund… Hedonova’s team of experts scours the markets for the best alternate investment opportunities. Get exposure to wine, art, equipment finance, litigation finance, music royalties, and more. Learn more about Hedonova.

MISCELLANEOUS

  • ✈️ A Boeing whistleblower who was in Charleston, South Carolina, to be questioned for a long-running retaliation suit against the company was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, local authorities said.
  • 🎓 The University of Texas at Austin will resume requiring ACT or SAT scores from applicants starting with the fall 2025 class of freshmen; UT Austin joins Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, MIT, and other top schools which have made similar moves. (Background)
  • 🏛️ President Biden proposed a $7.3 trillion budget yesterday featuring tax increases on corporations and high earners, new spending on social programs, and a wide range of efforts to combat high consumer costs; like most presidential budgets, Biden's has little chance of becoming law, but is used as an indicator of his favored policies. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

📊 Poll Results

Yesterday, we covered how overall college enrollment is on the decline, the cost to attend is higher than ever, and a growing number of universities are closing their doors for good.

❓ Our question to you: In your opinion, what’s the No. 1 reason behind the recent decline in US college enrollment?

  • 💰 It costs too much: 26%
  • 🧠 There are better post-grad education options: 13%
  • 💼 More teens are entering the workforce: 9%
  • ⬆️ All of the above: 44%
  • 🤷 Other/unsure: 8%

Click here to read some of the best longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 4,291 votes and 397 longform responses.

🔢 By the Numbers

Here are five stats from this past week that made our team go “whoa.” Hopefully you will, too.

  • 🏆💥 Oppenheimer, which won best picture at last weekend’s Oscars, grossed $329 million at the domestic box office – more than the previous seven best-picture winners combined. (Read more)
  • 🏫 60% of all high school students in Washington, D.C., were chronically absent last school year, aka missed 18+ days of school. (Read more)
  • 🇺🇸 41% of Americans believe 2023 was one of the worst years in US history. (Read more)
  • 💰 Nearly half of all parents with an adult child (47%) provide them with at least some financial support, giving an average of $1,384/month. (Read more)
  • 💼 The average distance each American lives from their workplace has risen from 10 miles in 2019 to 27 miles at the end of last year. (Read more)

🤗 Daily Dose of Positive

🎶🏴‍☠️ Message in bottle

Images: Jenny Smith

Forty years ago, friends Kelly, Linda, and Jenny wrote a message in a bottle and tossed it into the sea. The eight-year-olds at the time were studying pirates in school, and sent the letter as part of their studies. 

Just last month, the letter was found. 

🗺️ Hidden treasure... Jenny Smith was cleaning up litter along the coast of Scotland, when she stumbled upon the message in a bottle. In it was a hand-drawn map and letters from each of the three girls dated June 1984.

  • As it turns out, the bottle only traveled six miles down the beach – though it brought up years worth of memories for the friends.

🧠 Trivia

Trivia: What term is used for surfers and skaters who prefer to have their left foot on the back of the board?

🦈 True or False?... A shark's skin is smooth.

🤔 Riddle Me This: Which word in the dictionary is always spelled incorrectly?

(keep scrolling for the answers)

🧠 Answers

Trivia: Goofy footed

🦈 T/F: False, it feels rough like sandpaper (trust me, bro)

🤔 Riddle: “Incorrectly”

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