Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 📝 Breaking down DOGE’s reported savings
• 🪙 The biggest digital heist in history
• 🔄 Earth’s Uno reverse card

… and more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.13-minute read (1,099 words).

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“True wealth is of the heart, not of the purse.”

–Augustine "Og" Mandino (1923-1996)

Over the past month, the Trump administration’s new Department of Government Efficiency has been investigating a wide range of federal agencies with the stated goal of reducing wasteful spending.

DOGE’s website touts estimated overall savings of $55 billion to date, which it says comes from a combination of fraud detection, contract/lease cancellations, contract/lease renegotiations, asset sales, grant cancellations, workforce reductions, programmatic changes, and regulatory savings.

• The top targets for cuts thus far have been foreign aid distributed by USAID, and contracts at research-focused federal agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services and Education Department, per data shared by DOGE.

But some of the math isn’t mathing. While the department hasn’t offered details about all of the stated savings, DOGE has posted a list of 1,100+ canceled contracts to its website, which it says represents ~20% of overall DOGE savings.

As of Friday, DOGE said the savings from these contracts amounted to ~$7.2 billion. That figure is down from an earlier claim of $16.5 billion, largely due to DOGE updating a cancelled contract to reflect its true value of $8 million, instead of $8 billion as previously recorded.

• A Wall Street Journal analysis projects the savings from the contracts DOGE has posted amounts to ~$2.6 billion over the next year, if spending levels remained constant. 
• The WSJ also found many individual claims of savings on DOGE’s website are overstated.

Big picture: According to leader Elon Musk, DOGE’s goal is to cut $1 trillion-2 trillion from the US government’s ~$6.8 trillion in annual spending before the department is set to expire in July 2026.

Analysts and experts widely agree that achieving such a figure requires cuts to one or all of Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and defense spending. When combined with interest payments on America’s ~$36.2 trillion national debt, these categories add up to ~$4.7 trillion/year in spending.

📊 Flash poll: In general, how do you feel about DOGE’s cost-cutting efforts across the federal government thus far?

• Support
• Oppose
• Unsure/other

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Hackers stole ~400,000 ether worth ~$1.4 billion from Bybit, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, the exchange revealed Friday. The news sent crypto prices down, and Danny Ocean into a crashout after learning he’s not the best thief on Earth.

• The hack marks the largest ever crypto theft, according to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, surpassing the $611 million stolen from Poly Network in 2021.
• For scale: ~$2.2 billion was stolen from crypto platforms throughout all of last year, according to a report by blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis.

How it happened: The hackers were able to take control of one of Bybit’s offline “cold” wallets, then transfer and liquidate the funds it contained through various platforms (see a more technical breakdown).

Bybit says all its other wallets were unaffected and that it can cover the loss, even if the funds are never recovered.

Whodunnit? Some reports suggest the perpetrators are North Korean state hackers. Attacks by North Korean groups have plagued the crypto industry for years.

💸 Zoom out: The heist is likely the biggest in history – digital or otherwise. The withdrawal of ~$1 billion from the Central Bank of Iraq is thought to be the largest theft of all time, outpacing the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist, where thieves made off with 13 paintings worth an estimated ~$200 million at the time.

Across the US, seaweed is on its way to becoming more than just the leaves that tickle your feet in the ocean.

A growing number of startups are seeking to cash in on the burgeoning global seaweed market and turn farms full of kelp and algae into food, skincare products, and environmentally-friendly cattle feed.

Why seaweed? 

The plant has a lot of things going for it:

• It’s easy to grow. Seaweed farming only requires ocean space and the sun – no soil, irrigation, or fertilizer to worry about. The plant also takes just six months to transform from a tiny sprout into a 12-foot-long blade ready to be harvested.
• It has a wide variety of benefits. Seaweed is high in iodine, calcium, and magnesium. These properties have led to products like seaweed salad kits, frozen cubes for smoothies, and even hair or beauty products.
• It’s also better for the environment. Research shows adding seaweed to cattle feed in small amounts reduces methane emissions from cow burps – a key source of greenhouse gases – by more than 80%.

👀 Looking ahead...The global seaweed industry stood at ~$18 billion last year, and is projected to roughly double to $36 billion by 2032. US companies currently produce ~0.01% of the world’s seaweed, though analysts predict that figure will increase drastically in the coming years.

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BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📉 US markets fell last week (S&P: -1.7%; Dow: -2.5%; Nasdaq: -2.5%).
• 💉 Hims and Hers Health is making a push into at-home blood draws and peptides; the company recently acquired at-home lab testing facility Trybe Labs as well as a US-based peptide facility. | 🪙 Coinbase said the SEC has agreed to dismiss a two-year-old lawsuit against the company.
• 📝 Warren Buffett released his annual Berkshire Hathaway investor letter; the company's Q4 earning are up 70% year-over-year; it holds a record $334 billion in cash.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

in partnership with Thousand Fell

• 🎥 IMAX is projecting a record $1.2 billion in box office receipts in 2025, fueled by a strong domestic movie slate and improved ticket sales in China. | 🎟️ Captain America: Brave New World fell 68% at the domestic box office this weekend, raking in $28.2 million compared to its ~$100 million opening.
• 🏒 Washington Capitals forward Alex Ovechkin scored three goals against the Edmonton Oilers yesterday; he’s now 13 away from breaking Wayne Gretzky's NHL record of 894.
• 🏆 See the winners from last night's 31st annual SAG Awards. | 🏆 The 2025 NAACP Image Awards were held this weekend; Keke Palmer took home entertainer of the year and The Six Triple Eight won two awards.

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🤖 OpenAI had 400 million weekly active users as of February, up 33% from December and 100% from August; paid business users have surpassed 2 million.
• 🥽 Apple Intelligence and ChatGPT are coming to the Vision Pro, Apple announced on Friday. | 🚫 Apple disabled iCloud's Advanced Data Protection feature in the UK; the move comes in response to a government request for backdoor access to user data.
• ✈️ NASA released a photo showing a glimpse of the secretive X-37B space plane in orbit; the only other glimpse of the plane reportedly occurred while it was deploying from Falcon Heavy’s upper stage during its December 2023 launch.

MISCELLANEOUS

in partnership with Asutra

• 🧾 The IRS has begun laying off ~6,700 employees classified as probationary, or 6+% of its overall workforce. | 🧑‍⚖️ A federal judge refused to block the Trump administration from moving forward with significantly reducing the federal workforce, following a request from government employee unions. | 🏛️ DOGE leader Elon Musk ordered “all federal employees” to email the department by Monday night listing what they accomplished over the past week; Musk also said “failure to respond will be taken as a resignation”; a number of agencies told staff to ignore the direction.
• 🏛️ The Senate voted 52-48 to approve a $340 billion budget framework comprised of defense, energy, and border security spending.
• 🇩🇪 Germany elections: The center-right CDU/CSU party is projected to be the largest in Germany’s next parliament, earning 28.5% of the vote; the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party placed second with 20.6% of the vote, its highest total ever.

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Marijuana businesses have found a way to finagle their way around the Controlled Substances Act, using social media to launch viral ads that are often exposed to minors, according to experts. The inviting and colorful ads utilize young salespeople (called “budtenders”) and candy-like packaging to potentially attract younger audiences and future customers.

• A 2024 national survey found ~7% of eighth graders, ~16% of 10th graders, and ~26% of 12th graders said they used cannabis in the past 12 months, with those levels roughly stable compared to the previous year.

Not just teens: Calls to poison control centers about children aged 5-and-younger consuming edibles containing THC rose from 207 to 3,054 over a four-year period (+1,375%), according to a January 2023 study.

Big picture: While recreational weed is legalized for people 21+ in many US states, marijuana is widely considered to be harmful for teens and adolescents.

☝️ A recent set of pictures from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveal a phenomenon known as a light echo, or faint reflections of the light emitted during a star’s supernova explosion.

🤔 Did You Know? The Earth’s magnetic field can play an Uno reverse card on itself, resulting in a flip in the locations of the magnetic north and south poles. Our planet has done so at least 183 times over the past 83 million years, with studies showing this magnetic reversal is statistically random and can’t currently be predicted.

📰 Worth a Read: Why Does Laughter Have Such a Strange Power Over Us?

🖱 Clickbait: The science of snowflakes: How they form and why no two are ever alike

Monday: The three-year anniversary of Russia launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine; French President Emmanuel Macron meets with President Trump at the White House

Tuesday: National Chocolate Covered Nut Day

Wednesday: Trump’s first White House Cabinet meeting of his second term

Thursday: UK PM Keir Starmer expected to meet Trump in Washington

Friday: Holy month of Ramadan begins; Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, kicks off; Party City officially closes its doors

On Friday, we covered an executive order signed by President Trump that seeks to give the White House greater control of independent federal agencies, which raises questions about the limits of the presidential authority.

❓ Our question to you: How do you feel about President Trump’s new executive order regarding White House control of independent federal agencies?

• 👍 Support: 18%
• 👎 Oppose: 76%
• 🤷 Unsure/other: 6%

Click here to read some of the most thoughtful longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 2,692 votes and 256 longform responses.

🐳 Go under the sea and check out photos from this year’s Underwater Photographer of the Year Contest.

🇬🇷 Gus Constantellis gained popularity on social media thanks to his mother, who taught the world how to cook traditional Greek recipes from their New York kitchen. Following her passing, Gus is keeping her cooking – and memory – alive.

🐐 Madrid firefighters came to the rescue after a goat was found stranded on a fifth-floor balcony ledge. How the goat got into the building or stuck on the fifth story is still a mystery.

Guess the definitions of the following Greek/Latin root words:

1. Carcer
2. Chrom
3. Dur
4. Heli
5. Liter

Journals for your big ideas, rocks glasses for your best pours – these favorites (and more) are making their exit. Get up to 50% off while supplies last; grab 'em before they're gone. 

1. Carcer = Jail (e.g., incarcerate)
2. Chrom = Color (chromatic, monochrome)
3. Dur = Hard (durable)
4. Heli = Sun (helium
5. Liter = Letter (literacy)