👀 Guess last name always beats first name - Nikola, struggling EV company & the first name of one of the greatest inventors of all time - Nikola Tesla, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this week. Remember when it seemed like everyone you knew was becoming a day trader during the pandemic and dumping money into SPACs? This is another case of a company that was not meant to go public, going public via SPAC and at one point having a larger market cap than Ford, despite Nikola having no revenue…The company was hit with fraud when they put out a demo video of their EV truck “driving”, when in reality it was slowly rolling down a hill.

🕴️ Kim Kardashian knows how to “get the Company going” - This past week, Nike announced their first ever new brand with an outside company. Nike will team up with Kim Kardashian brand, Skims, in creating the NikeSkims brand. Skims is a predominantly female-centric brand focused on shapewear. Under Kardashian, the company has grown exponentially in recent years to a valuation of $4 billion, inking sponsorships with the NBA, WNBA and Team USA for the most recent Olympics in Paris. Honestly, pretty impressive.

🧈 Ozempic trims the fat - If the fat were its competition. Ozempic & Wegovy shortages are officially a thing of the past according to the FDA. In times of shortage, other competitors are allowed to create “compounded drugs”, which basically means they can create the exact same drug (personalized to a user of the drug) without the oversight of the FDA. However, with the shortage over, other companies, like Hims&Hers, now have to…trim down their operations and stop making the copycat drugs.  

Who had the Argentine President getting impeached for promoting a cryptocurrency on their 2025 bingo card? Just me?

What happened?

Last week, a new “memecoin” entered into circulation: $LIBRA. A memecoin is a cryptocurrency with no utility, no road map, simply a tool for speculation, gambling, and degens to dump money into. $LIBRA was slightly different from most memecoins. The President of Argentina, Javier Milei, had promoted it on X, describing the token as a private project working to encourage the growth of small Argentine businesses and startups. “The world wants to invest in Argentina,” Milei said in the now-deleted post.

Following the tweets, the token’s value shot up to over $4 billion in a few hours. What goes up, must come down, and the $4 billion dollars of value was wiped away a few hours later.

How did this happen?

Those who jumped into the coin are calling it a “rug pull”, which means influential individuals promoting a token, only to have the earliest holders of the token dumping their holdings, profiting, and leaving the people duped with massive losses. Without having any affiliation with the project, President Milei jumped on board, promoted it to the masses, and then when things went south said he hadn’t actually promoted the token. Pretty wild.

Has this happened before?

What? You mean a President pumping a memecoin? Funny you ask. Earlier this year, President Trump and wife Melania launched a pair of memecoins, $TRUMP & $MELANIA respectively. The two promoted their coins heading into inauguration. $TRUMP jumped up to over $15 billion of “value” and crashed back down to around $3 billion, while $MELANIA jumped to over $2 billion and crashed back down to around $660 million.

Why does all this matter, and why did I devote a section to it?

The crypto industry has been on a steady stream of wins, and these memecoins are moving the industry backwards. For instance, the SEC finally announced it would stop pursuing legal action against Coinbase. This represents a massive win for Coinbase and the crypto industry as a whole. The win paves a path to clearer regulations in the industry. The U.S. has been opaque about regulations surrounding crypto, and as a result, innovation has either stalled or been stifled. Just when things were turning around, the memecoin rug pulls have put a damper on the momentum.

What will be the outcome?

For one, political rivals and Argentine citizens alike are calling for the impeachment of President Milei.

For another, the crypto industry will face blowback from bad actors.

Any final words on the matter?

Bad actors are present in every early industry that doesn’t have guardrails in place. It is unfortunate that a technology built to remove fraud has actually caused so much damage. Similar to shark attacks, a few bad events shouldn’t destroy the ocean for us all. Not sure if you followed that one, but shark attacks are rare and the ocean is the industry. Anyway, memecoins are not blockchain. Memecoins are the exact same thing as gambling. They are meant to be seen as fun ways to play with money. Those who call putting money into memecoins investing have no idea what investing is. Meaning, you should not put capital that means something to you into a memecoin expecting a massive payout. Blockchain has the power to change industries for the better if we can look past the bad actors and actually add some transparency to remove the bad actors.

That being said, I don’t like gambling, don't bet on sports, don’t go to casinos, but I have been known to dabble in memecoins. However, this is not an investment; I acknowledge it for what it is: a gamble for fun.

A sellout for The Mafee is imminent, with less than 50% of this Atlanta property remaining in its first week. A PadSplit with strong fundamentals and robust yield, The Mafee is a testament to the quality of real estate we continue to provide investors.

Atlanta is at the heart of explosive economic growth, yet faces a severe shortage of affordable housing. With 16 Fortune 500 companies expanding their presence in the city, annual wage growth exceeding 5% in key sectors like healthcare and IT, and 56,700 new jobs projected this year, the city presents a compelling landscape for PadSplit's unique model.

As our newest PadSplit in Atlanta, The Mafee benefits from over a year of verified operational performance, boasting an NOI yield of over 11%. Last month’s collections surpassed $5K, and underwriting forecasts project $4K in monthly rents during year one, positioning this property as a high-yielding asset from day one.

The Mafee offers a pre-growth Year 1 yield of 10.3%, an annual levered IRR of 16.1%, and a levered MOIC of 2.6x, meaning every dollar invested could return $2.60 over the investment’s lifetime. With an average tenancy of nine months, this property stands as a beacon of stability and robust cash-flow in an ever-competitive rental market

With over half of its offering amount gone so quickly, The Mafee is on track to follow The Prince’s path. Don’t miss your chance to invest in our newest PadSplit while you still can.

P.S. While you're at it, why not register for our upcoming webinar and join our founding team for a discussion on our latest property launches, the real estate market, and any questions you may have.

• From fashion show runways to corporate garbage, the Humane ai pin has sold to HP for $116 million. The company had raised $240 million in funding prior to the sale…Humane set out to create a pin that would replace your phone. After famous youtuber Marques Brownlee absolutely destroyed the pin, calling it the “worst thing he had ever reviewed”, it was only a matter of time before the pin shut down or fire sold.
• The Yankees were feared for 2 things: 1) the pinstripes 2) hairless jawlines…and baseball. The storied franchise, which had long banned beards, has officially changed its stance, stating that players are now allowed "to have well-groomed beards."
• The number of homes sold in January fell from December by 4.9%. You know what that means. It’s becoming even more of a buyer’s market, as evidenced by our most recent inventory. Investing in real estate when the market is on the uptick is how you lose out in the long run. Investing when you have an advantage creates the most opportunities.

My grandfather used to tell us all, “you can be anything in the world, but you have to be a doctor first.” While I clearly did not become one, I grew up attending nerd camps about physiology, biology, and DNA sequencing, so The Code Breaker definitely peaked my interest. The book explores the invention of CRISPR and the switch from the importance of DNA to RNA in determining a cell’s functions.

While that may have seemed a daunting way to put it, the book does an excellent job of breaking down the complex science so that anyone reading can understand. In combination with AI and quantum computing, CRISPR will help us to become amortal, so I highly recommend reading this one.

⭐ 4.86 / 5.0 in my book (no pun intended, last Isaacson for a while I swear)

1. “You know why the Yankees always win, Frank? 'Cause they have Mickey Mantle? No, it's 'cause the other teams can't stop staring at those damn pinstripes."
2. "Surely you can't be serious." "I am serious, and don't call me Shirley"
3. “Do it. Just do it. Don't let your dreams be your dreams"

More than 60% of Coca-Cola’s revenue comes from products other than soda.

1. Catch me if you can (The Abagnales)
2. Airplane (Leslie Nielsen)
3. Shia LaBeouf (Shia)