Dust off those Coinbase wallets you forgot you put a couple hundred dollars in during the good times: It’s time to tell everyone you were always a crypto fan. Bitcoin set a new record yesterday, briefly jumping past $69k before falling back down to ~$62k. The rally highlighted the crypto’s seemingly rapid recovery from the nail-in-the-coffin that was FTX’s demise in 2022.

Why so much interest in the internet coins again?

The SEC approved 11 organizations to launch spot bitcoin ETFs in January, which allowed more traditional investors to get in on the action. The move also let big-name investors like Fidelity and BlackRock buy and sell groups of assets. And so far, these ETFs have done better than most analysts predicted.

• The total market cap for spot bitcoin ETF products is $53.7 billion, according to Blockworks data. BlackRock’s alone passed $10 billion last week, which is what one analyst predicted the whole market would achieve in its first year.

It’s also almost time for the bitcoin “halvening,” which sounds like an M. Night Shyamalan movie about evil twins who can only be destroyed by their own reflection. It’s a piece of code that cuts how much bitcoin miners get rewarded in half every four years in order to control the amount in circulation. Historically, the halvening has driven up demand and price.

Big picture: Memecoins like doge and shiba inu—and even the much-derided NFTs—are rallying, too. Despite predictions that the FTX imbroglio would be the industry’s kiss of death, crypto might just be too big to fail.

Meanwhile, gold is also surging: It hit an all-time high of $2,142 yesterday as investors worry over geopolitical issues and the future of interest rates.—MM

UNICEF’s focus? Improving the health, safety, and well-being of every child. The way forward? Paved in part by unwavering supporters like you.

As UNICEF works to reach millions of people with humanitarian aid this year, supporters are more critical than ever to achieving brighter futures for children.

Students, teachers, artists, nurses, athletes—aka people like you—are just some of the supporters striving every day to make this vision possible. UNICEF USA’s new initiative I AM UNICEF invites you to join this global team helping children continue to learn, hope, and dream.

Want to learn more about UNICEF’s work and this unstoppable community? Check out I AM UNICEF and get ready to be inspired. Your actions can make a difference.

Biden, Trump on a collision course for November. Like the NBA Finals from 2016–2018, the upcoming presidential election is all but guaranteed to be a rematch after President Biden and former President Trump coasted through their primaries on Super Tuesday, the electoral extravaganza when people in 16 states and American Samoa headed to the polls. Trump’s GOP challenger Nikki Haley only won a single state—Vermont—but did not bow out of the race. Here are the main takeaways from Super Tuesday, including what we learned from down-ballot races.

🚙 Tesla halted production in Germany after an arson attack. The automaker stopped work at its German plant indefinitely as police investigate what it believes was arson. A nearby electricity pylon was set on fire, cutting power to the facility, though the fire did not spread to the plant itself. Reuters reported that the blaze will cost Tesla hundreds of millions of euros, another headache for the company in Europe following an earlier pause of production due to the Red Sea shipping crisis and ongoing fights with labor unions across Scandinavia. A far-left group called Volcano Group took responsibility for the attack in a letter published by local media.

Arizona’s Sen. Kyrsten Sinema will not run for a second term. She made the announcement in a video posted to social media, saying that her approach to politics is “not what America wants right now.” Most polls projected her finishing in third place behind Democrat Ruben Gallego and Republican Kari Lake. Sinema was elected in 2018 as a Democrat, but once in office, she positioned herself as a moderate wild card, frequently angering Democratic colleagues. In 2022, the Arizona Democratic Party censured her after she helped block Democrats from changing filibuster rules to advance voting rights legislation. Shortly after that, she left the party to become an independent.

What would college sports look like if student-athletes were treated as employees? We’re one step closer to finding out.

Yesterday, members of the Dartmouth men’s basketball team voted to unionize 13–2, becoming the first American college sports team to do so. The decision has the potential to alter every aspect of collegiate athletics, creating a genuine existential crisis for the NCAA.

How we got here: In September, Dartmouth men’s basketball team filed a petition to unionize with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which declared in February that student-athletes are employees, a decision that killed the NCAA’s long-held position that they were amateurs and therefore not entitled to job protections like workers comp or the power to bargain collectively.

What next? A long legal battle, probably. Dartmouth indicated it plans to appeal the decision, and experts say they wouldn’t be surprised if the case went all the way to the Supreme Court. And, if schools are forced to adopt the employment model, it could jeopardize some sports that don’t generate revenue.

Meanwhile…the NCAA is embroiled in a separate case alongside USC and the Pac-12 against the NLRB over the same issue. The outcome of that case could change how all college athletes are classified (Dartmouth’s case only pertains to athletes at private colleges)—with even bigger consequences for the organization.—CC

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Cue David Attenborough: The richly feathered Silicon Valley Mogul flies west in search of a tropical paradise in which it will attempt to live to 120.

Tech billionaires have long been perching in Hawaii, but now they also seem worried about assuaging fears that locals are getting crowded out as housing costs have skyrocketed. For example, yesterday Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff announced a $150 million donation to two hospitals in the state after locals grew concerned about his plans for the land he’s been buying up on Hawaii’s Big Island.

Billionaire’s paradise

Benioff, a longtime Hawaii resident famously obsessed with its culture, has been on a buyer’s bend. NPR tech correspondent Dara Kerr reports Benioff has anonymously bought 38 land parcels there since 2000, with over half of them purchased in the last three years.

His incognito land shopping spree (which has been an open secret) inspired much nervous speculation, but Benioff says he’s not just looking to snag extra vacation space. Kerr found that Benioff bought 11 land parcels for philanthropic purposes, including 282 acres he donated to an affordable housing nonprofit.

He’s not alone: Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly building a secret bunker and cosplaying as a cattle rancher on his property in the state, and he and his wife reportedly donated $72 million to Hawaiian orgs, according to SFGate. Meanwhile, Oracle founder Larry Ellison bought 98% of the island Lanai in 2012.—SK

Stat: The spice is flowing for millennials and Gen Zers. Nearly half (46%) of ticket buyers to the opening weekend of Dune: Part Two were between the ages of 18 and 35, according to film analytics company EntTelligence. That’s up from 34% for the first Dune movie in 2021. In total, the sequel grossed a better-than-expected $82.5 million at the US box office last weekend and another $100 million internationally. Perhaps that’s what happens when you add Florence Pugh and Austin Butler to a cast that already included zoomer royals Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya. Or maybe it’s the viral Dune bucket effect. Hard to say.

Quote: “no instagram? no problem! we don’t have wifi anyway”

Flying on Ryanair might be like strapping yourself to a seagull and hoping for the best, but at least the low-cost Irish airliner has a sense of humor. After Facebook and Instagram briefly went down yesterday, Ryanair posted on X, poking fun at its breathtaking lack of amenities, including in-flight internet. Meta fixed the issue after a couple of hours, restoring users’ access just in time to see their high-school acquaintances’ predictions for Super Tuesday. But for a fleeting moment, we all knew what it was like to fly Instagramless Ryanair.

Read: Why the controversial comet strike theory just won’t die, despite the best efforts of mainstream science. (New York Times)