CRYPTO

Picasso, Rothko, Cézanne, Warhol, and....Beeple?

Today, digital artist Mike Winkelmann, aka Beeple, will join the ranks of “best artists to name drop on a date” by having a piece auctioned by Christie’s today. But this is no ordinary piece. It will be the first fully digital, NFT-based artwork ever sold by a major auction house, and the first to accept cryptocurrency (Ether, specifically) as a payment option. 

• On the auction block: A digital collage of the first 5,000 other-worldy images from Beeple’s “everyday” series, in which Winkelmann has created a new piece of digital art every day for over 10 years.

A new-fangled...what?

This year, NFT went from NFL spelling error to the business world’s buzziest acronym.

But what is it? A “Non-fungible token” (non = not, fungible = interchangeable, token = voucher). NFTs are distinct, easily verifiable digital assets that can represent items from virtual real estate to cherished moments in NBA history. 

In other words, owning an NFT is owning a piece of the internet. Some examples:

• “Nyan Cat,” the decade-old rainbow cat meme, sold for about $580,000 last week.
• A video of LeBron James dunking raked in $208,000.
• 3LAU’s newest music album, featuring a song the buyer can creatively direct, goes on sale today.

The NFT market is, as they say in professional circles, blowing up. It tripled in 2020 to $250+ million, according to Emerging Tech Brew. And NBA Top Shot, an NFT marketplace for basketball highlight reels, just cleared $95 million in sales in seven days.

Now, NFT couldn’t ask for a more legitimizing moment

While NFTs can arguably be traced back to 2012, they didn’t hit the mainstream until 2017 with blockchain-based CryptoKitties. Meanwhile, Christie’s held its first sale 10 years before the Declaration of Independence was drafted. The auction house isn’t just an arbiter of taste; it’s an arbiter of art history.

Interested in a Beeple? Last December, a collection of 20 Beeple pieces sold for $3.5 million on another NFT platform, Nifty Gateway. Christie’s official sale estimate for Everydays: The First 5000 Days? An uncommon “Unknown.”

+ Have more questions about NFTs? We have more answers. Check out our NFT FAQ here.

SUPPLY CHAIN

Biden Thinks Current Supply Chains Are a Bunch of Malarkey

Last April, as the US was gripped by PPE shortages, a plane owned by the New England Patriots flew to China to pick up desperately needed N95 masks. Though the trip was a success, it exposed just how fragile the US public health supply chain is. 

Fast forward to yesterday, when President Biden signed an executive order to make sure the Bucs don’t have to repeat such an operation. 

• The order launched a 100-day review of the most fragile yet essential US supply chains, including defense, public health, communications technology, transportation, energy, and food production.

Priority number one? Semiconductors. Due to the consumer electronics industry hoovering up every available chip and automakers scaling back orders at the beginning of the pandemic, the auto industry had to go into mini hibernation because there aren’t enough chips for cars.

• Ford has been forced to slow down F-150 production and GM has turned “temporary” layoffs into “indefinite” ones because of the lack of chips. 

Bottom line: While just a starting point, Biden’s executive order hopes to eventually reduce the US’ reliance on other countries across a wide swath of critical industries.  

COVID-19

Covax Takes Off by Touching Down

Yesterday, Ghana became the first country to receive a vaccine care package from the UN-backed Covax program. The 600,000 doses will start being administered next week, with healthcare workers, people over 60, and people with preexisting health conditions first in line. 

Quick refresh: Covax is coordinated by the WHO, the Global Vaccine Alliance, and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, and it aims to narrow the vaccination gap between rich and low-income countries. 

• Some rich countries have been criticized for buying more than they need—but those countries defend the purchases by arguing they were made while vaccines were in development and it wasn’t clear which would be viable. 
• By December, wealthy nations had netted 53% of the world’s most effective vaccines, despite constituting only 14% of the world’s population, per the People’s Vaccine Alliance. 

Thus, Covax. Funded by donations, it hopes to vaccinate 20% of people in the world’s 92 poorest countries by the end of the year. 

Looking ahead...Ivory Coast is up next later this week. 

SPONSORED BY FUNDRISE

Hunting for Diamonds

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Fundrise sorts through the coal that is thousands of potential deals each year and looks for diamonds: well-priced, well-located properties that they believe are well-positioned to thrive in any economic environment. 

That’s a lot of wells—and even more potential returns.

By cutting out the middlemen and slashing unnecessary high fees with their direct-to-consumer tech, Fundrise gives you unrivaled access to the historically stable and high-performing world of real estate investing.

Open up a portfolio today.

GRAB BAG

Key Performance Indicators

Quote: “This is not ideal for us and it’s not a new normal. It’s an aberration that we are going to correct as quickly as possible.”—Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon must have super annoying roommates, because he railed against remote work at a Credit Suisse conference yesterday. “I am very focused on the fact that I don’t want another class of young people arriving at Goldman Sachs in the summer remotely,” he said.

Stat: Since 2004, customers of Texas’s deregulated electricity market have paid $28 billion more for electricity than state residents served by full-service regulated utilities, according to a WSJ analysis. Texas’s move to deregulate power generation is being blamed for last week’s electricity crisis.

Read: The secret message NASA sent to Mars, and the people who decoded it. (New York Times)

RETAIL

World’s Kooky Electronics Chain Count Down by One

Yesterday morning, electronics chain Fry’s announced on its website that it will shut down and close all its stores. 

The backstory: First opened in Sunnyvale, CA, in 1985, Fry’s was a family-run Bay Area fixture beloved by many Silicon Valley techies. It grew its footprint to 31 stores across nine states. 

• Like most Bay Area fixtures, it was pretty quirky. The Fry's store in Campbell, CA, had an ancient Egyptian theme, and the one in Burbank featured a UFO crashing through its exterior. 

But not even the giant octopus at that same Burbank Fry’s could defend it from the upheavals in the retail sector of the past few decades. Fry’s was unable to pivot to e-commerce quickly enough to compete with rivals like Amazon and Best Buy. 

Then, the Covid-19 pandemic delivered the fatal blow, causing foot traffic to plummet and in-store experiences to become irrelevant. 

+ For nostalgia: Any West Coast natives might enjoy folks tweeting about Fry’s here, here, and here. 

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said the Postal Service was “in a death spiral” and needed financial help during testimony on Capitol Hill yesterday. He also apologized for delays in service. 
• The Fed’s system for facilitating money transfers between financial institutions was down for a few hours yesterday.
• McKinsey leader Kevin Sneader has reportedly been voted out as global managing partner after a series of crises enveloped the consultancy. 
• Two-thirds of NYC’s arts and culture jobs vanished last year from 2019, a new report showed.
• Disney+ announced its spring and early summer slates of shows.

BREW'S BETS

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How they built this: The cofounders of Morning Brew, Alex Lieberman and Austin Rief, are talking with Guy Raz of NPR’s legendary How I Built This podcast today at noon ET. It’s a great story—you should tune in. 

Writing tips: You know that phrase, “This meeting should have been an email”? Well, here’s a new one: “This sentence should have been a much shorter sentence.” Brew writer Eliza Carter explains how you can avoid the curse of wordiness in the most recent Brew Style Blog post.

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FROM THE CREW

Brew's Bookshelf: Black History Month

As Black History Month nears its close, we’re resurfacing some of our favorite Bookshelf recommendations and some new reads to continue the conversation about race in America. 

Check out our 15 books to celebrate Black History Month.

GAMES

Three Headlines and a Lie

Everyone thinks they can separate fact from fiction, but this week’s headline quiz will put your BS sensors to the test. Three of these crazy news stories are real, and one we made up. Can you spot the fake? 

1. "Two Floridians attempted to get second doses of the Covid-19 vaccine by dressing as elderly women"
2. "India’s Modi renames cricket stadium after himself"
3. "'That bird is an a**hole’: World record bubble-blowing attempt thwarted by curious crow"
4. "Alaska woman using outhouse attacked by bear, from below"

ANSWER

Hate to burst your bubble, but we made up the crow one. 

✢ A Note From Fundrise

(Here's all the legal jargon we know you love reading.)