Hey Snackers,
We just want to congratulate Reuters on one of the cheekiest headlines of 2020: "Brazilian police catch senator hiding cash between his buttcheeks, source says." Bummer.
Markets ticked up yesterday as weekly jobless claims dropped to their second-lowest level since March. Also: House Speaker Pelosi said a coronavirus aid deal was “just about there." We'll see.
Calling it quiti... Quibi, short for "quick bites," is shutting down just six months after launching. The video startup raised a gargantuan $1.75B before debuting in April — now it's quitting to avoid losing investors any more money. In the likely chance you never downloaded it: Quibi is (was?) a mobile-only short video streamer (~8-minute episodes). It drummed up massive hype for three reasons:
No "Quibi and Quaker Oats"... Quibi was made for "in-between" moments. But we're not subway-and-Quibi'ing since the pandemic killed commutes — we're also not Quibi-ing while nuking oatmeal during WFH. Quibi missed paid subscriber targets, and reportedly lost 90% of early users after kindly sending a "your trial is expiring" email (#bless).
Content is king... While Quibi has partly blamed timing, it likely failed because its content wasn't compelling enough to charge $5-$8/month (see: show about a golden arm). Those "in-between" moments still exist — but they're dominated by extra-short, user-generated content on free apps like Instagram, TikTok, and Snap. And those are thriving during the corona-conomy.
Requesting 1/1000 of a bitcoin... for the truffle pizza we shared last night. Venmo-owner PayPal is launching crypto buying, selling, and shopping on its service. While buying/selling crypto isn't novel, the spending part is:
Big on the crypto... small on the currency. Crypto hasn’t been widely adopted as a real currency for three key reasons: lack of trust, lack of acceptance, and price volatility. You don't want to spend a bitcoin on a Birkin bag if that same coin could be worth double next week. Also: crypto transactions tend to be slower than traditional payments.
This could be crypto’s mainstream moment... or not. With 346M active accounts, PayPal has waaaayy bigger reach than other crypto-slinging fintechs. That's why bitcoin hit a record high for 2020 on PayPal's news. Just like GM’s EV Hummer could bring non-EVers to the electric side, PayPal could help normalize crypto. There's also a big chance that people won't see any value in using it, too.
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