The Best One Yet - 💨 “Fart-coin” — Crypto’s Silk Road pardon. Neko’s $2B body-scanner. Video Games’ Spiderman mistake.

Episode Date: January 24, 2025

Trump pardoned the crypto founder of Silk Road… after launching his own Fartcoin. We’ll explain.Spotify’s CEO co-founded a body-scanning startup to save your life… and it just hit $2B.EA’s video game stock had its worst day in 17 years… because of 1 huge graphics mistake.Plus, the hot new Dry January trend is Cannabis Cocktails (replace ABV with THC).$EA $SPOT $BTCWant more business storytelling from us? Check out the latest episode of our new weekly deepdive show: The untold origin story of… 🎸 The Fender Stratocater: The Guitar That Invented Rock ‘N’ Roll.Subscribe to The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinks to listen.“The Best Idea Yet”: The untold origin stories of the products you’re obsessed with — From the McDonald’s Happy Meal to Birkenstock’s sandal to Nintendo’s Super Mario Brothers to Sriracha. New 45-minute episodes drop weekly.—-----------------------------------------------------Subscribe to our new (2nd) show… The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinksEpisodes drop weekly. It’s The Best Idea Yet.GET ON THE POD: Submit a shoutout or fact: https://tboypod.com/shoutouts FOR MORE NICK & JACK: Newsletter: https://tboypod.com/newsletter Connect with Nick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-martell/ Connect with Jack: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-crivici-kramer/ SOCIALS:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tboypod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tboypodYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tboypod Anything else: https://tboypod.com/ Subscribe to our new (2nd) show… The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinksEpisodes drop weekly. It’s The Best Idea Yet. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Friday the real Friday. January 24th. And today's pod is the best one yet. This one is a T-boy. Nick, for only two months, you are older than me. I know.

My birthday's March. Then we'll be the same age again. Well, Jack, I hope you keep the birthday bounce continuing. Stocks are still at record highs. I think they're going to just stay record highs until my next birthday. A lot too shabby. Should we get into our three stories? We have three fantastic stories.

Let's hit him before the weekend, baby. For our first story, the biggest winners, crypto since Trump became president are fart coins. Spark coins. We'll explain Silk Road, Trump's meme coin, and how they're all affecting the crypto crowd. For our second story, Spotify's CEO, actually co-founded another company. He's got a side hustle. It's a body scanning startup that could save your life.

It's called NECO, and it scans your entire body inside and out, and it just hit a $1.7 billion valuation. And our third and final story is Electronic Arts. EA, the video game, just plummeted 17% in its worst day on the stock market in 17 years. And it's all because of Spider-Man spandex, literally. But Yeties, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. Fantastic mix of stories for the Real Friday. Love the mix.

If you're doing dry January, there's only one week left. That's it. Pretty soon, you can replace that seltzer for a smearnoff. That's not how I'm into my dry January. It's more of a wet slide, Jack. Either way, there's a new alcohol alternative that's emerging that you need to know about. And it's called cannabis cocktails. Cannabis cocktails are replacing ABV with THC, and this category is surging.

Here's the news. What do we got, Jack? As of January 1st this year, you can legally order THC-infused non-alcoholic drinks at bars and restaurants in 24 states. Hey, bartender, I'll take one mellow mojito. And one chronic culotta. Did you ask for a ganja gimlet? Is that you, Jack? I think it was you. You'll take two of them.

One that we noticed is a brand called pamos, which makes a canned margarita, but they swapped out tequila for weed. This brand is three years old, but they already passed 30 million bucks in annual sales. Now, here's the key when it comes to cannabis cocktails. They contain about 10 milligrams of THC per drink. That's the part of the cannabis that gets you high.

10 milligrams of THC is only about a third of a, typical marijuana joint. So that's enough to make you socially high, but not make you fully stoned. And that is the cannabis cocktail advantage over regular non-alcoholic drinks. Exactly. Unlike mocktails, cannabis cocktails still give you some kind of buzz. Just a different kind of buzz. But still not an alcoholic buzz, which a lot of people want to avoid for various reasons. So yeties, if you're enjoying dry January, let us know this weekend if you order a dank dacery over there. Because the non-alk category just got a whole lot more interesting. Hey, bartender, one weed whiskey sour.

Hold the wee. Hold the whiskey. You guys what I'm talking about, Jack. Let's hit our three stories. Fifteen years before this song. Two boys from the Northeast met in the dorm. They had an idea to cause a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is an norm.

Jack Nick, that's it. I don't even think they need to practice. 50% that's a fat tip. Tea Boy City on your at. If you know, you know, because we're ready to go. We can't wait no more. So just start the show. Start the show.

First, a quick word from our sponsor. For our first story, the founder of Silk Road, a crypto pioneer and convicted felon, just received a pardon. What is Silk Road? What are fart coins? And how have Trump's first few days affected crypto? We'll investigate. Who is Ross Ulbricht?

is Ross Albrecht. That's what everyone was Googling after Trump pardoned Ross Albrecht. Well, Ross Albrecht was the founder of Silk Road, an early pioneer of cryptocurrencies. Silk Road was founded in 2011 as an anonymous online marketplace. So without revealing your identification, you could buy and sell things anything on Silk Road. It was like an anonymous eBay. Yes, it was. And Jack, to ensure that your identification remained a secret, you paid in a new digital currency at the time known as Bitcoin. And why was anonymity so important? Well, Jack, it's because Silk Road was kind of for criminals, wasn't it? Silk Road was where you bought and sold illegal drugs and illegal weapons online. You weren't going there for a cute top. You know, there are even cases where users

hired hitmen on Silk Road. And then you paid the bad guy in Bitcoin. So it's not Amazon Prime. Silk Road is Amazon crime. And that happens to be what the U.S. just system thought as well. It's also what the evidence and the law thought, because Olbrick was convicted of seven felonies in 2015 and sentenced to prison for life. But here's the news, besties. This week, after 10 years in prison, Olbrick is now free and pardoned of all crimes by new President Trump. Why did he pardon this guy? Because Olbrick is a bit of a hero among libertarians whose votes Trump was courting for the last year. So, when Trump was invited to the Libertarians' parties' national

convention, he promised to pardon this felon if he was elected president. But pause the pod, Yetis, because releasing a convicted crypto criminal mastermind from prison was not even the biggest crypto news of the week. No, it wasn't. The biggest crypto news of the week would be Trump coin. Trump coin, Jack, why don't you enlighten this? On the eve of the inauguration, Trump tokenized his personal brand, creating a viable crypto that anybody could buy on Robin Hood. Now, President Trump still owns 80% of Trump coin.

So even though the price is down 42% from its high earlier in the week, Trump coin is still worth billions of dollars to the president. Now, Trump coin is completely unprecedented, and it's brought up a whole bunch of questions and issues. Well, official Trump coin is loaded with conflicts of interest. Plus, its untraceable nature could be used to secretly bribe the president and nobody would be able to find out about it. But still, the whole Trump family has now gotten involved and everyone's getting a Trump coin. It's kind of like the Jackson 5 over there. Melania launched a coin two that also passed a billion dollars in valuation. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies right now over in crypto? We can choose smart coins or fart coins. Yiddies,

Here's what Jack and I found fascinating about these stories. Most of the crypto community actually appeared disappointed by Trump's first two crypto moves. In fact, many crypto leaders who voted for Trump voiced their frustration about his moves this week. Peter McCormick, the big crypto podcaster and Trump supporter, said that it was embarrassing. He said it was the opposite of what he expected from his Trump vote. Because these moves Trump has made further than narrative that cryptocurrencies aren't serious assets, but they're criminal assets instead. And they further the narrative that much of crypto are fart coins. No purpose, just gassy speculation. Fartcoins. Some call these joke tokens another word that rhymes with Bitcoin, but we're going to call them fart coins on the pod. We kind of like

fart coins. On the other hand, Trump does have an opportunity here to legitimize crypto as the first developed nation in the world to fully embrace it. On Thursday, he did sign an executive order to make a crypto council. And at the same time, the Republican-controlled Senate created a new digital asset subcommittee led by the most pro-crypto senator who even wants a Bitcoin reserve. We think crypto's biggest promise is as digital gold. Yes, we do. An investable asset with scarce supply that's both borderless and internationally reputable. But so far in the first few days, Trump started with a fart coin and needs to go towards smart coin. For our second story, NECO just hit a $1.7 billion valuation to scale a whole new health care tech.

Body scans. NECO's body scanners perfectly represent the next generational trend of health. Yetis, do you remember our prediction for this year? Jack, what was our big prediction about the I-Tushy? One of them was that Apple would launch a smart toilet. Yeah, an I-Tushy. Every tech company wants in on health. Every tech company wants in on health, including Daniel Eck,

the founder and CEO of Spotify, he wants in too. The music streaming CEO has side-housled a new healthcare business that just became a unicorn. It's called NECO Health. They are scaling health clinics that feature a cutting-edge body scanner. These health clinics look like a spa designed by IKEA. Yeah, they do. They're nice. But unlike your doctor's office, there isn't a single stethoscope in this place. No, instead, you're going to walk into a giant chamber that scans your whole body with a dozen different technologies.

One scan actually measures 38 different things about your body. It's basically like Gray's anatomy in a box. The scan takes a few minutes, the doctor reads the results afterwards, and then chats with you about the red flags if you have some. NECO has done about 10,000 of these scans so far in the UK and Sweden, and there's a 100,000-person wait list right now. The scan costs a little under $400, and here's the news. They just became a unicorn.

NECO raised $260 million to hit a 1.6,000. billion dollar valuation this week, the AI Body Scanner will see you now. And with all that money, they're going to come to the United States and open up some calm, minimalist, futuristic doctors offices made entirely out of Scandinavian wood. If it's not Pinewood, I'm not getting scan check. Now, to understand this technology, we wanted to compare it to another health technology. Basically, wearables like Apple Watch, Fitbitz, aura rings, they're on your body 24-7 tracking your data. And yet that data is limited. NECO's various scanners can actually peek inside your body into your organs.

Like they're going to track your blood pressure, your cholesterol, and then the doc tells you your risk of stroke or heart attack because it sees inside of you. But they've also got more basic scanners that will just look at your skin and that thing on your thigh and that mole on the outside of your body. And determine your risk of melanoma or cancer or having to get that thing on your thigh checked out a little more. And we actually think that's technology, since it's not a lot of, human will be conducting a more thorough full body check. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, it's like going to catch that obscure mole on your little toe that your doctor might have missed during that cursory

overlook. We all have to do every couple of years. I got a full body scan at my dermatologist a couple years ago. Naked? You go naked? You're fully naked? And they finished the scan in like one second. Yeah. I was actually insulted. Did you spin for them, Jack? No. They like barely looked me over. And they're like, you're like, you're fine. I'm like, you didn't look anywhere. You know, next time you got to spin. I think you I should have spun next thing, Jay. I should have put on a little show for the doctor's office and fully naked Jack. Everybody knows that. They asked me to put my robot after one second. Step on the scale. Step off the scale, Jack. But yet is, of course, this new startup is using AI to compare your results to pass results and everyone else who they've scanned these days. That way, they can tell you if

that thing on your thigh looks different than the last time. Because to save costs in the healthcare industry, it really comes down to preventative care, not showing up at the emergency room with that thing on your thigh, you didn't catch six months before. The earlier you can catch something, the cheaper it will be to fix it. So Jack, could you please strip down, turn to the right, cough twice, and tell us what's the takeaway for our buddies over at NECA? Boomers did diets, millennials do wellness. Gen Z wants to live forever. Yet is, last year, Jack and I did a story in how every generation rebrands health in its own image. And NECO's body scanning, Swedish technology is a perfect example of that. You know, Weight Watcher stock is actually down

96% because dieting was a trend in the 80s and 90s. Then wellness and mental health took the stage in the 2000s and in the 20 aughts. But since the pandemic a couple years ago, the health innovators are now shifting the focus to life extension. So NECO's preventative care. It's not about losing weight or finding like psychological nirvana. No, it's really about extending life by finding issues as early as possible. Because the new health trend is to try to live forever. Now a quick word from our sponsor. For our third and final story before the weekend. Shares of electronic arts, the video game company, just had their worst day in 17 years. EA's decline reveals a big mistake across the whole video game industry. Here it is. We don't care

about your fancy 4K graphics. We don't care about Spider-Man spandex. E.A. Sports. Not in the game, apparently, Judge. No, it's not. No, it's not. The iconic video game developer behind Madden, the Sims, and Medal of Honor just had its worst day on the stock market since 2008. EA Sports, their stock fell 17% on Thursday,

Jack, was the reason. They simply didn't sell as many games as they hoped in the fourth quarter. For example, EA's latest soccer game, which used to be called FIFA. missed expectations. Even worse was the role-playing game Dragon Age, which came up 50% short of sales this past holiday season. Not to drop the F word again, but electronic farts. The stock fell to a seven-year low on the news of the bad quarter. But yet is, Jack and I were fascinated about this story because electronic arts doing poorly presents a paradox. Because aren't we living in the golden

age of video games? Yeah, Jack, what was that wild hero stat we shared? with the Yetis about the video game industry? The amount of time Americans spend playing video games is more than the amount of time we spend watching movies, watching TV, and listening to music combined. So you would think that the leading video game studio like electronic arts would be at an all-time high right now. But it's not. And the reason might be found in a recent New York Times article about the video game industry. And here's how the Times described it.

To understand the video game industry's current crisis, look closely at Spider-Man spandex. Look closelyer, because every year, graphics and video games have gotten more and more lifelike. Yeah, they have. The New York Times showed a picture of the first Spider-Man game that came out in Atari in 1982. Jack, I'm looking at it now. It's like a series of huge blue and red squares that form something that kind of looks like a human being. It's pixelated. But today, the latest Spider-Man video game has, has,

insanely lifelike Spider-Man figures jumping around an insanely lifelike looking New York City. The new Spider-Man video game looks like a high-deaf 4K movie. It looks real. And the reason is because studios like Electronic Arts have spent a ton of money upping the graphic fidelity of their games. But here's the plot twist, Yeties. It turns out gamers don't care about life-like figures and they're not willing to pay for them. And the reason you don't care about Spider-Man's fancy spandex is our takeaway. So Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies in video games? Kids don't want high-definition.

They just want to hang out. Yadies, the Times found also that 40-to-50-year-old video game players really do care about real-life graphics. And that small subset of video gamers are willing to pay 80 bucks a game to electronic arts to get it. But the majority of gamers, young gamers, the future of the industry, they prefer playing games like Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite, games that don't look realistic.

Because less important than the graphics is that you can play online with friends. Video games are a virtual hangout. So, EA Sports, they want you paying 80 bucks for lifelike graphics of FIFA football. Or you can play old school-looking Fortnite with friends for free. So the way Jack and I see it, EA should shift their investment from better graphics into better interactive gameplay. Or maybe they should have done a customer survey before investing so much money in fancy graphics. It was like a survey could have saved them a lot of cash, Jack. Hello there, kids. Do you care about HD standex?

Because besties kids, they don't want Hollywood graphics. Kids just want to hang out. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us before the weekend? Trump's first crypto moves were to release the Silk Road criminal from prison and to launch the official Trump coin. Going forward, we hope he can choose smart coin. over fart coins. For our second story, it's NECO. It's now a $1 billion company that scans your body to measure 38 different things.

Boomers did diets. Millennials do wellness, but Gen Z, they want to live forever. And our third and final story, Electronic Arts invested tons of money in high graphic video games, but kids aren't paying for them. And we see it in Spider-Man spandex.

In video games, we don't want Hollywood graphics. We just want to hang out. But Yeties, this pod's not over. yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, President Trump's executive order ended federal DEI programs, as well as a 1965 rule against discrimination in federal contractor hiring. But Costco and J.P. Morgan Chase are standing firm on their DEI initiatives. In fact, of the DEI pushback, Jamie Diamond of J.P. Morgan said, bring them on. And second, we just got the Oscar

nominations and leading the pack Amelia Perez, my mom's favorite from this year, with 13 numbs. not leading the pack was Gladiator 2. I really wish I had gone that day to see Wicked instead. Yeah, it was way more popular. Oh, and Conan O'Brien, he's going to host the Oscars on March 2nd in L.A. It's going to be emotional, given all the fires. It's probably going to be an incredible night. And finally, Target had a shockingly good fourth quarter.

Way more foot traffic than analysts expected. Well, why did the beleaguered big box chain of Target do so well? What? Taylor Swift. Yeah. The T. Swift concert tour coffee table book. Yeah. Could only be bought this holiday season of Tarje. It was exclusive to Targey's targeted Target stores.

Target benefited. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Yeti Sinziana Ursu from lovely Austin, Texas, who happens to have a fantastic birthday. Sinziana and Nick both have a January 22nd birthday. We had the same birthday this week. Zinziana got curious. How common is it that you have a birthday with that person right there?

Well, actually looked into it, Jack, because it left. led to the birthday paradox, a real probability theory that describes the likelihood of two people sharing a birthday within the same group. All right. So the likelihood that you and that random person have the same birthday is one out of 365. But if there's 23 people in the room with you, chances are two of you have the same birthday. That's right. It only takes 23 people in a room to likely have the same birthday between two of them. That's wild. Wouldn't you think it needs more people in the room? You think it's counterintuitive. I mean, basically, Jack, what you're saying is the next time you go to a big dinner, just ask everybody what their birthday is. What a convostar.

There's a good chance two of you have the same birthday. Yeties, that is the birthday paradox, and it also shows how bad humans are at intuitive probability. Happy birthday, Sinziana. Yeties, you look fantastic today. Jack, thank you for that epic Instagram story of all those incredible pictures together from a birthday. That was a good. really, really cool. The ones on the dock, they're doing the yoga, running across the street now. Yeah, I posted like eight picks on my Instagram, tagging Nick in each one. It was really fun to look through the photos we have. The only one missing was some of the, some of the dorm room ones. We could throw some of those up there and the East Village ones. I know, but we went to college

like right before the iPhone era. I don't have that many college pictures of us. Yeah. Yeah, those photos. They're like in a dark room somewhere. No, all the photos I do have of us were basically just playing beer pong. We've been it off and have now frames. They're not on our phones. Besties, we loved hanging with you this week. If you want to hang out more this weekend, check out our weekly show,

the best idea yet, because we got a full episode on the guitar that set up rock and roll. We got a link in the episode description. Either way, Nick and I, I'll see you Monday. Celebrate the wins. If you know, you know. And before we go,

speaking of the birthday paradox, happy birthday to Chris Paul, 40 years old, over in lovely St. Petersburg. And happy birthday to Sarah Jorgensen, who's also turned 40 over in Seattle. And Rocky Wandawison is turning 23 years old in Columbus, Ohio Blue Jacketland. And happy birthday to charity T from Fort Collins, who's actually in Vegas to close a business deal. I assume she's expensing this birthday weekend, which is awesome. And get this, Jack.

Sarah Gregory, whose soccer number is 37, an aim handle was 37. Her parents were 37 when she was born. Her husband was 37 when they got married. She bought her spouse at 37. She's turned 37 and her son is in the class of 2037. And you just turned 37. And I just turned 37. And Darius Sprague down the street in San Francisco gets a shout out for letting her best you know about T-boy.

Mary Catherine has been listening every day. She's now a bestie. And just in case your name's pronounced Sprague, happy birthday, Darius Sprague. And Kieran Nygaard from lovely Exeter, New Hampshire, just had a successful college interview. She nailed the question. why do you want to study business? Because she listens to this pot. That's awesome.

Thank you, Kira. If you know, you know. This is Jack. I own stock of Roblox, and Nick and I both own stock of Spotify and Robin Hood. And we both own one Bitcoin. Name Ben.