Good morning. It’s Thursday—the middle child of the week, forever overlooked. Not as painful as Monday, not as exciting as Friday. But today, we’re giving it some credit.

On this day in 1922, the Supreme Court actually did something right: they unanimously upheld the 19th Amendment, shutting down a weak attempt to block women’s right to vote. Imagine thinking you could undo that. Embarrassing. Anyway, while they were busy defending democracy, we were busy making this newsletter. With love, of course. So enjoy, push through the rest of the week, and give Thursday the respect it deserves.

Happy reading, and may your weekend arrive quickly.

Today’s stories:

• Canada builds North America’s biggest solar park

• Tesla tanks below $1T, Musk stays distracted

• Spotify embraces AI voices for audiobooks

• America attempts 24 hours of no spending

• Mars’ red dust may have come from water

• McDonald’s: fast food empire or landlord?

• Bitcoin crashes, wiping out $1.5 billion

  and more…

Wall Street barely managed a win Wednesday, with the S&P 500 squeezing out a microscopic 0.01% gain—because, hey, a win is a win. Meanwhile, the Dow took a 188-point tumble after initially rising over 245 points, proving once again that stock market optimism is a fleeting illusion. The Nasdaq fared better, climbing 0.26%, thanks in part to Nvidia jumping 3% ahead of earnings.

On the other side of the scoreboard, Instacart’s parent company, Maplebear, crashed 12.3% for its worst day ever—guess people aren’t panic-buying groceries like they used to. The market also got spooked after Trump doubled down on tariffs, slapping Canada and Mexico with trade penalties and promising a 25% tax on EU goods. Because nothing says “economic stability” like a fresh trade war.

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TikTok Just Robbed the Internet for $6 Billion

TikTok, along with its Chinese twin Douyin, just became the first non-game app to rake in $6 billion in a year from in-app purchases. That’s right—$6 billion in people throwing money at digital gifts, subscriptions, and whatever else TikTok convinced them they needed. In Q4 alone, TikTok pulled in $1.9 billion, beating almost every other app except for YouTube and Google One subscriptions. For context, Monopoly GO, a game literally designed to take your money, only made $2.6 billion all year—less than half of TikTok’s haul.

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America tries not spending for 24 hours. A one-day economic blackout is set for Feb. 28, where consumers will attempt the impossible—not buying stuff for 24 hours. The protest, led by John Schwarz (aka “TheOneCalledJai”), is aimed at corporate greed and DEI rollbacks, but let’s be real, it’s also a stress test for our shopping-addicted society. No Starbucks, no impulse Amazon buys, no “just grabbing one thing” at Target that turns into $200. If spending is absolutely unbearable, supporters are told to buy local instead. This is just the beginning—Amazon, Nestlé, and Walmart have boycotts lined up next, with another full shutdown on April 18. One day without swiping the credit card. Capitalism is shaking.

Trump’s $5M “Gold Card”. Trump just put U.S. citizenship on sale with his new $5 million “Gold Card”, a fancier version of a Green Card. According to Trump, rich foreigners can now buy their way in, get permanent residency, and eventually citizenship, as long as they throw enough money around and create jobs. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick confirmed this replaces the old EB-5 visa, making immigration officially pay-to-play. “They’ll be paying a lot of taxes,” Trump claimed. Sure. Like they always do. Meanwhile, the regular immigration process remains an endless bureaucratic nightmare.

Crypto market crash. Bitcoin just took a nosedive, dropping to $86,000 and sending the crypto world into full-blown panic mode. Just a month ago, it was riding high at $109K, but now liquidations are piling up and traders are sweating. In the last 24 hours, $1.5 billion vanished, with Bitcoin alone losing $337 million, Ethereum $77 million, and Solana $26 million. Meanwhile, XRP randomly went up, because crypto never makes sense.

Tesla tanks below $1 trillion. Tesla’s stock dropped 8%, dragging its market value below $1 trillion for the first time since November. Meanwhile, EV sales in Europe are booming, but Tesla’s? Down 45%. Not a great look. Global deliveries are slipping, pressure is piling up, and Musk is busy helping Trump shrink the government instead of fixing Tesla’s problems. Investors aren’t thrilled, but Tesla is still worth more than GM, Ford, VW, Toyota, Hyundai, and BMW combined. The stock is falling, Europe is losing interest, and Musk is distracted.

McDonald’s: the burger chain that’s actually your landlord. Running restaurants is expensive. Owning land isn’t. McDonald’s figured that out decades ago—and they’ve been cashing in ever since. McDonald’s is a real estate empire disguised as fast food. Former CFO Harry Sonneborn said it straight: “We’re not in the food business. We’re in the real estate business.” The burgers are just there to keep the rent checks coming. Instead of milking franchisees for supply money, McDonald’s buys the land, rents it back at inflated prices, and still takes a cut of sales. Right now, McDonald’s owns 45% of the land and 70% of the buildings at its 36,000+ locations. During the 2008 crash, while the world panicked, McDonald’s went full Monopoly mode and scooped up even more land. Ronald isn’t flipping patties. He’s flipping real estate.

Mars Is Red—But Not for the Reason We Thought

For years, the story was simple: Mars is red because of rusted iron dust. Neat, easy, makes sense. Well, turns out, wrong. Scientists just flipped the script and now say Mars’ iconic color might come from ferrihydrite, a mineral that forms in cool water. Yeah, water. The thing Mars supposedly lost ages ago.

The old theory claimed Mars’ dust came from hematite, a dry iron mineral that formed over billions of years without water. But new research threw that in the trash. Scientists recreated Martian dust in a lab, crushed it to a size thinner than a human hair, zapped it with X-rays, and—boom—proof that this dust needed water to form.

Meaning Mars wasn’t just a dusty wasteland forever. At some point, it had water, and a lot of it. The whole planet might have been way more Earth-like before it turned into the cold, dry rock it is today.

So, Mars is still red, but the reason keeps changing. Science loves doing that.

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AI voices are taking over Spotify’s audiobooks. Spotify just made it even easier to flood your ears with AI-narrated audiobooks. Teaming up with ElevenLabs, they’re letting authors ditch voice actors and let robots do the talking—in 29 languages, no studio required. AI audiobooks were already sneaking in, but now it’s open season. Spotify says it still “believes in human narration” but also believes in saving money. Smaller authors win, backlist books get revived, and listeners get a voice that sounds like your GPS reading a thriller.

Canada just stole the solar spotlight. Medicine Hat, Alberta—famous for fossil fuels—is now building North America’s biggest urban solar park. The 325 MW Saamis project just got sold to the city, turning an old industrial site into a sun-powered powerhouse. If fully built, it powers 65,000 people plus industry. The first phase delivers 75 MW for $120 million. A gas town flipping to solar is a glow-up no one saw coming.

Top Investors Are Buying This “Unlisted” Stock

When the team that grew Zillow to a $16B valuation starts a new company, investors notice. No wonder top firms like SoftBank invested in Pacaso.

Taking the industry by storm all over again, Pacaso’s platform offers co-ownership of premier properties – completely revamping a $1.3T market.

And by handing keys to 1,500+ happy homeowners, Pacaso has made $100M+ in gross profits.

Now, with aggressive global expansion underway, their current share price won’t last long.

Invest for $2.70/share by 2/27.

Plane Crashes Aren’t Increasing, Just the Hype

Despite the recent flood of dramatic news, the number of plane crashes in 2025 is pretty much the same as usual. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) says fatal commercial crashes have actually declined since 2019, but of course, that doesn’t make for viral headlines. So far this year, there have been 15 fatal crashes and 94 non-fatal ones. That’s 109 total—63 in January, 46 in February. Sounds like a lot, but it’s right in line with the last decade. Back in 2019, fatal crashes hit 379, then steadily dropped, with last year hitting a record low of 260. But no one clicks on "Aviation Safety Remains Normal." So instead, big accidents get splashed everywhere, lawsuits fly, and suddenly, it feels like planes are dropping out of the sky. They’re not.

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Forget Uber—now you can order a bodyguard. Ordering coffee, getting groceries, walking the dog. All normal things. Now add hiring a personal bodyguard to follow you around like a VIP in a bad action movie. That’s a thing now. Protector is the app making it happen, letting anyone summon armed security like an Uber. Flashing a designer bag is outdated. Rolling up to Trader Joe’s with a security detail is the new flex.

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TikTok of the day: watch here