Beginning to look a lot like Klarna

For “less than one trillion dollars” The Onion said it won its bid to purchase Infowars out of bankruptcy. The satirical news publication said it would relaunch the far-right website as a parody of itself, though late yesterday a judge put the sale on hold.

Stocks dropped yesterday after Fed Chair Powell said that the US economy has been “remarkably good” and that the Fed was in no hurry to lower rates. Meantime, bitcoin slipped below $90K after hitting a record $93K+ earlier this week.

🧠 Quizness as usual: We’re back with your regularly scheduled programming of this week’s Snacks Seven quiz. Here’s the first q:

Buy now, IPO later… Klarna’s rollin’ its shopping cart to Wall Street. After months of speculation, the Swedish payments company this week filed to go public in the US. FYI: Klarna lets shoppers split purchases into smaller interest-free installments across 550K+ global brands including Nike, Sephora, Macy’s, Ikea, and even Airbnb. If successful, Klarna would join publicly traded BNPL rivals like PayPal and Affirm.

BN-PLosion… Buy now, pay later has become a popular way to pay, last year accounting for $75B in online spending. That’s a 14% jump from 2022. And while electronics are typically the most popular BNPL purchase, as budgets tighten more folks are relying on the service for essentials like TP and groceries. A recent survey found that 40% of BNPL shoppers use the service at least once a month, and over half use it more than they swipe credit cards.

It pays to pay later… As the holiday season kicks off, buy now, pay later has solidified its position as the go-to option for folks looking to spread out their spend. Over a third of US shoppers are said to be considering a BNPL loan this month, the highest % since September 2023. Holiday spending using pay-later services is set to hit a record $18.5B this year.

Temp check… The climate’s heatin’ up, and so are talks between the leaders from nearly 200 countries this week in Azerbaijan for the COP29 climate summit. The main topic: who’s going to pay for climate change? Wealthy nations in 2009 agreed to cough up $100B/year to less-wealthy nations to fund climate-related projects (mainly clean energy). Payments started in 2020, but only hit the $100B/year goal in 2022. With the pledge expiring this year, world leaders at COP29 are trying to forge a new agreement with a funding target of more than $1T/year.

Money doesn’t grow on trees… The US contributed ~$10B to global climate goals last year, a third of what the UK spent. Now, COP29 attendees are concerned that Trump could cut climate funding altogether. He’s widely expected to again withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement, the global pact to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis. That agreement calls for developed nations to provide large-scale financial aid to less-wealthy nations. Now some leaders at COP29 have hesitated to confirm their countries’ contributions until they know the US’s plans.

The world’s not keeping up… and the price tag to tackle the climate crisis keeps surging. The $1T/year climate spend that some COP29 attendees hope for would still fall short of what some experts say is required, with new research landing on a $6T/year price tag. 

The incoming Trump admin has dealmakers ready to consolidate so fast they might forget to pass go and collect $200. Read more.

📜 Policy… New York’s ban on new fossil-fuel-powered crypto miners is set to expire next week. Meanwhile, miners have seen their share prices pop as Trump pushes for “made in the USA” bitcoin.

🤖 Techy… A push to tokenize stocks, bonds, and commodities would see traditional financial markets and crypto converge on the blockchain. Analysts predict it could unlock a multitrillion-dollar market of tokenized securities.

🌶️ Spicy… The FBI reportedly raided the home of Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan. The crypto-based prediction market has been in the spotlight after its US presidential-election event contract is said to have seen $3.2B in trading.

Crypto’s global market capitalization passed $3T following Trump’s election win

Authors of this Snacks own bitcoin and shares of: Alphabet, and Amazon

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