Celebrities sued over bored apes, fading fitness bands and philanthropic happiness

Hey folks!

What did you have for breakfast?

We hope you didn’t snack on stuff like fries and chips. Because that may prove the news right. You see, the market intelligence firm Mintel suggests that Gen Z is either replacing breakfast with a snack or having it as an accompaniment. And that means that the breakfast market could be ready for a makeover.

But if Gen Z is perceived to be health conscious, then why do they end up bingeing on chips?

The hypothesis is that it’s all to do with boredom, stress or other emotions.

Or even dropping culinary skills. And it’s not us saying this. When Home Run Inn, a Chicago-based Pizzeria ran a survey among Gen Zs and millennials recently, only a third of the Gen Z respondents considered themselves skilled cooks. On the flip side, the percentage was slightly higher among millennials, nearly half of whom said they were confident about their culinary skills.

And that means that ready-to-eat meals may reign supreme over ready-to-cook ones. Seems like great news for snack makers no? Maybe Gen Zs should upskill themselves in the kitchen when boredom strikes!

Here’s a soundtrack we handpicked for our readers this week🎵

Raat by Rono AKA Awkward Bong

A couple of things caught our eye this week 👀

Celebrities are getting sued over apes

Popular celebrities like Paris Hilton, Justin Bieber and Jimmy Fallon are being sued by a group of investors. The reason?

Cartoon apes.

Wait! What?

Let us explain.

In 2021, Sotheby’s, a popular international auction house, put up an NFT for sale. Now, an NFT or a Non-Fungible Token is simply a certificate of authenticity for the ownership of an asset that’s on a blockchain. So you could have tokens representing unique assets like art, music or other digital content. And buying it means that you digitally own the media the NFT represents.

Sotheby’s had a combination of 101 NFTs up for sale. These NFTs were digital artworks of apes with different attributes created or minted by a company called Yuga Labs. And they sold for a whopping $24 million, far above the initial offer of $12-18 million.

But why did colourful images of apes with different outfits sell for millions of dollars you ask?

You see, these apes represent an NFT called the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC). As Daniel Van Boom put it in an article on CNET, “BAYC is to NFTs like what bitcoin is to cryptocurrencies”. And there are only about 5,000-10,000 digital impressions of them. Some have rare attributes like diamond studs or golden fur. The rarer the image, the pricier the NFT.

Celebrities like Timbaland and Eminem were lapping up these BAYC NFTs too, using them as their Twitter profile pictures. So, that sort of explains the BAYC craze.

Now we know what you’re thinking. Why buy an image of an ape for millions of dollars when you can just right-click and download it? Well, you could. But people kind of wanted to show “ownership”. Let’s just say it was a status thing.

So if BAYC sold for about $190 a piece when they launched, they skyrocketed to even $400,000 a piece due to the hype. But then the global economic meltdown happened. Several economies faced rate hikes to keep an eye on inflation. Meaning, people’s NFT purchasing power dropped. NFT trading volumes plummeted so much that BAYC prices crashed.

For instance,  Justin Bieber’s BAYC NFT was worth $1.3 million last year. It’s worth about $59,000 today.

And that’s exactly why collectors have sued Sotheby’s and a couple of celebrities. Of course, the price crash isn’t something that can be regulated by an auction house or public figures. But the hype they may have created could be why these NFTs were overvalued, meaning most of these investors lost a huge chunk of their money when the market crashed.

Sotheby’s is obviously defending these allegations of conspiring to artificially inflate BAYC prices. We’ll just have to wait and see where this lawsuit goes.

***

Could fitness bands slip away soon?

India is set to become the largest wearables market this year in terms of volume, making up nearly a fifth of the 492-million-unit global shipments already. And considering that we’ve witnessed a 53% Y-o-Y growth in the first half of 2023, the prospects seem great.

But here’s the interesting bit. If you look at the shipment wise split for fitness bands, smartwatches and ear wear for the latest quarter, you’ll see that shipment growth of fitness bands has derailed by over 75% compared to the same time in the previous year. It’s the second year of falling sales.

What’s hurting fitness bands, you ask?

For starters, you have smartwatches. Manufacturers have been able to lower their prices and make it more attractive. So if you could buy a watch with more utility than a fitness band, at a similar price point you’d go for it.

And for brands, there’s the money aspect too. In 2020, fitness bands contributed to about 56% of the volumes sold but brought in only 22% of the revenues. Smartwatches bring in the dough. That also means that manufacturers will likely focus on products that bring them higher profits.

Secondly, we’re seeing the emergence of smart rings now too.

Popular brands like BoAt and Noise are launching their new products and consumers could be inclined towards buying these more convenient wearables. Smart rings can do the same job as fitness bands with the advantage of being easier to wear. Also, the target market seems to be “consumers who want accurate health and sleep tracking but don’t want to move from an analogue watch.”

So, that means fitness bands may soon be a forgotten innovation, no? What do you think?

Infographic 📊

Money tips 💰

Making way for generosity in your budget

How often have you bought flowers, pens or toys from hawkers at traffic signals? You may not need what they’re selling, but you still go ahead and buy, just to support them. And it makes you feel good in a way. Generosity does feel good.

And research backed by Harvard Business School actually has evidence that supports this. These researchers ran an experiment where a group of people were told that they’d get some money to do either of two things. They could buy some goodies and donate them to an anonymous sick child at a local hospital. Or they could just keep the goodies they bought. Now, people who choose to donate also got another option. They could opt out of their decision and just take the cash equivalent of the goodie bag later.

At the end of this social experiment, researchers observed a small but “reliable” increase in positive mood among the people who gave away their goodie bags than those who kept it for themselves.

So, maybe it’s a message to slip in generosity into our budget as and when we can to feel better about ourselves?

You could support a children’s education program through small monthly donations. Or even pool some money every month and spend it on a charitable purpose at the end of the year. Sharing some part of a pay raise or bonus with people or causes that may need it is also a way to do it.

It could simply make your financial planning journey happier. Don’t you think?

Readers Recommend 🗒️

Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins

Our reader Vidya Sagar recommends this book and says “Can’t Hurt Me is a fantastic autobiography of a man who is a retired navy seal in the USA. From having no goals in life to becoming one of the greatest athletes of all time and a great motivational speaker, he believes that humans can stretch their mental or physical ability beyond their limits.”

Sounds like quite an inspirational recommendation Vidya. Thank you.

With this, it’s time to wrap up today’s edition. We’ll see you next weekend.

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Finshots Weekly Quiz 🧩

It’s time to announce the winner of our previous Weekly Quiz. And the winner is… 🥁

Avinaba Kumar Sahoo! Congratulations. Keep an eye on your inbox and we’ll get in touch with you soon to send over your Finshots merch.

And for the rest of you, here’s your next chance to grab the winner’s crown. Click on this 👉🏽 link, answer all the questions correctly and tune in next week to check if you got lucky.

🖖🏽!