🍪 Crypto squid games are here, plus how to turn money into happiness

What up, friends - welcome back from the long weekend. I hope you finally got around to figuring out whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich. 

This'll be me this week with the meat sweats:

Anyway, let’s get to the main event.

In the oven this week:

• 📊 Last week’s poll: who brushes their teeth the right way?

• 💸 Three Arrows Capital goes under

• 🍪 Cookie crumbs: 5 quick snippets

• 🤑 How more money = more happiness

• 😂 Snickerdoodles: memes for life

POLL RESULTS: WHO’S BRUSHING CORRECTLY?

In last week’s email, we ran a poll to figure out who’s brushing their teeth the right way, since dentists say that you should NOT be rinsing the toothpaste from your mouth. 

All I gotta say is, I’m glad I’m not the only one doing it all wrong:

Cavities build character, right?? 

THREE ARROWS CAPITAL GOES UNDER

Crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital filed for bankruptcy after defaulting on a ton of money they borrowed from other crypto institutions like BlockFi and Celsius. 

This ain’t small potatoes either. At one point, Three Arrows Capital managed over $10 billion in assets. 

WTF happened?

Well, when you borrow money to invest, the lender usually requires you to put up a certain amount of assets as collateral, juust in case your trades go south. 

If the value of your collateral goes down beyond a certain point, the lender has the right to liquidate, or sell off, your collateral to get their money back.

The problem is, most of these guys are putting up collateral in crypto. And crypto prices have plummeted in the last few months. So players like Three Arrows are getting liquidated left and right. You could avoid getting liquidated if you can put up more collateral, but putting up more collateral usually means you gotta sell other stuff.

When big institutions sell their holdings, prices tend to go down even more, which triggers more liquidations. It’s a sell-off snowball that just gets bigger and bigger… and it’s giving crypto squid games. Hang onto your seats.

If you’re a crypto believer, it’s lookin’ like more buying opportunities are around the corner.

COOKIE CRUMBS

• 💵 The first half of this year sucked for everyone except the U.S. dollar, whose value is up 8.7% via the WSJ Dollar Index (it’s best half since 2010). The index, which measures the value of the dollar against 16 other currencies, rises when the U.S. dollar gains value against the other currencies, and falls when the U.S. dollar loses value against the currencies. 

• 👔 Minions are taking over: Minions: The Rise of Gru broke July 4th box office records after a viral song featuring the minions made its way to TikTok and became the default sound for huge entourages showing up at the theater to watch the movie in full on suits. Mr. Beast hopped on the bandwagon via a TikTok of him renting out an entire theater, which blew up the trend so much that some theaters started banning people from coming in with suits on. LOL.

• 🎥 Hollywood studios and streaming services are slowing production, canceling shows they’ve already agreed to make. Netflix, Peacock, HBO Max are all losing millions in sunk costs. Time to break out the ol’ re-runs.

• 🧑🏼‍💻 Zuck has a spicy take about underperformers at Meta: he says, “Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn't be here. Part of my hope by raising expectations and having more aggressive goals, and turning up the heat a little bit, is that I think some of you might decide that this place isn't for you, and that self-selection is OK with me." He’s trimming the fat and raising performance expectations. TBH, we were all thinking it, just too afraid to say it. 

• 📅 Save the date: Prime Day is July 12th-13th this year. Amazon’s annual online savings event gets you deals and discounts from brands like Casper, Levi's Beats, and a bunch of small businesses. Time to prepare our wallets.

HOW MORE MONEY = MORE HAPPINESS

We’ve all been told that more money doesn’t really buy us more happiness in life - studies tell us that gains in wellbeing and happiness level off beyond a certain point.

But now, 3 researchers are comin’ in hot with a new take. They’re saying that if more money doesn’t make you happier, it’s because you ain't spending it right.

Why does this happen?

Because rich people suck at forecasting what will bring them the most happiness. 

So here are 6 things to spend money on that are scientifically proven to increase happiness. (Maybe to bookmark for when the economy gets better..) 

1. Many small things instead of a few big ones.

This works because: we get used to everything. Buy a new Porsche? Give it a month and it won’t even phase you when all your friends call you John Porsche-Owner Smith. Turns out, happiness is more correlated with frequency, since there’s more novelty and we're less likely to adapt as quickly.

2. Experiences, not things

This works because: people anticipate/remember experiences more than things, plus, we adapt slower to experiential purchases than to material ones

3. Stuff for other people

This works because: it strengthens social relationships and let’s face it, we all need friends

4. Less insurance (e.g. product warranties)

This works because: people buy insurance for things with future regret in mind, but we're bad at estimating our future regret. We don’t end up as unhappy as we initially thought when bad things do happen.

5. Pay now consume later vs consuming now and paying later

This works because: when we pay first and get the thing later, we get extra happiness from the anticipation of consuming or receiving the item. The guy who buys a cookie and eats it right away gets pleasure from eating it, but the guy who saves the cookie until later has the pleasure of eating it PLUS all the additional pleasure of looking forward to eating it.

6. Things other people found enjoyable

This works because: people that have experienced an item first hand have info that we don’t have at first glance, plus we’re bad at anticipating what we might actually enjoy. That’s why we always need the reviews.

SNICKERDOODLES

What'd you think about this email?

• 🍪🍪🍪 Top notch!

• 🍪🍪 Meh... could use more milk

• 🍪 Undercooked, do better