- The real irony behind this top Super Bowl ad…
- Apple is adopting this AI technology…
- This company wants to cure paralysis…
Dear Reader,
I’d like to start today by saying thank you to those who joined me for our private briefing last night. I was thrilled with the turnout.
For those who missed it, we discussed our investment strategy for 2022. Despite the worries around inflation and rising interest rates, we are still seeing some great opportunities in the current economic environment.
We’ve had strong economic growth. Record levels of investment are continuing in both the private and public markets. And these trends will continue throughout the year.
And there’s one tech trend in particular that is poised to do very well this year. We talked about this trend in depth last night. And I even shared the name and ticker of one of my top recommendations to play this trend.
The bottom line is that we do need to be strategic in the current climate. This isn’t an environment where just buying an index makes any sense. There are still tremendous opportunities if you know where to look.
So, I encourage readers who couldn’t join us last night to check out the replay right here. We will keep it up for a short time to give readers time to catch up on our strategy for 2022.
Simply go right here to watch.
The most successful Super Bowl ad ever…
I don’t watch sports very often. I just can’t afford the time. But I did watch the Super Bowl with my son last weekend.
Perhaps ironically, the highlight for me was probably the minute-long advertisement by digital asset exchange giant Coinbase. I found it to be fantastically simple and clever… and somewhat humorous.
For those who didn’t see it, here’s a visual:
Coinbase’s Eye-Catching Ad
Source: YouTube
As we can see, the entire ad was a colored QR code bouncing around the screen. This went on for an entire minute. That’s all it was. It probably took less than an hour to create the whole ad.
But here’s where it gets clever…
For those who scanned the QR code with their phone, it took them to a promotional site for Coinbase. The site offered viewers $15 in free Bitcoin to open a new account. And it would enter those who already had an account into a drawing for $3 million.
Including the 60-second TV slot and the promotional offers, this ad probably cost Coinbase about $20 million in all… All for a bouncing QR code and the giveaways.
And guess what – the response far exceeded Coinbase’s most ambitious expectations.
Coinbase tested its site to make sure it could handle several million people at one time. However, the ad drove 20 million people to the Coinbase promotion. It was so much traffic that the site crashed for a short period of time.
I did some back-of-the-napkin calculations… And my conclusion is that this was probably the most successful Super Bowl ad of all time.
Let’s assume only a quarter of a percent (0.25%) of all the people who scanned the QR code took Coinbase up on its offer. That would still be 50,000 new accounts for Coinbase.
So to figure out how profitable this ad was for Coinbase, we simply need to multiply these 50,000 new users by Coinbase’s average revenue per user (ARPU).
If Coinbase generates $300 per user (again, we’ll need to see the updated financials to know the exact number), that’s $15 million per year from these 50,000 new users.
That means Coinbase will break even on the ad in just over a year. And if the ARPU is higher in reality, then breakeven could happen within a year. After that, it will be pure profit. I doubt many Super Bowl ads have ever provided such a fast, quantifiable return on investment.
And there’s a bit of irony to this story as well…
Anyone investing in digital assets should be very aware of security and the kinds of typical scams that are ever present in the industry right now.
And one of the most basic security rules is that we should never click a link or scan a QR code if we don’t know where it will take us. Doing so is a great way to get hacked.
The hilarious part is that the 20 million people who scanned Coinbase’s QR code broke that rule purely out of curiosity. And some in the industry criticized Coinbase for training them to do so.
Still, the success of Coinbase’s Super Bowl ad shows just how mainstream the digital asset industry has become. And it wasn’t just Coinbase advertising at the event. Another digital asset exchange giant, FTX, spent a ton on advertising as well.
I’ll continue to help my readers understand the best ways to profit as this trend grows… Simply go right here for the latest. We’re all going to make it (WAGMI) this year.
Apple’s latest acquisition and what it signals…
Apple doesn’t acquire many companies these days. So when it does, I tend to take notice.
And Apple’s latest acquisition is especially interesting.
It’s a company called AI Music. As the name implies, this company uses artificial intelligence (AI) to create royalty-free soundtracks based on the listener’s mood in real time.
For example, if the listener is working out, the AI would play upbeat songs that matched the workout’s intensity. On the other hand, if the listener was relaxed, the AI would pick calm songs to suit the mood.
So the AI can predict what kind of music will resonate with listeners at any given time. To do this, of course, the AI needs access to vital signs like heart rate and oxygenation levels.
That’s where Apple comes in…
Not only is the Apple Watch the best-selling watch of all time, but it’s also the best-selling health monitoring device. Apple has even gone so far as to publish scientific research on its findings from the data collected by the watches worn by its consumers.
It monitors steps, speed, heart rate, oxygenation levels, and more. The watch can feed all this data to the AI, which can then use it to pick the most appropriate music.
Not only can the Apple Watch assess early signs of an impending cardiac event, but it can determine the wearer’s mood.
And the acquisition wasn’t about AI-generated music. It’s easy to see that Apple intends to use the massive catalog of music at its disposal.
It would be easy to plug the AI into the existing catalog to deploy this technology very quickly. We can be confident that Apple will deploy this AI Music feature later this year.
And here’s the thing – Apple users probably won’t even know what’s happening. The AI will deliver customized playlists once it rolls out this feature, but users won’t realize it’s an AI.
And they may not understand that the AI is basing its music choices on their vital signs. Consumers will just notice that Apple’s new music feature somehow “always plays music that fits my mood.”
I love consumer tech like this because it makes the features seamless. All the magic happens in the background.
And this is just one more way artificial intelligence will play a key role in the world around us… and make adoption of the automation trend a natural evolution. Soon, automation will affect us in ways we could never have predicted.
To learn more, please go right here for the full story.
The world’s first cure for paralysis…
A team of scientists in Israel just demonstrated a potential cure for paralysis. This is an amazing development. For the first time, those afflicted by paralysis may have hopes of walking again.
Over 1.4 million people in the U.S. alone suffer from paralysis due to a spinal cord injury. So there are a lot of people who will benefit.
And the scientists’ solution all comes down to a genetically engineered spinal cord implant.
Here’s how it works…
First, the scientists take a biopsy of belly fat tissue from the patient. They separate these cells using genetic engineering. And then they program them to revert to embryonic stem cells.
This is the key. Stem cells can become any type of cell in the body. They are basically a “raw,” programmable canvas.
The scientists then create a personalized hydrogel. This is a gel used in medicine because of its ability to retain and then diffuse its contents.
When the scientists insert the engineered stem cells into this hydrogel, the stem cells begin to mimic the embryonic development of the spinal cord. This is what creates the implant.
Here’s a great visual of the process:
Creating a Spinal Implant
Source: The Jerusalem Post
The end goal is that this will become a personalized treatment. It will use cells from each individual patient to create a custom implant.
Essentially, they’ll be replicating their own spinal cord.
This is big. It ensures that the patient’s immune system will naturally accept the implant. And that will lead to a high success rate.
That said, this treatment must go through the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) clinical trial process before it can be widely used. But the Israeli scientists are already in talks with the FDA about this. And they created a company called Matricelf to navigate the process.
This isn’t just theoretical, though. The team has already conducted animal studies using mice… and they proved that it worked.
In the studies, 15 paralyzed mice received the engineered implants. And in just three months, 12 of the mice were able to walk normally again. That’s an 80% success rate. Remarkable.
And the rate of success with the mice that had recently been paralyzed was actually 100%, suggesting that earlier treatment results in even better outcomes.
Better yet, it’s important to note that the scientists made these mice implants using human cells, not mice cells. The implications are that the jump from mice studies to human trials isn’t as large because the scientists were already working with human cells.
We’re going to keep a close eye on Matricelf and its early funding rounds. This could be a breakthrough company, and obviously a life-changing therapy for those who have been paralyzed.
Regards,
Jeff Brown
Editor, The Bleeding Edge
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