In today’s issue we discuss Bradley Cooper buying a new home in Philadelphia to be near his GF Gigi Hadid, Intel introduced new AI chips, the new 2024 McLaren GTS is a beast, Ryan Reynolds and his partner in crime Rob McElhenney recreate 2 iconic photos of Wham! in tribute to the late George Michaels as we near the anniversary of his death in 2016, and BlackRock and all of the crypto industry eagerly await the SEC’s approval of the 1st Bitcoin ETF.

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What's Going On With The PGA & Liv Golf?

Business

As if the AI chip war couldn’t get even hotter, it is! Not to be outdone by the likes of Nvidia and AMD, now Intel is coming through with their own new AI chip to take on the competition.

Intel’s new chip is called Gaudi3, and is an artificial intelligence chip designed specifically for generative AI software, with plans to launch the new AI chip in early 2024.

Intel also announced the launch of their new Core Ultra chips, which are designed for Windows laptops and PCs, as well as their new 5th generation Xeon server chips that will also include a specialized AI part called an NPU that can be used to run AI programs faster. AI chip enabled PCs is where Intel sees growth in 2024.

Intel unveils new AI chip to compete with Nvidia and AMD

Tech

I’m a car guy. There, I said it. And one of my favorite sports car brands is McLaren.

And I know a lot of you are thinking “This isn’t an article about tech!”, but let me assure you it most certainly is.

McLaren recently introduced their new 2024 McLaren GTS, and it “features a roof made from recycled carbon which, along with a few other tweaks, makes the GTS 22 pounds lighter than the previous 2019 McLaren GT version.

The specs of the car are also impressive. The new model has an “additional 14 horsepower increase, bumping its 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 to 626 horsepower and 465 lb-ft of torque”, and can do 0-60 mph time of 3.1 seconds, with a top speed of 203 mph.

Just don’t try taking it over any speedbumps.

2024 McLaren GTS Reminds Us Supercars Can Still Chill Out

Entertainment

There’s not a week that doesn’t go by that Ryan Reynolds doesn’t make me laugh. As you know, we did a YouTube mini biz documentary on him last month entitled ‘Ryan Reynolds is a Business, Man!’ that you should really check out.

Now Ryan Reynolds, along with his partner in crime Rob McElhenney, have recreated a couple of famous pictures of Wham, that originally featured the late George Michaels and Andrew Ridgeley.

Ryan Reynolds shared the images on his Instagram, and said he was sending them out as Christmas Cards this year.

No word on what his wife Blake Lively thinks about that.

Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney recreate famous Wham! cover and it’s hilarious

Crypto

Get ready for some seismic moves in the crypto space when a Bitcoin ETF is finally approved by the SEC.

Recently BlackRock, which manages around $9.4 Trillion U.S. dollars in total assets under management, is the front-runner to gain approval by the SEC with over a dozen of other companies lined up awaiting approval.

The SEC has already rejected most of those applicants multiple times already, but is the 3rd time the charm for BlackRock?

Some are speculating it may be, as they’ve been meeting with the SEC and Nasdaq communication directors, leading some to believe an approval is forthcoming and they are coordinating their press releases (that’s my opinion, but I’m probably not wrong about this).

It sounds like the final sticking point before obtaining approval from the SEC was what sounds like a small change, but is actually a big deal IMO.

BlackRock revised their spot bitcoin ETF proposal to include cash redemptions, as opposed to in-kind redemptions; which begs the question “What are in-kind redemptions?”.

According to Investopedia “In-kind redemptions are non-monetary payments made for securities or other instruments. Rarely used in the mutual fund industry, in-kind redemptions are common with exchange traded funds (ETFs).”

This change to BlackRock’s application seems aimed at meeting the SEC’s preferences for in-cash redemptions.

If I were to weigh in on this topic, which you just know I gotta, I would be fine with making this change if it means they can gain approval and actually launch their spot Bitcoin ETF. They can always lobby for making changes in the future to add the ability to also include in-kind redemptions, but right now just focus on getting approval to launch.

There are a lot of Bitcoin price predictions out there ranging from $100,000-$500,000 per Bitcoin, and even a few estimates that Bitcoin could reach $1 million in the “days to weeks” following the approval of a spot BTC exchange-traded fund (ETF).

Why you might ask? Well, it all comes down to Economics 101, which teaches supply-and-demand. You see there is a limited number of Bitcoin in the world, and the amount created goes through what is called a halfening every few years, which cuts in half the number of new Bitcoins that are generated from mining. Add into that equation the fact that a lot of the early Bitcoin, or BTC, that were mined at the beginning of the new crypto currency are in dormant crypto wallets that in some cases their owners have lost or forgotten the crypto key phrases and passwords to open the wallets, essentially locking them out for good.

Let me share some numbers with you:

There are a total of 19,575,306.25 Bitcoin in existence that have been mined since the 1st Bitcoin was first created on January 12, 2009. There are now only 1,424,693.8 Bitcoins left to be mined, with an average of 900 new Bitcoin mined each day.

Estimates suggest that around 6 million Bitcoins, or 30% of Bitcoin's total supply, have been lost, amounting to an insane $554 billion in value.

After all 21 million Bitcoins are mined by 2140, miners will no longer receive block rewards and will rely on transaction fees for compensation.

In an interview with CNBC Grayscale’s CEO Michael Sonnenshein said a Bitcoin ETF approval could bring $30 trillion into the crypto market.

And MicroStrategy’s co-founder Michael Saylor said that a Bitcoin ETF approval would be the most significant development in Wall Street in 30 years.

So you can see that due to supply-and-demand if a Bitcoin ETF is approved, there won’t be enough Bitcoin to meet the demand, causing the price of each BTC to skyrocks.

As a hodler of Bitcoin here’s to hoping!

BlackRock, Nasdaq, SEC Met Regarding Bitcoin ETF

Real Estate

As you know, we’re big fans of Bradley Cooper over here at irl Media NEWS. We wrote an article early this week about him working a Philly Cheesesteak Food Truck, and next week we have a Hot Take video coming out on this story you won’t want to miss.

Now there’s word/rumor/innuendo that Bradley Cooper may be buying, or already bought, a new home in Pennsylvania near his current girlfriend Gigi Hadid’s family farm.

Bradley Cooper is originally from Pennsylvania, and has only recently started dating Gigi Hadid in October of this year. The rumors aren’t that the two are moving in together, it’s just that he’s bought a house that happens to be close by to where her parents own a family farm.

It could just be a matter of timing, as Bradley Cooper has plans to open a Philly Cheese Steak restaurant in NYC with his partner Danny DiGiampietro, of South Philadelphia's Angelo's Pizzeria, for the new Danny & Coop's Cheesesteaks venture opening in 2024.

Bradley Cooper’s movies have grossed $11 billion worldwide, and he’s been ranked 4 times as one of the world's highest-paid actors making on average $20 million dollars per movie.

Bradley Cooper buying Pennsylvania home near Gigi Hadid’s family farm

So much news, so little time. Until tomorrow we’re signing out.

— Chris