Forbes Daily: BlackRock Recommends Bitcoin For Your 60/40 Portfolio

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Good morning,

BlackRock, the world’s largest money manager, is now making the case for bitcoin in your traditional 60/40 investment portfolio.

In new research from its Investment Institute, BlackRock analysts recommend that bitcoin, long shunned by mainstream investors, should now account for 1% to 2% of such portfolios. That would give the cryptocurrency, with a market cap of about $2 trillion, a risk level similar to companies like Nvidia, Amazon or Apple.

Still, bitcoin is incredibly volatile, dropping as much as 70% in a year, so the analysts found that weighting it higher than 2% gets exponentially risky.

Let’s get into the headlines,

FIRST UP

An underworld of sex workers, drug dealers and gamblers use Venmo to run their operations, most of which fly under the radar of law enforcement among millions of Venmo users. It is extremely difficult to estimate how much of Venmo’s total transactions are generated from vices, but Forbes estimates the underground economy on Venmo to be between $1 billion and $2 billion annually.

In a rare 2024 tech IPO, ServiceTitan went public Thursday, closing 42% above an already higher-than-anticipated list price of $71, valuing the business at $8.9 billion by the end of day. Its public debut is a boon for a tech IPO market that has been relatively slow since the frothiness of 2021, when a wave of companies like Robinhood, Bumble and Duolingo went public.

BUSINESS + FINANCE

The Avalanche Foundation raised $250 million via a private token sale for its blockchain platform, a big-ticket round that had largely gone extinct during crypto winter. The Ethereum rival already has $3 billion in capital in its treasury, but its cofounder Emin Gün Sirer said the main goal “was to get alignment and incentivize the right kinds of partners to build with.”

Shares of Photoshop maker Adobe plummeted 14% Thursday after lowering its revenue forecast for the current fiscal year, despite reporting record revenue and earnings. Adobe outperformed Wall Street’s projections four of its quarters of 2024, but its stock has fallen 18% this year as the company has estimated slower revenue growth.

TECH + INNOVATION

Pawel Chudzinski, now the cofounder of venture fund Point Nine Capital, got in on the ground floor of Berlin’s burgeoning startup scene. He now tops Forbes’ Midas List Europe, a ranking of the continent’s best venture capital investors, thanks to a string of smart early bets on British fintech phenom Revolut (which raised in August at a $45 billion valuation), blockchain analysis tool Chainalysis (now valued at $8.6 billion) and healthcare booking unicorn Docplanner.

Almost half of the female students at a small private high school in Pennsylvania were the victims of AI-generated pornography, the largest-known instance of deepfake pornography made of minors in the U.S. “The trauma that they have endured in learning that their privacy has been violated in this manner is unimaginable,” District Attorney Heather Adams said. Two teenage boys, both minors, have been criminally charged in the case.

MONEY + POLITICS

Donald Trump was named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” following his election win, the second time the publication has named the president-elect for the title. “Since he began running for president in 2015, perhaps no single individual has played a larger role in changing the course of politics and history than Trump,” editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs wrote.

President Joe Biden granted clemency to 1,500 people on Thursday, the most in a single day by any president, two weeks after controversially pardoning his son Hunter. Reports also suggest Biden is considering preemptive pardons for several people Trump may target after he takes office, including people like Rep. Adam Schiff and former Rep. Liz Cheney, both of whom served on the House Jan. 6 committee, as well as Anthony Fauci.

Meta donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, just weeks after its CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with the president-elect at Mar-a-Lago in an apparent bid to mend a tense relationship for years. The New York Times previously reported that Trump’s Inaugural Committee was offering special access to donors who either contribute $1 million or raise $2 million, including tickets to inaugural events. Amazon is also reportedly planning to donate $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, and founder Jeff Bezos is set to have dinner with Trump at Mar-a-Lago next week.

SPORTS + ENTERTAINMENT

BuzzFeed sold First We Feast, the studio that produces the popular Hot Ones interview show where celebrities eat increasingly hot chicken wings, for $82.5 million to a group of investors. First We Feast will operate as an independent company and plans to expand into new areas, including “new platforms, live events, and talent acquisition,” First We Feast CEO Chris Schonberger said in a statement.

TRENDS + EXPLAINERS

A court recently ruled that the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) must get approval from the SEC to move forward with its expedited proceeding to expel Utah penny stock clearing firm Alpine Securities from membership. The move hamstrings one of the most prominent financial regulatory bodies in the U.S., especially at a time when the incoming Republican administration has pledged large-scale deregulation across industries.

DAILY COVER STORY

Inside The Food Industry’s Biggest Buyback Of 2024

TOPLINE The label of Mr. Yoshida’s Japanese-style barbecue sauce features a photo of its charismatic founder in his signature look: a cowboy hat, glasses, and a wide, yee-haw smile. The joy emanating from his grinning, floating head is a key part of the image that Yoshida has fostered over the past four decades as his brand grew.

“That history of a great American dream is still surviving in this country,” says Junki Yoshida, who recently turned 75. “It’s me.”

The optimism belies what has been a sweet and sour ride for Yoshida. After the Kyoto-born entrepreneur moved to Seattle at 19, his family renounced him. So a soupçon of revenge stirred into the recipe when, in 1982, he started creating a sauce in his Oregon basement—inspired by what his mother had sold at her restaurant in Japan. The eponymous brand he launched grew into a major success—with sales of $25 million before the U.S. distribution rights were acquired in 2000 for $24 million by the American food giant Heinz (now Kraft Heinz).

And then a business that had commanded 26% of America’s total teriyaki sales slowly got killed over the past two decades. But Yoshida didn’t let that end his story. His repurchase of Mr. Yoshida’s was the most significant food buyback of 2024—and the early success of its return to Costco, Sam’s Club, Safeway and Albertsons, as well as its first-ever launch on Amazon, has paved the way for Mr. Yoshida’s to regain its position as a major player in the condiments industry.

WHY IT MATTERS “Heinz destroyed Yoshida’s brand,” Yoshida says with the same grin featured on his labels. “I wanted to start over again.”

MORE The Secret Sauce Behind This $350 Million Japanese Barbecue Sauce? Grandma.

FACTS + COMMENTS

Airports and especially roads will be more crowded this year between Christmas and New Year’s compared to 2023. In its annual end-of-year forecast, AAA predicted that the total number of domestic travelers will finally return to pre-pandemic levels:

119.3 million: The number of Americans AAA projects will be on the move over the holiday travel period

50 miles or more: The distance from home that AAA considers in its definition of travel, no overnight stay required

90%: The share of people traveling by car

STRATEGY + SUCCESS

You don’t have to wait until the new year to start making progress on paying down your credit card debt. Consider taking a seven-day spending break where you only purchase necessities, and at the end of the week, use the money you saved to pay off debt. Make it a goal to pay off $1,000 in the next 30 days by returning unwanted holiday gifts, selling unused items or negotiating lower rates with credit card companies.

VIDEO

QUIZ

President-elect Donald Trump has invited the president of a major global player to his inauguration, an unusual move because no foreign leaders have attended a U.S. inauguration. Which country is the leader president of?

A. China

B. Russia

C. Argentina

D. France

Check your answer.

Thanks for reading! This edition of Forbes Daily was edited by Chris Dobstaff, Sarah Whitmire and Caroline Howard.