Good morning. NBA owners voted to explore the league’s first expansion in more than 20 years and look into adding teams in Seattle and Las Vegas. The former city had an NBA team for decades before it was relocated to Oklahoma City. The latter has deep ties to the league, hosting Summer League games and the NBA Cup, and already has a WNBA squad.
Any billionaires out there looking for a new status symbol will have to pony up though. Sources told Bloomberg that the league thinks it can fetch a franchise fee of up to $10 billion for each team.
Today’s reading time is 5½ minutes.
MARKETS
| ▲ | TSX |
32,382.6 |
+1.38% |
|
| ▲ | S&P 500 |
6,591.9 |
+0.54% |
|
| ▲ | DOW JONES |
46,429.49 |
+0.66% |
|
| ▲ | NASDAQ |
21,929.83 |
+0.77% |
|
| ▲ | GOLD |
4,520.1 |
+2.68% |
|
| ▼ | OIL |
91.29 |
-1.15% |
|
| ▼ | CAD/USD |
0.72 |
-0.39% |
|
| ▲ | BTC/USD |
70,783.25 |
+1.17% |
Markets: Canada’s main stock index rose for the third straight session yesterday, with all 10 major sectors posting gains on continued cautious optimism from investors about the conflict in Iran.
INVESTING
Wealthsimple wants to create a Canadian Polymarket
Source: JLStock / Shutterstock.
Have a really good feeling that April will have a snow day? Soon you may be able to bet on that hunch.
What happened: According to a Globe and Mail report (from Peak alum Meera Raman!), Wealthsimple has cleared the regulatory hurdles to start offering prediction markets in Canada, the first step in offering the controversial trading product to its ~3 million retail investors.
Prediction markets have been limited in Canada since 2017, although many people simply use VPNs to access platforms based abroad. Ontario banned Polymarket altogether in a crackdown on prediction markets last year.
Wealthsimple would be the first retail investor platform to offer prediction markets in Canada, though it reportedly did not receive regulatory approval to offer contracts on sports or elections (two of the most popular markets in the U.S.).
Catch-up: Prediction market trading volume exploded last year to reach ~US$64 billion, up over 400% from 2024. That popularity has come with its share of scrutiny, with countless instances of suspected insider trading. While it's illegal in the stock market, trading with inside knowledge has been openly encouraged by Polymarket’s founder.
One trader has made almost US$1 million from dozens of suspiciously well-timed Polymarket bets that correctly predicted military strikes in Iran.
In another high-profile example, an anonymous Polymarket account conveniently placed a large wager that the U.S. would capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro just hours before he was ousted, pocketing over $400,000 on the bet.
Why it matters: The U.S. has been exhibit A for the fraud that prediction markets can breed without proper oversight. If this type of trading is indeed here to stay, the pressure will be on Canadian regulators to not replicate the mistakes of their southern neighbour.—LA
BIG PICTURE
Source: Shutterstock.
YouTube and Meta were found guilty in a landmark social media addiction trial. A jury in California found that the tech giants were aware of the harm their platforms caused and failed to adequately protect young users. The companies were ordered to pay just US$3 million in damages to the plaintiff, although the jury will hear more evidence and deliberate further on how much Meta and Alphabet will have to pay in punitive damages. (BBC News)
Iran rejected a U.S. ceasefire proposal. A deal put forward by Washington to end the war in the Middle East was dismissed by Iran yesterday, which has issued its own set of demands to end the conflict. The White House is insisting the two countries are still in “productive” negotiations, but Iran has continued to deny that any talks have taken place. (Associated Press)
Ottawa and Alberta have a deal to put the province in charge of methane emission rules. As part of the new agreement, the Alberta government will control the regulation of the oil and gas industry’s methane emissions. The goal is to eliminate overlapping environmental regulations, which the provincial government says drive up costs for energy producers. (CBC News)
📡 What else is on our radar:
TC Energy says its reached an agreement with LNG Canada to advance a project that could double the pipeline’s capacity to supply an expanded liquefied natural gas export facility in B.C.
Instagram and Facebook are getting new features that let users buy products they see within the app.
U.S. lawmakers Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have introduced a bill that would ban data centre construction.
Honda and Sony are scrapping their plans to build a luxury EV.
Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec and Brookfield Asset Management are buying Canadian renewables firm Boralex for $9 billion.
IN THE LAB
German scientists shoot an “atomic movie”
Source: vectorfusionart / Shutterstock.
A team of scientists at Berlin’s Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society has developed a new type of “movie,” though not one that will be playing at your local multiplex. Using a special microscope and advanced simulations, researchers were able to visualize exactly how atoms move right before a type of radiation-driven decay called ETMD begins.
Why it matters: ETMD can cause radiation damage in water and living tissue. This new imaging process provides a deeper level of understanding of ETMD, which could help inform future protection strategies against this type of radiation.
TECH
OpenAI kills off Sora (and its Disney dreams)
OpenAI and Disney’s industry-shaking partnership has blown up like the Death Star. Or gone up in flames like Claude Frollo. Or whatever Disney metaphor you think is appropriate.
What happened: OpenAI is shutting down Sora, both its AI video generation model and the standalone app of the same name. The sudden, undignified demise of the project is also the end of the US$1 billion deal OpenAI inked with Disney less than four months ago to licence its IP.
As part of the deal, Sora user-generated videos would have lived alongside actual Disney content on Disney+. Though, reportedly, no money actually changed hands.
Why it’s happening: OpenAI recently told employees they can no longer be “distracted by side quests.” Sora, as it turns out, was the side-iest of all quests, burning piles of cash and eating up precious computing resources so people could make litigation-baiting memeslop.
A ChatGPT query costs OpenAI about half a cent to produce. Per one estimate, video model providers spend $1.30 on a 10-second clip — that’s 25,900% higher.
The app was also never that popular. In December, 25% of its monthly users opened it daily, spending just 13 minutes on it. Usage has surely dipped even further since.
Why it matters: While OpenAI said it isn’t exiting video entirely, and Disney said it’s still exploring AI tools, this massive flop seems to indicate that total AI replacement isn’t coming to Hollywood any time soon. The demand isn’t there and the finances simply don’t add up.
Zoom out: OpenAI will be redirecting its resources and compute to areas with more immediate upside, like robotics and AI models that can navigate the physical world.—QH
ONE BIG NUMBER
🚢 US$350,000. Salaries earned by some so-called cruise influencers — online content creators who post videos aboard cruise ships to try to attract Gen Z customers. Some of these cruise influencers have amassed millions of followers, with one of them even named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list (let’s hope this one stays out of jail).
PEAK PICKS
Stephen Colbert’s next gig? Writing the new Lord of the Rings movie, apparently.
Meet the Australian dog who has saved 100 koalas from bushfires.
A new therapy is trying to train bodies to kick their allergies.
How international listeners are helping Canadian musicians cash in.
Watch: The real reason everyone has started wearing wider pants.
Ahoy! Set sail on a sea of fun with your shipmates: the mini-crossword, the daily sudoku, Codebreaker, and Who’s Who.
