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LeBron James had another decision to announce. Turns out, it was an ad. The Los Angeles Lakers star teased that he would have something to say Tuesday. The decision reference is a nod to how he announced in July 2010 that he was joining the Miami Heat. It was supposed to come out at noon Eastern, but Hennessy the cognac brand that James has been partners with for some time made the announcement public about 90 minutes ahead of schedule. James’ training schedule for the day changed, the brand said, necessitating the change in release plans. This fall, I’m going to be taking my talents to Hennessy V.S.O.P, James said in the clip. Even the wording he used in that announcement mirrored how he announced that he was joining the Heat 15 years ago with his infamous take my talents to South Beach line. Hennessy announced that it would be releasing a limited edition orange bottle featuring James’ name on the label and his signature crowning gesture a nod to his King James moniker. Where the first moment marked a pivotal career move, this second decision celebrates a creative reunion and shared cultural legacy, Hennessy said in the release announcing the move. James teased the campaign by posting on X that he would be making the decision of all decisions.” The short video shows him walking toward a chair, then taking a seat opposite another man seated a few feet away mildly reminiscent of the setup for his first decision when he sat opposite broadcaster Jim Gray for a televised announcement of the news that he was joining the Heat. Social media went wild with speculation after the Monday post, as would be expected. James the NBA’s all-time leading scorer turns 41 in December and is not only the NBA’s oldest current player but also is about to set a record by appearing in his 23rd season in the league. He is not under contract past this season, which prompted obvious wondering if this would be how he announces a retirement plan. Ticket prices for the Lakers final regular season game in April soared on Monday on secondary markets, with fans willing to spend big money just in case James does decide that this season is his last. There were also many guesses on social media correct ones, it turned out that the latest decision would be James participating in an ad campaign of some sort. I like my decision, James says at the end of the ad.
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E-Commerce
Theres a double whammy hitting the U.S. alcohol industry lately: Americans are drinking less, while foreigners have soured on our exported spirits amid higher tariffs. Those dynamics have worsened a crisis thats already seen some distilleries go out of business this year and thousands of jobs eliminated. Exports of U.S. spirits to Canada plunged by 85% in the second quarter from a year ago, marking the steepest declines among four key markets, according to data released Monday by the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DSCUS). Overall, exports of American spirits fell 9% in the second quarter as U.S. spirits makers pay the price of persistent trade tensions. Particularly problematic for U.S. spirits makers is the double-digit decline in exports to each of four key markets that represent 70% of total exports by value: the European Union, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Japan. After a record year for U.S. spirits exports in 2024, this steep slump in exports in the second quarter is very troubling for U.S. distillers, Chris Swonger, president and CEO of the spirits council, said in a statement. Theres a growing concern that our international consumers are increasingly opting for domestically produced spirits or imports from countries other than the U.S., signaling a shift away from our great American spirits brands.” This data shows the extent of the effect of Canadas retaliatory tariffs on U.S. spirits, along with the decision by liquor stores in many provinces to yank American brands from their shelves altogether. While Canada did remove its retaliatory tariffs on U.S. spirits last month, drinkers there may have found other options that are more appealing to their palettes. In April, for example, sales of U.S. spirits plummeted 68%, though sales of Canadian and other imported spirits rose about 3.6% each, according to DSCUS. TARIFFS RIPPLE THROUGH WHISKEY COUNTRY The spirits industry has emerged as a perhaps unlikely victim of President Donald Trumps aggressive tariff policy that he embarked on this spring. And thats reverberating through the heart of Americas whiskey country, where the international market has become especially crucial especially as Americans have cut back on consumption. Tennessee led the country with spirits exports of $934 million in 2024, followed by Kentucky with $751 million, according to DSCUS. The plummet in exports is only part of the problem for American whiskey distillers. Through April of this year, whiskey distillers had produced 78 million proof gallons, a 28% decrease from the same period last year and the lowest level since 2019, according to figures from the Treasury Departments 2025 monthly national statistics report and reporting by The Lexington Herald Leader. Whats more, American whiskey inventories have tripled since 2012, according to DSCUS, which means these distillers are sitting on a lot of product. Combined, these factors have spelled trouble. Big conglomerates like Brown-Forman, which owns Jack Daniels and Woodford Reserve, have slashed jobs by double digits or, in the case of Diageo, halted production altogether at two of its whiskey distilleries in Tennessee and Texas. Kentucky Owl, which is owned by Stoli Group, filed for bankruptcy protection. Whats more, brands that might not be household namesUncle Nearest, Limestone Farms Distillery, Garrard County Distillery, and Luca Marianohave also faced problems ranging from bankruptcy to shutting down production to lawsuits related to millions of dollars in debts. AMERICANS ABSTAINING Another factor upending the spirits industry is that Americans are laying off booze like never before. Only 54% of U.S. adults say they consume alcohol, according to an annual poll released in August, the lowest level since Gallup began tracking drinking habits in 1939. The decline has been especially steep recently: In 2022, 67% of Americans reported drinking alcohol. Slowing demand for alcohol domestically means that its critically important that U.S. distillers have the certainty of zero-for-zero tariffs with key export markets, Swonger said. The spirits council is urging President Trump to reconsider his tariff stancesomething elected politicians from affected states havent been so universally vocal about. TARIFFS AND POLITICS While Kentuckys top leadersDemocratic Governor Andy Beshear, along with Republican Senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paulcame together in a rare act of bipartisanship in March to push back on Trumps tariffs, the same hasnt happened in Tennessee. Republican Governor Bill Lee backed Trumps tariff policy in the spring and hasnt been quoted on the impact to his states spirits industry more recently. In a 25-year span, the U.S. has seen the number of distillers explode from about 60 to more than 3,100 today in whats been an amazing growth story, Swonger tells Fast Company. And the industry thrives best with a zero-for-zero tariff policyzero tariffs on imports, zero tariffs on exportssomething the council is hopeful President Trump will be able to achieve once again with key trading partners, while furthering his goals to reduce the trade deficit. That might seem counterintuitive because tariffs on imported spirits could theoretically provide U.S. distillers with a competitive advantage, Swonger says. But the current 15% tariff imposed on imports of all spirits from the European Union, for example, has a ripple effect on restaurants, retailers, distributors, bartenders, and consumers. We want to compete for taste, he adds. The council is optimistic that Trump will successfully navigate trade talks to alleviate the uncertainty and lack of predictability currently facing the industryincluding in a highly anticipated meeting between Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney this week. Thos talks might help ease the iciness thats seen many state-owned liquor stores in various Canadian provinces continue to abstain from carrying American spirits altogether. Thats unfortunate, Swonger says of the current dynamic. The emotions in Canada are high, and we hope the prime minister and president have a good meeting.
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E-Commerce
The launch of a digital art department at upscale auction house Christies was precisely as well-publicized as its eventual shuttering was devoid of fanfare. On March 11, 2021, Christies made history as the first major auction house to sell art in the form of a non-fungible token (NFT). Digital artist Beeple managed to offload his massive mosaic, Everydays: The First 5000 Days, for a whopping $69 million, generating hundreds of astonished headlines and getting those three letters, NFT, in front of untold scads of early-adopter eyeballs. It was the sale heard ’round the world, a starter pistol kicking off the NFT gold rush. Cut to last month, when Christies quietly closed its digital art department. It was as if the moment when NFTs briefly became the molten core of culture, tech, and commerce had never happened at allas if the vague memory of surly apes with unconscionable price tags had just been a fever dream. There may be a lesson, however, in examining how quickly the hype cooled on NFTsespecially considering what the market has evolved into in the years since. Here comes the boom For those who may have forgottenor never bothered to learnNFTs are unique digital certificates stored on a blockchain, proving ownership or authenticity for an array of items, including art. Unlike the typical crypto asset, where each Bitcoin or Ethereum is identical and equal, these tokens are not interchangeable. Hence, they aresay it with menon-fungible. Though the first-ever NFTa short, looping generative animation called Quantumwas created in 2014, the technology only started making waves a few years later, with the arrival of CryptoKitties. Minted on the Ethereum blockchain, CryptoKitties were playfully animated feline NFTs, designed not only to collect and trade, but also to breed new kitties with inherited traits, lending them a gamified aspect that proved to be a game-changer. We saw all the craziness going on at that time with ICOs [initial coin offerings] and we said, ‘Hey, look, not everything has to be a coin, recalls Roham Gharegozlou, CEO and cofounder of Dapper Labs, the pioneering NFT company behind CryptoKitties and other digital collectibles. CryptoKitties was the first time we showed that crypto could be a lot more than just currency, and it attracted the attention of a lot of people who saw the potential of digital ownership as applied to these massive, billion-fan communities like the NBA, the NFL or Disney. By the time the notorious Beeple auction took place, Dapper had collaborations in the works with all three companies, and had already launched NBA Top Shot, turning video clips from NBA games into NFTs. One such moment, a gnarly LeBron James dunk from February 2021, went for $208,000, a headline-worthy sum that preceded the art worlds own NFT coming-out party by about three weeks. It was official: NFTs were the Next Big Thing. Soon enough, fashion houses, entertainment companies, and more major brands wanted in. As did the speculative set. Among the names most associated with NFTs is Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC). Launched in April 2021 by the four pseudonymous founders of Yuga Labs, the project consisted of 10,000 singular cartoon apes, stylized to evoke esoteric personality types. On the surface, the apes were similar to CryptoKitties, but unlike that venture, Yuga marketed BYAC as an exclusive club. Those willing to pay prices that started art $190 in the early days received promises of perks like merch drops and a private Discord, along with access to special events. They also got to feel like they shared space on an ever-unfurling red carpet with celebrities like Justin Bieber and Serena Williams, who started touting their newfound Apes as status symbols. As consumer interest in NFTs soared, so did the value of Ethereum and the tokens on its blockchain. The prices of some Bored Apes skyrocketed from hundreds of dollars to hundreds of thousands in a matter of months. Green-eyed investors started tracking their value like stocks. By the end of 2021, the trading volume of NFTs altogether reportedly surpassed $13 billion. Id been looking into these kinds of things for years, and then suddenly my barista was asking about NFTs, says Merav Ozair, an expert on responsible innovation and the founder of Emerging Technologies Mastery, a Web3 consultancy shop. Everyone wanted to know about it and how they could benefit from it. People from every industry suddenly came to me with questions, and then I understood this had become much more than it was supposed to be. Omar Kholief, a curator, professor, and author of the book Internet_Art: From the Birth of the Web to the Rise of NFTs, had a similar experience during the NFT feeding frenzy of 2021. It was not surprising that [the Beeple sale] would make news. What shook me, however, was the vast speculation around this sale, and the number of start-ups professing to be specialists in NFTs all of a sudden, who wanted to enlist my knowledge, labor and support, Kholief says. I was being offered jobs by company after companyand today, well, none of them exist. Things fall apart At their mainstream peak, NFTs were everywhere and could seemingly be anything. Rock band Kings of Leon released an NFT album. Reese Witherspoons production company Hello Sunshine made a deal to adapt NFTs into movies and TV shows. (To date, no Hello Sunshine NFT adaptations have seen the light of day.) Author Neil Strauss released a book as an NFT, and an NFT of New York Times writer Kevin Rooses column about NFTs sold for $560,000. The cumulative effect of so much all-in hype from high places was that anyone tuned into pop culture at the time might have strted to feel like a schmuck for not diving in, wallet first. Of course, many holdouts eventually saw their hesitancy validated, once it turned out these digital assets were not as sturdy an investment at the time as the loudest hype-peddlers portrayed them. Everyone jumped on the bandwagon, causing market saturation supremely quickly, as well as confusion and boredom, Kholief says. Because the mouthpieces at the front of the companies had not a clue what an NFT actually was. When the Federal Reserve started hiking interest rates in March 2022 to fight pandemic inflation, it lowered investor confidence in crypto. Prices of tokens fell sharply as more hikes followed, alongside geopolitical chaos including a then-new war between Russia and Ukraine. A major downturn in the crypto market had begun, one that would peak with the November 2022 crash of FTX. By that point, NFT trading volume for the year had collapsed by 97%. And where were the celebrities whod proudly and quite publicly shown off their Bored Apes? By December 2022, when most BYAC tokens were worth a fraction of what their owners paid for them, several bold-face names were listed in a class action lawsuit against Yuga Labs. Snoop Dogg, Madonna, Post Malone, and many others were alleged to have participated in a scheme to artificially increase the interest in and price of Bored Ape NFTs without disclosing the nature, source, and amount of any compensation paid, directly or indirectly, in exchange for the endorsement. Even before the lawsuit, which was dismissed on October 1, though, celebrities had pumped the brakes on their NFT enthusiasm. As quickly as the decibel-shattering hype had begun, it was over. It had already started to wind down, but after FTX, people decided they werent touching this space anymore, says Ozair. They figured, Maybe all these NFTs are just a scam. In it for the long term The NFT market collapsed for many reasons, but chief among them were excessive hype and rapid expansion. It was definitely too much too soon, Dapper Labs Gharegozlou says of peak NFT hype. Because crypto is this odd industry where, even though the technology was immature for many years, there was opportunity to make money, so that brought a rush of people in, whereas with most new technologies, people leave them alone until they’re a lot more mature. What had started as a new frontier in digital ownership quickly got conflated with a faddish money-printing machine. As the dust settled in 2023, it became clear that just because an image was digital and unique didnt make it inherently valuableand also that maybe Starbucks didnt need an NFT program, something the company finally conceded in early 2024. So, what might the NFT market look like in maturity? Over time, a smaller, more pragmatic set of use cases has emerged among collectors and various fandoms. Gaming companies are figuring out how to better integrate NFTs in their open worlds, and fashion brands like Louis Vuitton are tying (wildly expensive) physical garments to their NFTs. Meanwhile, regulatory changes like this years GENIUS Act are helping to firm up cryptos infrastructure, making the waters safer for consumers. NFTs now trade in smaller volumes, to more niche audiences, with the speculative crowd mostly having moved on to things like meme coins. Dapper Labs had found success with NBA Top Shot and NFL All Day prior to peak NFT hype, but the company only unveiled its Disney collaboration, Disney Pinnacle, in November 2023a year after the bottom fell out of the market, when people were reassessing NFTs. The turn in public opinion apparently had an impact on the companys efforts to launch a new venture. It sort of reset expectations, Gharegozlou says. We had to approach things from a very cautious standpoint, because we wanted our customers as well as our partnersin the case of Disneyto know that we’re in this for the long term. The team at Dapper Labs moved thoughtfully and slowly as it created a line of collectible digital pins for various Disney IP, free from the speculative craze that enveloped previous projects. Disney Pinnacle seems focused on serving fans reasonably priced collectibles, while inspiring deep-pocked collectors to bid tens of thousands on limited drops. (NBA Top Shot also still produces NFTs that occasionally fetch six figures on the market.) As the Disney fandom embraces Pinnacle, Disney+ has harnessed these digital pins as a perk for subscribers. Its a hint of how a more grounded, practical market for NFTs might play out in the future. What can the NFT boom tell us about AI? As NFTs settle into their niche within the greater crypto ecosystem, its important to remember what happened when they were previously in the global spotlight. Silicon Valley, after all, appears to be making similar mistakes with artificial intelligence. While many have compared the AI craze to the dot-com bubble, it also closely resembles the NFT boom. At their 2021 height, NFTs thrived on novelty over utility. They were a shiny new concept that could not maintain mass interest when the hype died down. A similar phenomenon now plagues AI. Nearly three years after Chat GPTs arrival, the incorporation of AI in any product or service is still meant to signal valueeven if, in practice, most shoehorned-in AI components tend to just make consumers want to opt out. The market is now willing to bet billions on, say, an energy real estate investment trust, seemingly because AI is involved at all, rather than because its involved in a particularly useful or innovative way. Beyond prizing novelty over utility, the executives touting AI the loudest have been over-promising what the technology can deliver. Instead of emphasizing the practical use cases of today, they are claiming AI will cure cancer tomorrow, for starters. There is a lot of overpromising, Ozair says.When Sam Altman says GPT-5 is like having PhDs in your pocket for every discipline, that is false advertising. It doesn’t have that capability. The fact that it got a gold medal for mathematics and physics [at the Olympiad] doesn’t say anything about what it can actually do. For all the mistakes the NFT movement made that AI can learn from, though, the fact that the industry is still standing after it took such a reputational drubbing should be inspirational for those who see AI as a bubble on the brink of bursting. After falling back to Earth in 2022, the supposed end of NFTs in the mainstream might eventually just be seen as a blip. I think everything’s working out the right way, Gharegozlou says. There were speculative excesses within the industry, but I think that also was a stress test for everything to come. If the AI industry is to survive its own current phase of rapid experimentation and expansion, it would do well to heed the lessons of the last Next Big Thing.
Category:
E-Commerce
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