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Crypto could help Americans get mortgages

Soon, owning fartcoin could put you on a path to homeownership. This week, the Trump administration ordered mortgage finance firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to consider loan applicants’ crypto assets.

The two government-controlled firms don’t issue loans directly, but are responsible for guaranteeing over half of US mortgages. Bill Pulte, who oversees the companies as director of the federal housing agency, said his order recognizes crypto as a major source of wealth creation and advances President Trump’s goal of establishing the US as “the crypto capital of the world.”

Boon to crypto-owning homebuyers

Currently, even a loaded crypto wallet doesn’t boost one’s chances for getting a government-supported home loan—unless applicants sell their crypto for dollars.
The new policy might allow the growing number of Americans who invest in crypto to secure a mortgage without selling it or relying on startups that offer mortgages with crypto as collateral.

Pulte said that only crypto “evidenced and stored on US-centralized exchanges” will be considered for home loans. He also directed Fannie and Freddie to factor crypto’s volatility into risk assessments.

Big picture: The move lends crypto further credibility as a mainstream financial asset. But critics are concerned that this would link the volatile asset class to the vital housing market. Experts say it’s unclear how the change could impact Fannie and Freddie’s risk profile, which in turn can affect mortgage rates.—SK

This ‘smart toilet’ started as a joke — now it’s gaining momentum

The whole thing started as a poker night joke in 2021 between engineer Scott Hickle and developer Tim Blumberg. Someone cracked wise about a “smart toilet,” everyone laughed, and then… they actually built it.

And now they have funding for it, too.

Last month, per TechCrunch, Hickle and Blumberg’s Austin-based startup Throne raised $4m in seed funding to put cameras in the very last place anyone would ever want a camera: the toilet bowl.

Who exactly is investing in this and why?

Lest you continue to think mounting a device with an AI-powered sensor on a toilet is BS, the round was led by a reputable VC firm, Moxxie Ventures.

Another investor? Disgraced Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong, who not only invested, but apparently beta-tested the thing himself because why not.

Why would they cut a check for this? There’s a legitimate health impetus: the discreet device will assess, uh, what is left behind, then use computer vision to analyze gut health, hydration levels, and other highly personal biological markers.

We know you’re wondering: The toilet cam doesn’t photograph users (thank goodness), just snapshotting the bowl contents after their bathroom adventures have concluded. All images and digestive data are then encrypted to avoid the world’s most violating hack.

Throne’s aim to change the world of gut health isn’t too far off from being tested: they’re targeting a January 2026 launch.

The other techies in your toilet

There’s long been a whole world, albeit small, of toilet-spying academics, meaning Throne isn’t alone so much as they’re, if you will, going with the flow.

Late Stanford University professor Dr. Sanjiv Gambhir pioneered smart toilet research as far back as 2005, finally inventing one in 2020.
- In a diagnostics landmark, he also determined — not at all kidding here — that much as each person has a unique fingerprint, they also have their own one-of-a-kind “anal print.”
Duke University has its own Smart Toilet Lab, presumably as proof it can flush away more than just Final Four games. The Duke team licensed its own souped-up toilet to startup Coprata for eventual commercial use.
Health tech company Casana is also in the game: it has an FDA-approved smart toilet seat that can monitor heart rate, blood pressure, and blood oxygenation.

What a time to be alive.

About to hit mental overload? Slap the ol’ e-tattoo on your forehead

Shove it, questionnaires. There’s a new way to test who’s about to lose their mind.

Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin developed a forehead monitor that could help us track — and eventually, manage — our mental workloads.

The tech, they say, knows you’re about to crack before you do and the hope, per The Guardian, is that this technology can save many lives.

What exactly is going on here?

The device combines EEG (brainwaves) and EOG (eye movement) sensors in a thin, wireless patch that is adhered to the forehead to create a full “e-tattoo,” complete with associated electrodes. It’s a real cyberpunky look.

The UT Austin team’s study tracked participants’ brain activity as they ran through tasks of variable difficulty, then fed the data into a machine learning model trained to predict mental workload levels.

And that’s exactly what it did — it successfully tracked how hard participants’ brains were working and predicted when their mental acuity would drop.

Can this be used to show your boss how badly they’ve broken you?

… Yeah, this seems doable, though researchers are more aiming to use this tech as “a real-time mental workload decoder” to alert people in high-stakes jobs, such as pilots, air traffic controllers, doctors, and emergency dispatchers — basically anyone whose mental lapse could kill people — to offload their work.

The disposable e-tattoos are expected to cost around $20 a pop, with the core device (chips and battery) running about $200, and the team is working to connect the signals to an app that could warn users (or perhaps bosses) when mental overload is nigh.

It isn’t hard to imagine an airline making some version of this tech mandatory during pre-flight activity. Or a hospital requiring it for surgeons before scrubbing in.

One potential barrier? The electrodes aren’t compatible with hair, so the e-tattoo will be a hard sell for anyone self-conscious about their fuzzy forehead (cue you walking to a mirror just to be sure).

The chain that beat Starbucks in China comes to the US

In potentially the biggest threat to Starbucks since other companies figured out that they, too, could market pumpkin-spice flavored treats, Luckin Coffee, China’s biggest coffee chain, opened its first US stores yesterday with two outposts in New York City.

If you haven’t heard of Luckin, it’s probably because you’ve never tried to get a cup of joe in China, where it’s grown massive by offering super cheap drinks and quirky flavors.

The chain, which opened in 2017, surpassed the number of stores Starbucks had in China in 2019. It now has 22,000+ locations in its home country, per CNN.
In 2023, Luckin’s revenue in China exceeded what Starbucks made there for the first time, bouncing back from an accounting scandal that got Luckin booted from the Nasdaq in 2020.

Meanwhile…things haven’t looked so good for Starbucks in China recently, and not just because its baristas can’t spell names in Chinese characters, either. The chain positioned itself as the high-end option, and sales dipped as customers turned to cheaper alternatives like Luckin. Last week, Starbucks denied reports it planned to sell off its Chinese business.

Big picture: Starbucks has a 50-year headstart in the US market, but it’s recently been struggling here, too. The chain is trying to turn around five quarters of slowing sales by bringing back traditional coffeehouse vibes and smiley faces on cups.—AR