primeimages/E+ via Getty Images Gen Z and younger millennials have reshaped finance, work, and entertainment. The GENZ ETF captures the companies built to serve the economy they created. Meet the Consumer Who's Never Written a Check: The Case for the Digital Native Economy There are 145 million of them in the United States. They are the largest spending cohort in the country's history. And they ha...
primeimages/E+ via Getty Images Gen Z and younger millennials have reshaped finance, work, and entertainment. The GENZ ETF captures the companies built to serve the economy they created. Meet the Consumer Who's Never Written a Check: The Case for the Digital Native Economy There are 145 million of them in the United States. They are the largest spending cohort in the country's history. And they have never walked into a bank branch to open an account. Gen Z and younger millennials, roughly anyone born between 1981 and 2012, didn't adopt the digital economy. They were born into it. Their first financial account was an app. Their first job was on a platform. Their first bet was placed on a phone. The economy they participate in looks almost nothing like the one their parents navigated. Today, VanEck is relaunching the VanEck Digital Native Economy ETF ( GENZ ) formerly the VanEck Gaming ETF (BJK) to capture this structural shift. GENZ seeks to track the MarketVector Digital Native Economy Index (MVGENZTR), a benchmark organized around three segments of the economy that these consumers have reshaped from the ground up. Why the Digital Native Economy Is Here to Stay We have been watching this transition unfold for years, but the numbers now make it impossible to ignore: 93% of Gen Z and younger millennials use P2P payment apps. Cash preference has collapsed to just 7% (Source: Billtrust as of 2025). The gig economy is growing 3x faster than the traditional workforce, with Gen Z leading the charge (Source: Fortune as of 2025). 34% of this cohort bets online regularly. U.S. sports betting revenue has exploded from $248 million in 2017 to $13.7 billion in 2024, a 55x increase in seven years (Source: TransUnion as of 2025). These aren't behavioral quirks. They are the permanent financial habits of a generation that has never known anything different. The companies built to serve them, neobanks, gig platforms, digital betting operators are not disrupting incumbents. They are ...
In a village in Norway, humans representing flora and fauna of all kinds meet to reimagine ‘nature-centric governance’ “My ask of humans is quite large,” says the northern bat to a room of reindeer, wolf lichen, bog, and other beings. “It’s a shift of consciousness, and an understanding that … we are a relation.” The scene could come from a sci-fi novel imagining a more-than-human uprising. In fac...
In a village in Norway, humans representing flora and fauna of all kinds meet to reimagine ‘nature-centric governance’ “My ask of humans is quite large,” says the northern bat to a room of reindeer, wolf lichen, bog, and other beings. “It’s a shift of consciousness, and an understanding that … we are a relation.” The scene could come from a sci-fi novel imagining a more-than-human uprising. In fact, it’s from a recent “interspecies council” in Oppdal, Norway, in which non-humans – spoken for by humans – convened to discuss the region’s future. Continue reading...
Queenslander clocked 9.96sec in nationals in Sydney Sprinter says he can go even faster In a historic evening for athletics at the national championships at Sydney Olympic Park, Lachie Kennedy became the first Australian 100m sprinter to break the 10-second barrier on home soil. The 22-year-old stormed out of the blocks and surged through the finish line in the first heat of the 100m on Friday nig...
Queenslander clocked 9.96sec in nationals in Sydney Sprinter says he can go even faster In a historic evening for athletics at the national championships at Sydney Olympic Park, Lachie Kennedy became the first Australian 100m sprinter to break the 10-second barrier on home soil. The 22-year-old stormed out of the blocks and surged through the finish line in the first heat of the 100m on Friday night, stopping the clock at 9.96sec with only a modest – and legal – tailwind of +0.3. Continue reading...
kontekbrothers Stock index futures were slightly higher on Friday as investors awaited the consumer price index report while monitoring U.S.-Iran ceasefire developments. Now, here are five news stories that broke overnight to watch out for: Wall Street summoned over AI cybersecurity concerns : Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell summoned Wall Street leaders to ...
kontekbrothers Stock index futures were slightly higher on Friday as investors awaited the consumer price index report while monitoring U.S.-Iran ceasefire developments. Now, here are five news stories that broke overnight to watch out for: Wall Street summoned over AI cybersecurity concerns : Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell summoned Wall Street leaders to an urgent meeting at Treasury headquarters in Washington on Tuesday amid concerns that Anthropic’s ( ANTHRO ) latest artificial intelligence model could usher in an era of greater cyber risk. The officials assembled the group to ensure banks are aware of possible future risks raised by Anthropic’s Mythos model and similar systems and are taking precautions to defend their systems, according to media reports. EU fines on U.S. Big Tech top $7B: The European Commission has issued more than $7 billion in fines to U.S. Big Tech companies over the past two years for violations of the bloc’s antitrust and competition laws. Google ( GOOG ), Apple ( AAPL ), and Meta ( META ) are contesting fines from the EU totaling over 6 billion euros since the start of 2024. “All companies doing business in the EU are accountable to the European people and should respect the rules meant to protect them,” a Commission spokesperson told CNBC. Russia-Ukraine agree to an Easter ceasefire: Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a two-day ceasefire for Orthodox Easter after both Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for a truce during the holiday. The Kremlin announced that the ceasefire will be effective from April 11 at 4:00 pm Moscow time until the end of the day on April 12. OpenAI claims computing edge over Anthropic: OpenAI ( OPENAI ) told investors this week that its early efforts to increase computing resources give it a vital advantage over rival Anthropic ( ANTHRO ), Bloomberg News reported. The company said it has outpaced Anthropic by “rapidly and consistently” adding computing capacity ...
Qualcomm co founder Dr. Irwin M. Jacobs has received the TechCon Fellows Lifetime Achievement Award. The award recognizes his foundational contributions in wireless technology and global cellular standards. The honor underscores Qualcomm's role in shaping modern wireless communications. For investors following NasdaqGS:QCOM, this recognition arrives while the company manages near term handset head...
Qualcomm co founder Dr. Irwin M. Jacobs has received the TechCon Fellows Lifetime Achievement Award. The award recognizes his foundational contributions in wireless technology and global cellular standards. The honor underscores Qualcomm's role in shaping modern wireless communications. For investors following NasdaqGS:QCOM, this recognition arrives while the company manages near term handset headwinds and a shifting revenue mix across chips, licensing, and adjacent markets. The award...