The Perfect Chair and Eyeglasses that Let You Hear

Cool products just announced, plus important news on the bitcoin ETFs

Ric Edelman: It's Tuesday, January 9th. I'm here in Las Vegas attending CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, providing you with some of the coolest new tech that is coming your way here in 2024 and in a few years to come. The show officially starts today. But for the past two days, I've had special media access and so we were able to get an early first look. 5000 members of the media from all around the world are here. That's part of the 130,000 attendees who are all showing up today. So the city is going to be a little bit nuts for the rest of the week.

Anyway, here are some of the cool things that I've seen over the past day. How about the perfect chair? We all sit in chairs all day long, but this is a recliner with ergonomics inspired by the natural body posture position. It was developed with technology from NASA. It cradles your back, elevates your legs above your heart, relaxes and rejuvenates your spine by naturally decompressing the vertebrae. It expands your lung capacity to allow for deeper, more relaxed breathing. People who sit in this chair end up falling asleep for 3.5 hours. Not sure you want to use this chair for work. It's perfection at every angle. So they say, distributing your body weight evenly over the entire seating surface, eliminating painful pressure points. It comes from a company called Human Touch.

You might not have ever heard of them, but I know you've heard of Hyundai, one of the largest car manufacturers in the world. They are just announcing something here at CES that nobody else in the automotive industry is doing. And no, I'm not talking about the cars. I'm talking about what is powering them. And no, I'm not talking about electric vehicles. Hyundai is turning sludge, organic waste into clean hydrogen. They're the first in the auto industry to do this. Hydrogen is safe for the environment. It's okay for any power use. Whatever you need electricity for, hydrogen can provide it. It's the most abundant element on Earth. Hyundai is building seven hydrogen hubs in the US alone.

And then there's Samsung, another household name. They have just announced a whole slew of new product innovations that are coming to appliances near you this year. How about refrigerator doors that open without you having to open the doors yourself? You just wave your hand in front and the refrigerator opens all by itself. How about a television that is a 150-inch screen with 8 K transmission, full scale movie theater experience in your home with sound that adapts to the room noise and targets where you are sitting. Oh, and that refrigerator that I mentioned a moment ago.

How about a 40-inch screen on the front of the fridge with AI inside the fridge? Yeah, the refrigerator knows what you put into the refrigerator and what you take out, and the AI keeps an eye on expiration dates. And when something is empty, like we're running out of milk, or that tin of butter is nearly gone, and when it discovers that something is reaching an expiration date, like the milk is about to go sour or you're out of butter, it alerts you to it. And if you're trying to figure out what you should have for dinner tonight. The refrigerator will propose recipes for you. It'll put them right there on the TV screen on the front door, and it will propose those recipes based on what's inside the refrigerator. So if you're ever saying to yourself, gee, what can I cook tonight? It'll tell you what you can cook based on the ingredients you've got, and once it tells you what you're able to cook, it'll preheat the oven for you.

That's not all Samsung is doing. They're also coming out with a new laundry combo. You know, we typically have a washing machine and a dryer side by side or one on top of the other. Well, now Samsung is launching a combo, a single unit that does it all. You put the dirty laundry into this unit. It senses what the fabric is. It senses how much soil is on the fabric, and it adjusts the amount of detergent that it automatically provides. And then after it washes the clothes, it dries them too. So you are not only getting it all done on an automated basis, you're doing it in half the space as well.

Samsung has also announced Ballie, a bright yellow AI robot. It's about the size of a bowling ball, except it's not black. It's bright yellow and it rolls around the house. It'll follow you around the house. It has a camera and gets to know you. It can turn electrical devices on and off and it has a built-in projector. It can project images on the floor, on the wall or on the ceiling. So if you're busy in the kitchen and you get a video call to your phone, Ballie can answer the phone for you and project the caller's image right on the wall without you having to do anything. Ballie is going to be for sale later this year.

And then there's a company called Nuance Audio. This is pretty cool. Nuance Audio is a pair of eyeglasses. But wait a minute, didn't I just say that the company is called Nuance Audio? Yeah, they are providing a solution for people with mild to moderate hearing loss. We're talking about more than 1 billion people in the world who have some hearing loss, and a lot of these people don't use hearing aids. Part of the problem is the cost of the hearing aids. Part of the problem, let's admit it, is the stigma. So now comes along Nuance Audio that makes glasses and the eyeglasses solve the problem. The hearing aid component is completely invisible because it's embedded in the frame of the glass. Extremely comfortable, about the same as other ordinary glasses, weighs the same 43g, and it doesn't have the discomfort of sticking something into your ear. It's really simple to use. It takes only one minute to set it up. It comes with an app you download for your phone or your watch. Charging it takes only 2.5 hours and a charge lasts a full day. Hearing aids cost about $5,000. This device is about $1,000 and insurance will cover it. They're initially launching two models in three sizes and two colors, and they're going to launch a lot more later on. They're expecting FDA approval later this year and launching the product in time for Christmas.

And then there is Gendome. This is a pretty important product innovation because everything that we've got, all the products that I've just mentioned, burn a lot of energy, take a lot of electricity. Enter Gendome. This company is making portable chargers an emergency device for power outages, and it charges via wind or solar in less than an hour. And once it's charged up, you can charge two wireless devices, four outlets, four USB, two USB-C. It will charge a laptop for a day or a refrigerator for eight hours. The device is about 2,500 bucks, and they have a larger unit that'll power your entire house for a day $5,000 for that device, simply stick it in your garage. They have smaller devices, as well as little as 60 bucks that will charge a phone and a watch in 45 minutes. That's available on Amazon.

These are just some of the pretty cool tech innovations that are being launched and announced here at the Consumer Electronics Show, the largest show of its kind in the world. I'll have more cool stuff for you tomorrow when we come back on the program today, I'm going to have a really important set of updated information for you regarding the new spot bitcoin ETFs.

Coming today or tomorrow, the SEC is going to announce approval of the new spot bitcoin ETFs. This announcement is pretty much guaranteed because the SEC is facing a statutory deadline of tomorrow. So either today or tomorrow, the SEC has to render its ruling. Are they going to approve any of the dozen applications for spot bitcoin ETFs? The first of these applications was filed over ten years ago, and the SEC has rejected every application it has received over the past decade. But now there are 12 new applications, including applications from some of the biggest asset managers in the world Blackrock, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Invesco and others. Bottom line is this, pretty much everybody in both the crypto community and the financial community are expecting the SEC to approve many, likely most and perhaps all of these bitcoin ETFs.

This is a huge game changer for crypto because ETFs have long been considered the holy grail of Bitcoin. Crypto is cumbersome. It's complicated. It's new and different. Most folks don't have any experience with it. And the idea of going to open an account on a crypto exchange where you have to deal with hot and cold wallets and private keys, that's a little bit daunting for most folks. But now, with the advent of an ETF, the most popular investment vehicle in the country that pretty much everybody is well familiar with, especially financial advisors, it now makes it simple and easy for compliance officers to say yes, simple and easy for investment committees to approve, simple and easy for financial advisors to incorporate into diversified portfolios for their clients. 

And that is why there is so much excitement and expectation about these new spot bitcoin ETFs. And that's why you've been seeing bitcoin rising to the highest prices in more than a year. If we do get approval today or tomorrow, I think we're going to see bitcoin prices hit $150,000 in the next two years. Right now it's about $47,000. So we're talking about a 3x return over the next couple of years. We're also going to see massive inflows as financial advisors recommend this for their clients. We're talking $150 billion in new assets flowing into bitcoin over the next two years. Bitcoin last year rose 160%. That's nothing compared to what I expected to do this year and next year. And you still have zero crypto in your portfolio?

And in the midst of all this, with everybody wanting to know what the SEC is going to say today or tomorrow. SEC Chair Gary Gensler did issue a tweet yesterday and he said on Twitter, sorry X that “fraudsters are still luring investors into scams, bogus coin offerings, Ponzi schemes, outright theft”. Gary Gensler is right about that. There is fraud in crypto and that is exactly why we need the spot bitcoin ETFs, so that advisors can engage simply, easily and effectively and protect their clients and investors and consumers across the country from those frauds. 

Everybody's pretty excited about the news that's coming next, and we are going to bring it to you here as soon as we hear it. In fact, in anticipation of the SEC's approval, I've created a new Bitcoin Toolkit. There's one for advisors and another one for investors. Both of them are free. And we're going to be releasing these toolkits as soon as the SEC approves the new ETFs today or tomorrow. This toolkit includes my Bitcoin Whitepaper, videos that explain digital assets, a new article I just wrote featuring my warning about these new ETFs for investors and advisors.

I'm also going to be producing a new webinar series to present these new ETFs to you. Starting this week and on this podcast, we're going to have a series of interviews with the ETF sponsors. And those are going to start next week. The new spot bitcoin ETFs are the biggest development in crypto in ten years. They're going to move crypto into the mainstream. And within a few years, virtually every advisor, retail investor and institutional investor will include bitcoin in their portfolios. Right now is the time for you to learn about this before the coming price appreciation occurs, and I'm bringing you all the information you need. Sign up now! The link is in the show notes, and we'll let you know when the toolkits become available. Also, the links to all the cool tech that I mentioned today. See you tomorrow. 

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