Are we having fun yet?

As tariffs rock the automotive, aviation, and tech industries, Sherwood News’ Max Knoblauch is asking the pressing questions we all have as we approach summer and dream of beaches and boardwalks lined with arcades: what’s going to happen to the deformed plush Minions and little sticky hands you can win at these vacation wonderlands and year-round fun palaces like Dave & Buster’s?

The humble arcade prize — a tie-dye bear, a stinky foam basketball, a knockoff Barbie doll — has become collateral damage in a broader economic clash playing out far beyond Chuck E. Cheese’s ticket redemption room, and the companies behind these prize toys and the players who win them are preparing for a devastating blow.

Coral Reynolds, president of Fiesta Toy, a California-based company specializing in plush toys and “anything you could possibly win” at an arcade or fair, said the levies are a nightmare for the industry, as she told Sherwood just how many goods come from China that stock the shelves of zoos, aquariums, museums, and “almost every amusement park there is.”

On the other side of the ring-toss game are the players, who are reporting already inflated ticket redemption rates on sites like Reddit. Then there are the “advantage players” who actually run a decent side hustle maximizing ticket earnings and reselling prizes. Knoblauch got a fascinating peek into the economics of being an arcade guru and one ticket king’s inside view on how it’ll affect us regular rubes who want to win our own plush banana. 

The Takeaway

This summer, the winning won’t be easy or cheap — if there are prizes to be won at all. Tons of toy orders are being canceled or delayed, which means even the fun-sized footballs, cheap plastic spiders, and slightly wrong cartoon character plushes may run out before new ones arrive, if they ever do. 

Read more.

• D-Wave is one of those quantum computing companies that have been making a splash in the markets while also having many (if not most) investors scratching their heads as to what, precisely, it is they actually do, technically. Sherwood’s markets editor, Luke Kawa, managed to corner their CEO and get the scoop on what exactly the quantum industry is, where D-Wave’s particular edge comes from, how it all ties in with the AI boom, and where the US is falling behind the rest of the world when it comes to quantum computing. 

• Japan’s customs officials are seeing a phenomenal amount of gold leave the country as the rest of the world piles into the metal, but the math isn’t adding up. Something like 20 metric tons of the metal is leaving Japan per month, but the country produces only about 100 tons per year, which has led the government to suspect that gold smuggling from organized crime is way more common than previously feared, according to Nikkei. (Hat tip to Numlock News.)

The rise of microdramas raises the question: Was Quibi right all along?

Remember Quibi? The short-form video startup raised $2 billion before flaming out just six months after launch, so you’ll be forgiven if you don’t. But it seems the idea of serialized shorts wasn’t a bad one — it just came too early. Last year, microdramas generated $6.9 billion in revenue in the reigning champion of short-form content, outstripping its box office haul.

See the rise of US microdramas charted.

• Ethereum’s price bounced back into action after its Pectra upgrade, and a frog meme coin jumped up with it

• FanDuel parent Flutter and DraftKings both blamed the same problem for their revenue misses: “customer-friendly sport outcomes”

• Pinterest soared as its AI push fueled stronger ad spending. It seems we have an answer to a question we asked about Pinterest and AI earlier

• This word has been uttered in 87% of earnings calls this season