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Bitcoin Pizza Day: A Time For Regret And Fantasy

Bitcoin Pizza Day: A Time For Regret And Fantasy

Authored by Jimmy Song via BitcoinMagazine.com,

As we enter the Bitcoin holiday weekend,…

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Bitcoin Pizza Day: A Time For Regret And Fantasy

Authored by Jimmy Song via BitcoinMagazine.com,

As we enter the Bitcoin holiday weekend, it’s a good time to reflect on the incentives that lead us to celebrate Pizza Day...

Pizza Day is a day of regret.

We all know the story. Laszlo Hanyecz buys two Papa John's pizzas and some lucky guy got 10,000 BTC on this day 12 years ago. The story is like that of Peter Minuit buying Manhattan Island for $24. We can hardly believe that such a thing was possible given its value today.

The story has a lot of interesting angles. It was the first real-world good or service purchased with bitcoin. It established bitcoin's price, since the two pizzas cost about $41, one BTC was about $0.0041. There's also Laszlo, a guy whose innovation was mining bitcoin using GPUs (graphics processing units). He acted like a drunken sailor spending 100,000 BTC on pizzas, as he did the same deal several more times that month. He's the Santa Claus in our story, giving away lots of goodies.

RENT-SEEKING DAYDREAMS

The part that everyone fantasizes about is being that guy that bought the 10,000 BTC for $41. We don't fantasize about being Laszlo because we aren't GPU programming experts. We can, however, imagine being the guy on the bitcointalk forums offering to buy bitcoin for a couple of pizzas.

Pizza Day brings out that daydream of being a bitcoin billionaire from having made a single brilliant trade. We all hate the actual guy that made this trade because we want to be him. We see the guy as lucky, as having won the lottery and we are envious.

This fantasy is borne of a fiat mentality. This hierarchy of values comes from fiat money. The desire is to be lucky instead of good. We would rather do no work and make money rather than provide goods and services and get paid.

It's telling that the regret is about missed-out luck rather than missed-out innovation. It's easier in a fiat world to dream about being the guy that sold pizza than being the guy who had the foresight to mine with GPUs. This is fiat accomplishment, getting lucky with money, versus real accomplishment which is earning the money by providing goods and services to the market. Most people would rather get lucky being associated with an innovator than be the innovator themselves.

BITCOIN REGRET

We all have our bitcoin regret stories. I remember when I learned about bitcoin in February 2011. I tried to find a way to buy bitcoin using a credit card but couldn't find anything. I tried mining on Amazon Web Services and didn't find any blocks solo-mining for two days. I started the process to move dollars into Mt. Gox and I decided it was too much of a hassle to set up when the price dropped from $1 to $0.90. I could have bought bitcoin at $0.90, but I didn't. It's one of the biggest regrets of my life.

Everyone has different regret stories. Perhaps you heard about bitcoin back in June 2011 when it ran up to $30 and regret not buying it then. Maybe you heard about bitcoin in April 2013 when it ran up to $266 and regret not buying it then. Maybe you heard about it later that year in December 2013 when it ran up to $1100 and regret not buying then. Or maybe you heard about it in 2017 when it reached $2,500, $5,000 and then $19,000 and regret not buying along the way. Or maybe it's more recent like in March 2020 when bitcoin crashed to under $4,000, or even later that year when it was breaking $10,000. Everyone that's heard about bitcoin at any point in its history has a regret story.

Bitcoin regret stories are like bad-beat stories in poker. Everyone has them and they are fantasies about different, luckier outcomes. They are useless stories because the feelings of regret assume virtues that aren't common.

THE DIFFICULTY OF HOLDING

In these regret stories, we miss something. What if we had bought it when we heard about it? How would we have handled the subsequent hardship? Would we have had the diamond hands to hold through the 85% drawdowns in 2011, 2013, 2014 and 2018?

If you fantasize about the Pizza Day story, do you ever think about the difficulty of holding in 2011, 2013, 2014 and 2018? There's a tendency to assume that we'd have the conviction that we have now like a time traveler would. I've gone through it, and let me tell you, most people didn't have conviction and they sold. Many people think they would have held strong through all the difficult times, but that goes against all evidence, just like the original O.J. Simpson verdict.

Holding 10,000 BTC wasn't uncommon back in 2010. There were a lot of people that had a lot of bitcoin, but where are they now? Most of them sold when bitcoin price doubled or tripled and never looked back. They saw bitcoin as a plaything and didn't understand the revolutionary nature of it. So they sold it to buy a new computer, a new bike or a new car.

CRUSHING YOUR DREAMS

Had you sold Laszlo two pizzas for 10,000 BTC you also would have sold. To think otherwise is hubris. Most people back then didn't understand what bitcoin was and there were no educational resources explaining why you should hold. We now have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to understanding bitcoin. In 2022, it's much easier to understand that bitcoin is a better money than anything that came before. Back in 2010, it was much, much harder. Do you still think you would have had diamond hands?

To hold bitcoin is to have deep conviction about what it is. There are necessary virtues to be a holder for the long term. Holders understand the fundamental value and can thus withstand the 85% drawdowns that come on a regular basis. Only the truly extraordinary managed to hold from 2010 and you likely would not have been one of those people.

But say you beat the odds and had conviction. You held through 2011 and even the first bubble in 2013. Would you have had the foresight to withdraw to your own wallet before Mt. Gox exploded in 2013? Or if you used another exchange before then, would you have gotten out before they exit-scammed? We say "not your keys, not your coins" now, but back then, this was not common practice. A lot of people had to be screwed over for that lesson to have become a meme. Even with conviction, there's a good chance you would have been one of the many people who were screwed.

There were also other dangers, like the advent of altcoins starting in 2011. How many bitcoin would you have lost in those? There were also all manner of scams, including Pirate40 and others who promised a large return by running Ponzi scams. Would you have avoided those? Looking back on those dangers, it's a miracle that people made it past those years with any bitcoin at all. Many OGs are like Vietnam veterans, reflecting on the times when they were lucky to escape the many dangers.

CONVICTION IS HARD TO DEVELOP

Deep conviction does not come for free, and for early people it was especially hard to earn. Remember, everyone was calling Bitcoin a scam back then. Even now, it takes years of study and balls of steel to develop that conviction. Back then, having Bitcoin conviction was as rare as a physically-fit government health official.

Going against conventional wisdom and following your convictions requires a great deal of courage, which a lot of people don't have. Think about what happened during COVID-19. How many people had conviction to say something against the mainstream narrative in March 2020? That's the level of conviction you had to have to hold bitcoin through those early years.

In 2022, we have a lot of resources that help us to save in bitcoin. We have podcasts, books and videos to help us navigate this space and not only develop the conviction, but the best practices that we need to hold. The early years were a minefield of traps to lose your bitcoin. It's much easier these days to avoid those traps, but back then, there weren't OGs that could warn you to avoid them. The resources that exist now and the Bitcoin memes we have today are not propaganda. They are the fruit of bitter experience.

BITCOIN DERANGEMENT

If you study the early people from the Bitcoin space, there's a disturbing pattern. Pretty much every non-technical bitcoin advocate pre-2013 is now shilling an altcoin. Why are so many early people bitcoin-deranged?

We can find some answers in the fiat world of lottery winners. Years after winning, many lottery winners end up worse than before they won the lottery. They aren't equipped to handle the windfall and many of them end up in more debt with broken relationships and some even commit suicide. That has unfortunately been the fate of many early Bitcoin adopters. At some point in the last decade, they either were scammed or scammed themselves. The result is that they became enemies of Bitcoin because they never had that conviction or virtue.

So to ruin your daydream even more, there's a good chance you would be an altcoin scammer had you gotten in early. These are serial scammers who have no qualms about lying, cheating or stealing their way to wealth. They live in a rent-seeking hell of broken dreams. That's not a good fate and something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

LEVEL UP

For many people, Pizza Day is a time-traveling fantasy where they can daydream about being rich. Such thinking is what leads people to altcoinery because the mentality comes from fiat money. For them, Pizza Day is really a fantasy about getting lucky and not having to do work, yet making lots of money. In other words, it's a rent-seeking desire writ large.

Fiat money has created a consumerist mentality which exacerbates the desire to rent-seek. The government takes advantage of this desire with lotteries, which are ways to profit from that desire. Altcoins are taking advantage of that same desire. Pizza Day unfortunately puts our minds back to that same mentality of wanting something for nothing, of the desire to be lucky rather than good.

Pizza Day should instead remind us that conviction is not easy to form. Conviction requires knowledge, wisdom and courage, which are virtues that need time, energy and effort to cultivate. Instead of being envious of the early adopters and fantasizing about being one of them, we should take the time to develop the conviction needed to be someone that can hold through all the difficult times. Because as we say in Bitcoin, it's still early.

It's Pizza Day, level up your game.

Ten Things You Bought Instead Of Bitcoin

  1. A new product from Apple that you replaced two years later and totally could have gone without.
  2. Green gems in Clash of Clans because you really needed to win.
  3. A college degree which has nothing to do with the job you're doing now.
  4. Litecoin, because it's a cheaper bitcoin, without any of the development or decentralization.
  5. A dating app subscription despite the fact that you're still forever alone.
  6. Games on sale on Steam which you still haven't gotten around to actually playing.
  7. Exercise equipment that functions now as a clothes rack.
  8. That online class you paid for but never actually did anything with beyond the intro class.
  9. Porn which makes you lethargic, drained and unproductive the next day.
  10. An MLM product from a Facebook friend that you got rid of a few weeks later.
Tyler Durden Fri, 05/20/2022 - 06:30

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Your financial plan may be riskier without bitcoin

It might actually be riskier to not have bitcoin in your portfolio than it is to have a small allocation.

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This article originally appeared in the Sound Advisory blog. Sound Advisory provide financial advisory services and are specialize in educating and guiding clients to thrive financially in a bitcoin-powered world. Click here to learn more.

“Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.”

- Blaise Pascal

Blaise Pascal only lived to age 39 but became world-famous for many contributions in the fields of mathematics, physics, and theology. The above quote encapsulates Pascal’s wager—a philosophical argument for the Christian belief in the existence of God.

The argument's conclusion states that a rational person should live as though God exists. Even if the probability is low, the reward is worth the risk.

Pascal’s wager as a justification for bitcoin? Yes, I’m aware of the fallacies: false dichotomy, appeal to emotion, begging the question, etc. That is not the point. The point is that binary outcomes instigate extreme results, and the game theory of money suggests that it’s a winner-take-all game.

The Pascalian investor: A rational approach to bitcoin

Humanity’s adoption of “the best money over time” mimics a series of binary outcomes—A/B tests.

Throughout history, inferior forms of money have faded as better alternatives emerged (see India’s failed transition to a gold standard). And if bitcoin is trying to be the premier money of the future, it will either succeed or it won’t.

“If you ain’t first, you’re last.” -Ricky Bobby, Talladega Nights, on which monies succeed over time.

So, we can look at bitcoin success similarly to Pascal’s wager—let’s call it Satoshi’s wager. The translated points would go something like this:

  • If you own bitcoin early and it becomes a globally valuable money, you gain immensely. ????
  • If you own bitcoin and it fails, you’ve lost that value. ????
  • If you don’t own bitcoin and it goes to zero, no pain and no gain. ????
  • If you don’t own bitcoin and it succeeds, you will have missed out on the significant financial revolution of our lifetimes and fall comparatively behind. ????

If bitcoin is successful, it will be worth far more than it is today and have a massive impact on your financial future. If it fails, the losses are only limited to your exposure. The most that you could lose is the money that you invested.

It is hypothetically possible that bitcoin could be worth 100x more than it is today, but it can only possibly lose 1x its value as it goes to zero. The concept we’re discussing here is asymmetric upside - significant gains with relatively limited downside. In other words, the potential rewards of the investment outweigh the potential risks.

Bitcoin offers an asymmetric upside that makes it a wise investment for most portfolios. Even a small allocation provides potential protection against extreme currency debasement.

Salt, gasoline, and insurance

“Don’t over salt your steak, pour too much gas on the fire, or buy too much insurance.”

A little bit goes a long way, and you can easily overdo it. The same applies when looking at bitcoin in the context of a financial plan.

Bitcoin’s asymmetric upside gives it “insurance-like” qualities, and that insurance pays off very well in times of money printing. This was exemplified in 2020 when bitcoin's value increased over 300% in response to pandemic money printing, far outpacing stocks, gold, and bonds.

Bitcoin offers a similar asymmetric upside today. Bitcoin's supply is capped at 21 million coins, making it resistant to inflationary debasement. In contrast, the dollar's purchasing power consistently declines through unrestrained money printing. History has shown that societies prefer money that is hard to inflate.

If recent rampant inflation is uncontainable and the dollar system falters, bitcoin is well-positioned as a successor. This global monetary A/B test is still early, but given their respective sizes, a little bitcoin can go a long way. If it succeeds, early adopters will benefit enormously compared to latecomers. Of course, there are no guarantees, but the potential reward justifies reasonable exposure despite the risks.

Let’s imagine Nervous Nancy, an extremely conservative investor. She wants to invest but also take the least risk possible. She invests 100% of her money in short-term cash equivalents (short-term treasuries, money markets, CDs, maybe some cash in the coffee can). With this investment allocation, she’s nearly certain to get her initial investment back and receive a modest amount of interest as a gain. However, she has no guarantees that the investment returned to her will purchase the same amount as it used to. Inflation and money printing cause each dollar to be able to purchase less and less over time. Depending on the severity of the inflation, it might not buy anything at all. In other words, she didn’t lose any dollars, but the dollar lost purchasing power.

Now, let’s salt her portfolio with bitcoin.

99% short-term treasuries. 1% bitcoin.

With a 1% allocation, if bitcoin goes to zero overnight, she’ll have only lost a penny on the dollar, and her treasury interest will quickly fill the gap. Not at all catastrophic to her financial future.

However, if the hypothetical hyperinflationary scenario from above plays out and bitcoin grows 100x in purchasing power, she’s saved everything. Metaphorically, her entire dollar house burned down, and “bitcoin insurance” made her whole. Powerful. A little bitcoin salt goes a long way.

(When protecting against the existing system, it’s important to remember that you need to get your bitcoin out of the system. Keeping bitcoin on an exchange or with a counterparty will do you no good if that entity fails. If you view bitcoin as insurance, it’s essential to keep your bitcoin in cold storage and hold your keys. Otherwise, it’s someone else’s insurance.)

When all you have a hammer, everything looks like a…

A construction joke:

There are only three rules to construction: 1.) Always use the right tool for the job! 2.) A hammer is always the right tool! 3.) Anything can be a hammer!

Yeah. That’s what I thought, too. Slightly funny and mostly useless.

But if you spend enough time swinging a hammer, you’ll eventually realize it can be more than it first appears. Not everything is a nail. A hammer can tear down walls, break concrete, tap objects into place, and wiggle other things out. A hammer can create and destroy; it builds tall towers and humbles novice fingers. The use cases expand with the skill of the carpenter.

Like hammers, bitcoin is a monetary tool. And a 1-5% allocator to the asset typically sees a “speculative insurance” use case - valid. Bitcoin is speculative insurance, but it is not only speculative insurance. People invest and save in bitcoin for many different reasons.

I’ve seen people use bitcoin to pursue all of the following use cases:

  • Hedging against a financial collapse (speculative insurance)
  • Saving for family and future (long-term general savings and safety net)
  • Growing a downpayment for a house (medium-term specific savings)
  • Shooting for the moon in a manner equivalent to winning the lottery (gambling)
  • Opting out of government-run, bank-controlled financial systems (financial optionality)
  • Making a quick buck (short-term trading)
  • Escaping a hostile country (wealth evacuation)
  • Locking away wealth that can’t be confiscated (wealth preservation)
  • As a means to influence opinions and gain followers (social status)
  • Fix the money and fix the world (mission and purpose)

Keep this in mind when taking other people’s financial advice. They are often playing a different game than you. They have different goals, upbringings, worldviews, family dynamics, and circumstances. Even though they might use the same hammer as you, it could be for a completely different job.

Wrapping Up

A massive allocation to bitcoin may seem crazy to some people, yet perfectly reasonable to others. The same goes for having a 1% allocation.

But, given today’s macroeconomic environment and bitcoin’s trajectory, I find very few use cases where 0% bitcoin makes sense. By not owning bitcoin, you implicitly say that you are 100% certain it will fail and go to zero. Given its 14-year history so far, I’d recommend reducing your confidence. Nobody is 100% right forever. A little salt goes a long way. Your financial plan may be riskier without bitcoin. Diversify accordingly.

“We must learn our limits. We are all something, but none of us are everything.” - Blaise Pascal.

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Shakira’s net worth

After 12 albums, a tax evasion case, and now a towering bronze idol sculpted in her image, how much is Shakira worth more than 4 decades into her care…

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Shakira’s considerable net worth is no surprise, given her massive popularity in Latin America, the U.S., and elsewhere. 

In fact, the belly-dancing contralto queen is the second-wealthiest Latin-America-born pop singer of all time after Gloria Estefan. (Interestingly, Estefan actually helped a young Shakira translate her breakout album “Laundry Service” into English, hugely propelling her stateside success.)

Since releasing her first record at age 13, Shakira has spent decades recording albums in both Spanish and English and performing all over the world. Over the course of her 40+ year career, she helped thrust Latin pop music into the American mainstream, paving the way for the subsequent success of massively popular modern acts like Karol G and Bad Bunny.

In late 2023, a 21-foot-tall bronze sculpture of Shakira, the barefoot belly dancer of Barranquilla, was unveiled at the city's waterfront. The statue was commissioned by the city's former mayor and other leadership.

Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images

In December 2023, a 21-foot-tall beachside bronze statue of the “Hips Don’t Lie” singer was unveiled in her Colombian hometown of Barranquilla, making her a permanent fixture in the city’s skyline and cementing her legacy as one of Latin America’s most influential entertainers.

After 12 albums, a plethora of film and television appearances, a highly publicized tax evasion case, and now a towering bronze idol sculpted in her image, how much is Shakira worth? What does her income look like? And how does she spend her money?

Related: Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson's net worth: How the new TKO Board Member built his wealth from $7

How much is Shakira worth?

In late 2023, Spanish sports and lifestyle publication Marca reported Shakira’s net worth at $400 million, citing Forbes as the figure’s source (although Forbes’ profile page for Shakira does not list a net worth — and didn’t when that article was published).

Most other sources list the singer’s wealth at an estimated $300 million, and almost all of these point to Celebrity Net Worth — a popular but dubious celebrity wealth estimation site — as the source for the figure.

A $300 million net worth would make Shakira the third-richest Latina pop star after Gloria Estefan ($500 million) and Jennifer Lopez ($400 million), and the second-richest Latin-America-born pop singer after Estefan (JLo is Puerto Rican but was born in New York).

Shakira’s income: How much does she make annually?

Entertainers like Shakira don’t have predictable paychecks like ordinary salaried professionals. Instead, annual take-home earnings vary quite a bit depending on each year’s album sales, royalties, film and television appearances, streaming revenue, and other sources of income. As one might expect, Shakira’s earnings have fluctuated quite a bit over the years.

From June 2018 to June 2019, for instance, Shakira was the 10th highest-earning female musician, grossing $35 million, according to Forbes. This wasn’t her first time gracing the top 10, though — back in 2012, she also landed the #10 spot, bringing in $20 million, according to Billboard.

In 2023, Billboard listed Shakira as the 16th-highest-grossing Latin artist of all time.

Shakira performed alongside producer Bizarrap during the 2023 Latin Grammy Awards Gala in Seville.

Photo By Maria Jose Lopez/Europa Press via Getty Images

How much does Shakira make from her concerts and tours?

A large part of Shakira’s wealth comes from her world tours, during which she sometimes sells out massive stadiums and arenas full of passionate fans eager to see her dance and sing live.

According to a 2020 report by Pollstar, she sold over 2.7 million tickets across 190 shows that grossed over $189 million between 2000 and 2020. This landed her the 19th spot on a list of female musicians ranked by touring revenue during that period. In 2023, Billboard reported a more modest touring revenue figure of $108.1 million across 120 shows.

In 2003, Shakira reportedly generated over $4 million from a single show on Valentine’s Day at Foro Sol in Mexico City. 15 years later, in 2018, Shakira grossed around $76.5 million from her El Dorado World Tour, according to Touring Data.

Related: RuPaul's net worth: Everything to know about the cultural icon and force behind 'Drag Race'

How much has Shakira made from her album sales?

According to a 2023 profile in Variety, Shakira has sold over 100 million records throughout her career. “Laundry Service,” the pop icon’s fifth studio album, was her most successful, selling over 13 million copies worldwide, according to TheRichest.

Exactly how much money Shakira has taken home from her album sales is unclear, but in 2008, it was widely reported that she signed a 10-year contract with LiveNation to the tune of between $70 and $100 million to release her subsequent albums and manage her tours.

Shakira and JLo co-headlined the 2020 Super Bowl Halftime Show in Florida.

Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

How much did Shakira make from her Super Bowl and World Cup performances?

Shakira co-wrote one of her biggest hits, “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa),” after FIFA selected her to create the official anthem for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. She performed the song, along with several of her existing fan-favorite tracks, during the event’s opening ceremonies. TheThings reported in 2023 that the song generated $1.4 million in revenue, citing Popnable for the figure.

A decade later, 2020’s Superbowl halftime show featured Shakira and Jennifer Lopez as co-headliners with guest performances by Bad Bunny and J Balvin. The 14-minute performance was widely praised as a high-energy celebration of Latin music and dance, but as is typical for Super Bowl shows, neither Shakira nor JLo was compensated beyond expenses and production costs.

The exposure value that comes with performing in the Super Bowl Halftime Show, though, is significant. It is typically the most-watched television event in the U.S. each year, and in 2020, a 30-second Super Bowl ad spot cost between $5 and $6 million.

How much did Shakira make as a coach on “The Voice?”

Shakira served as a team coach on the popular singing competition program “The Voice” during the show’s fourth and sixth seasons. On the show, celebrity musicians coach up-and-coming amateurs in a team-based competition that eventually results in a single winner. In 2012, The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Shakira’s salary as a coach on “The Voice” was $12 million.

Related: John Cena's net worth: The wrestler-turned-actor's investments, businesses, and more

How does Shakira spend her money?

Shakira doesn’t just make a lot of money — she spends it, too. Like many wealthy entertainers, she’s purchased her share of luxuries, but Barranquilla’s barefoot belly dancer is also a prolific philanthropist, having donated tens of millions to charitable causes throughout her career.

Private island

Back in 2006, she teamed up with Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame and Spanish singer Alejandro Sanz to purchase Bonds Cay, a 550-acre island in the Bahamas, which was listed for $16 million at the time.

Along with her two partners in the purchase, Shakira planned to develop the island to feature housing, hotels, and an artists’ retreat designed to host a revolving cast of artists-in-residence. This plan didn’t come to fruition, though, and as of this article’s last update, the island was once again for sale on Vladi Private Islands.

Real estate and vehicles

Like most wealthy celebs, Shakira’s portfolio of high-end playthings also features an array of luxury properties and vehicles, including a home in Barcelona, a villa in Cyprus, a Miami mansion, and a rotating cast of Mercedes-Benz vehicles.

Philanthropy and charity

Shakira doesn’t just spend her massive wealth on herself; the “Queen of Latin Music” is also a dedicated philanthropist and regularly donates portions of her earnings to the Fundación Pies Descalzos, or “Barefoot Foundation,” a charity she founded in 1997 to “improve the education and social development of children in Colombia, which has suffered decades of conflict.” The foundation focuses on providing meals for children and building and improving educational infrastructure in Shakira’s hometown of Barranquilla as well as four other Colombian communities.

In addition to her efforts with the Fundación Pies Descalzos, Shakira has made a number of other notable donations over the years. In 2007, she diverted a whopping $40 million of her wealth to help rebuild community infrastructure in Peru and Nicaragua in the wake of a devastating 8.0 magnitude earthquake. Later, during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Shakira donated a large supply of N95 masks for healthcare workers and ventilators for hospital patients to her hometown of Barranquilla.

Back in 2010, the UN honored Shakira with a medal to recognize her dedication to social justice, at which time the Director General of the International Labour Organization described her as a “true ambassador for children and young people.”

On November 20, 2023 (which was supposed to be her first day of trial), Shakira reached a deal with the prosecution that resulted in a three-year suspended sentence and around $8 million in fines.

Photo by Adria Puig/Anadolu via Getty Images

Shakira’s tax fraud scandal: How much did she pay?

In 2018, prosecutors in Spain initiated a tax evasion case against Shakira, alleging she lived primarily in Spain from 2012 to 2014 and therefore failed to pay around $14.4 million in taxes to the Spanish government. Spanish law requires anyone who is “domiciled” (i.e., living primarily) in Spain for more than half of the year to pay income taxes.

During the period in question, Shakira listed the Bahamas as her primary residence but did spend some time in Spain, as she was dating Gerard Piqué, a professional footballer and Spanish citizen. The couple’s first son, Milan, was also born in Barcelona during this period. 

Shakira maintained that she spent far fewer than 183 days per year in Spain during each of the years in question. In an interview with Elle Magazine, the pop star opined that “Spanish tax authorities saw that I was dating a Spanish citizen and started to salivate. It's clear they wanted to go after that money no matter what."

Prosecutors in the case sought a fine of almost $26 million and a possible eight-year prison stint, but in November of 2023, Shakira took a deal to close the case, accepting a fine of around $8 million and a three-year suspended sentence to avoid going to trial. In reference to her decision to take the deal, Shakira stated, "While I was determined to defend my innocence in a trial that my lawyers were confident would have ruled in my favour [had the trial proceeded], I have made the decision to finally resolve this matter with the best interest of my kids at heart who do not want to see their mom sacrifice her personal well-being in this fight."

How much did the Shakira statue in Barranquilla cost?

In late 2023, a 21-foot-tall bronze likeness of Shakira was unveiled on a waterfront promenade in Barranquilla. The city’s then-mayor, Jaime Pumarejo, commissioned Colombian sculptor Yino Márquez to create the statue of the city’s treasured pop icon, along with a sculpture of the city’s coat of arms.

According to the New York Times, the two sculptures cost the city the equivalent of around $180,000. A plaque at the statue’s base reads, “A heart that composes, hips that don’t lie, an unmatched talent, a voice that moves the masses and bare feet that march for the good of children and humanity.” 

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Delta Air Lines adds a new route travelers have been asking for

The new Delta seasonal flight to the popular destination will run daily on a Boeing 767-300.

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Those who have tried to book a flight from North America to Europe in the summer of 2023 know just how high travel demand to the continent has spiked.

At 2.93 billion, visitors to the countries making up the European Union had finally reached pre-pandemic levels last year while North Americans in particular were booking trips to both large metropolises such as Paris and Milan as well as smaller cities growing increasingly popular among tourists.

Related: A popular European city is introducing the highest 'tourist tax' yet

As a result, U.S.-based airlines have been re-evaluating their networks to add more direct routes to smaller European destinations that most travelers would have previously needed to reach by train or transfer flight with a local airline.

The new flight will take place on a Boeing 767-300.

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Delta Air Lines: ‘Glad to offer customers increased choice…’

By the end of March, Delta Air Lines  (DAL)  will be restarting its route between New York’s JFK and Marco Polo International Airport in Venice as well as launching two new flights to Venice from Atlanta. One will start running this month while the other will be added during peak demand in the summer.

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“As one of the most beautiful cities in the world, Venice is hugely popular with U.S. travelers, and our flights bring valuable tourism and trade opportunities to the city and the region as well as unrivalled opportunities for Venetians looking to explore destinations across the Americas,” Delta’s SVP for Europe Matteo Curcio said in a statement. “We’re glad to offer customers increased choice this summer with flights from New York and additional service from Atlanta.”

The JFK-Venice flight will run on a Boeing 767-300  (BA)  and have 216 seats including higher classes such as Delta One, Delta Premium Select and Delta Comfort Plus.

Delta offers these features on the new flight

Both the New York and Atlanta flights are seasonal routes that will be pulled out of service in October. Both will run daily while the first route will depart New York at 8:55 p.m. and arrive in Venice at 10:15 a.m. local time on the way there, while leaving Venice at 12:15 p.m. to arrive at JFK at 5:05 p.m. on the way back.

According to Delta, this will bring its service to 17 flights from different U.S. cities to Venice during the peak summer period. As with most Delta flights at this point, passengers in all fare classes will have access to free Wi-Fi during the flight.

Those flying in Delta’s highest class or with access through airline status or a credit card will also be able to use the new Delta lounge that is part of the airline’s $12 billion terminal renovation and is slated to open to travelers in the coming months. The space will take up more than 40,000 square feet and have an outdoor terrace.

“Delta One customers can stretch out in a lie-flat seat and enjoy premium amenities like plush bedding made from recycled plastic bottles, more beverage options, and a seasonal chef-curated four-course meal,” Delta said of the new route. “[…] All customers can enjoy a wide selection of in-flight entertainment options and stay connected with Wi-Fi and enjoy free mobile messaging.”

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