The future of commerce is not some complex algorithm; it’s essentially the same as it has been since the 1980s.

That’s the gambit of a hugely successful new company putting up numbers that rival tech’s biggest.

Its latest valuation is a monstrous $20 billion, which is already a huge leap from its October 2025 numbers. The company has nearly doubled its valuation in those 10 months, up from $11.5 billion which secured an investment of $225 million.

That $11.5 billion valuation came less than a year after the company raised $265 million in January 2025 off of a $4.97 billion valuation.

This all means that the commerce app has quadrupled its value in about 18 months, something very rarely seen in its sector.

And that has the industry buzzing.

‘We only exist to the extent that we provide our customers a lot of value.’

Meet Whatnot. It’s based on an incredibly simple idea. Picture a cable channel with a 1-800 number, but it’s a livestream on your smartphone or computer.

That simple difference is what sets the livestream auction app apart from that staple of late-20th-century television, the home shopping channel. The buy-from-home TV programs exploded into popularity with the introduction of the Home Shopping Network back in 1982.

Whatnot has sellers present their items just as they did on TV back in the day, urging viewers of the livestream to buy before the time runs out.

As the Next Web puts it: “The urgency of a live sale, the countdown, the banter, the scarcity, does work that a static product page never could.”

RELATED: Dumpster-diving women claim they make $5,000 per month off discarded Louis Vuitton wallets and Michael Kors bags

Whatnot co-founder and CEO Grant LaFontaine. Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for Fast Company

The Next Web reported that the company handled about $8 billion worth of livestream sales over the past year in North America and Europe alone, which helps justify its massive valuation to backers, markets, and industry insiders.

Looking at the backers, perhaps it should have been obvious Whatnot would enjoy a big upward trend: Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia, Lightspeed, and Google’s CapitalG are all involved.

Those investment firms are strongly associated with the venture capital scene, and indeed the only other companies making the same kinds of leaps in valuation as Whatnot are in the tech space. Companies like OpenAI, SpaceX, Nvidia, Tesla, and ByteDance are some of the comparable valuations in recent history, some of which far exceed a 4x jump.

The spike is largely driven by Whatnot’s rampant consumer base, which logs an insane amount of time on the app.

RELATED: BRONCO BUSTED: I caught Ford sneaking my data — and uncovered an even bigger threat

Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for ReedPop

Co-founder and CEO Grant LaFontaine wrote in 2024 that buyers spent more than 80 minutes per day on the app that year.

Grant previously worked in product roles at YouTube and Facebook and co-founded Kit, a merchandising company that was acquired by Patreon in 2024.

LaFontaine said in May that success comes down to being willing to put in hard work while also being willing to be wrong.

“We only exist to the extent that we provide our customers a lot of value,” he told Fast Company.

“If you want to build a customer-centered culture,” the CEO added, “you have to actually follow through on building one and inject it everywhere you possibly can in the organization.”

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​App, Whatnot, Valuation, Shopping, Big tech 

A child sex sting operation in a Minnesota suburb of Minneapolis led to the arrest of two dozen men who allegedly sought to pay for sex with children.

Even more alarmingly, the Blaine Police Department said Friday in a Facebook post that nearly 400 people responded to the online advertisement they had set up in the operation.

‘These operations are a critical tool used by law enforcement agencies nationwide to stop crimes against children.’

Police said the two-day operation was intended to protect minors from “exploitation” and targeted those seeking to “engage in illegal activity involving underage youth.”

The 24 arrested allegedly “offered to pay for illegal sexual conduct with a person they believed to be a juvenile.”

They were booked into the Anoka County Jail on suspicion of prostitution.

Police said at least one person arrested was already a registered sex offender and others were repeat offenders.

“Everyone arrested will appear in court, where release conditions will be determined,” police said.

A total of 368 people responded to the advertisement in the online sting.

“These operations are a critical tool used by law enforcement agencies nationwide to stop crimes against children and deter violent or harmful behavior directed at youth,” police said.

RELATED: Middle school assistant principal allegedly tried to pay for sex with 13-year-old — but it was a sting operation

Blaine Police were aided in the operation by nine law enforcement agencies, including the U.S. Secret Service, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

Blaine is a city of about 70,000 residents.

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​Minneapolis, Child sex sting operation, Online predators, Crime 

Climate change policy might be due for a change itself.

Seventeen state financial officers have signed on to a letter urging the Securities and Exchange Commission to scrap Biden-era climate-related disclosure rules. The rules would require publicly traded companies to undertake costly environmental reviews to report their greenhouse gas emissions and other climate change metrics.

‘Americans want the SEC focused on protecting markets and investors, not turning our capital markets into a vehicle for climate activism.’

Responsible for managing billions of public dollars, the signatories argue that climate disclosure standards are an “unlawful expansion of the administrative state” poised to hamper private sector economic growth. Those standards are also referred to as the “Final Rules.”

“As stewards of public pension and treasury assets, we are acutely sensitive to costs borne by the companies in which public funds invest — costs ultimately passed to shareholders, including the beneficiaries we serve,” the signatories wrote. “The Commission’s own economic analysis estimates that rescinding the Final Rules could generate annualized savings of approximately $4.9 billion, and a total cost savings on the order of $7.9 billion.”

The SEC adopted the climate disclosure rules in March 2024. Opponents launched numerous legal challenges which were consolidated in the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The agency itself stayed the rules in April 2024 awaiting legal resolution, but President Donald Trump’s election resulted in the stay becoming permanent. The SEC under Acting Chairman Mark Uyeda declined to defend the rule in March 2025.

Though never enforced, the rules remain on the books.

RELATED: Texas slams breaks on data center projects as Abbott orders sweeping industry audit

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The rules wouldn’t just be expensive to implement. They might also be illegal to enforce.

“The Trump SEC is right to rescind the climate disclosure rule and refocus the agency on its fundamental responsibility of protecting investors and maintaining fair, orderly, and efficient markets,” Utah Treasurer Marlo Oaks told Blaze News. “For years, the ESG movement sought to use the SEC to advance a climate agenda through disclosure mandates that went beyond material financial information and imposed unnecessary costs on businesses and investors. Rescinding this rule returns the SEC to its proper role as a neutral financial regulator focused on protecting investors and facilitating markets.”

Environmental, social, and governance standards are investment criteria used to assess a private company’s adherence to climate mandates and emissions regulations.

The SEC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

If successful, the rescission would be the latest in a long string of regulatory rollbacks during Trump’s second term. The Environmental Protection Agency under Lee Zeldin nixed the Obama-era endangerment finding in February.

As the law of the land since 2009, the ruling categorized carbon emissions as pollutants under the Clean Air Act and subjected them to federal regulation.

“The financial officers are right to support the Trump Administration’s efforts to rescind the Biden-era climate disclosure rules,” American Energy Institute CEO Jason Isaac told Blaze News. “Washington bureaucrats shouldn’t be weaponizing financial regulations to pressure companies into advancing far-left ESG policies that Congress never approved.”

“Americans want the SEC focused on protecting markets and investors, not turning our capital markets into a vehicle for climate activism,” Isaac added.

The letter was submitted ahead of the August 3 comment deadline regarding the rule’s potential rescission.

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​Donald trump, Environmental protection agency, Joe biden, Lee zeldin, Securities and exchange commission, Politics 

Fauci thought we would forget; now he’s desperately trying to rewrite history.

The infectious disease “expert” has shifted his story on gain-of-function research and the lab leak theory — but longtime Democrat Bill Maher isn’t letting him off the hook.

“He was caught in actual lies,” Maher said. “He was telling people — and the big issue to me is the origin of this, which is very important. How did it start? And he was telling people up front when it first began, ‘It was from the wet markets. That’s a conspiracy theory if you say it escaped from the lab.’”

Maher pointed out that the release of Fauci’s diary by Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has proven that he “knew better,” and he blames not only Fauci but the extremely partisan split on how to handle the pandemic.

“If we weren’t so partisan, we could just say gain-of-function research,” he said. “Obama told him not to do it. I would always have said don’t do it. But it’s a viable debate. It’s a reasonable debate. Should we soup up something that’s bad, this bacteria, to study it?”

“We could have had that debate in a rational way,” he continued. “We didn’t want to do that because why? Because we make everything about race.”

Maher recalled that during the pandemic, no one was allowed to say it “escaped from the lab because that was the racist point of view” and would mean “the entire Asian continent would have been somehow complicit in this because it escaped.”

“It was ridiculous, but that is where they went,” he added.

“Welcome to reality. Seriously, welcome to some common sense,” BlazeTV host Pat Gray comments on “Pat Gray Unleashed.”

“He’s starting to see the Democrat Party for what it is,” he adds.

Want more from Pat Gray?

To enjoy more of Pat’s biting analysis and signature wit as he restores common sense to a senseless world, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Anthony fauci, Bill maher, Conspiracy theory, Democrat party, Lab leak theory, Pandemic, Race, Wet markets, Pat gray, Rand paul, Blazetv show 

A Democratic congressional candidate in Hawaii was caught on a viral video confronting beachgoers before being knocked unconscious by an MMA-trained man after allegedly threatening to put a woman in the hospital.

The Maui Police Department stated that the confrontation took place at Keawakapu Beach in South Kihei when a 61-year-old man asked 40-year-old Kirill Basin to lower the volume of his music, Hawaii News Now reported.

‘Watch your f**king mouth.’

“Basin allegedly threatened the man by implying he had a firearm and would shoot the victim’s wife,” according to Hawaii News Now.

Basin is seen on video yelling, “I told him if he wants to go to the hospital, come here!”

Someone is heard saying, “It’s over,” to which Basin temporarily agrees.

However, seconds later Basin screams: “Hey, f**k you! F**k you!”

A man urges Basin to stop, but the Democratic candidate replies: “What are you gonna do?”

Basin then seems to threaten a woman, apparently saying he would “put [her] in the ground.”

A woman calls Basin a “child,” to which he responds: “I’m a child. I’m 40 f**king years old.”

The video, with millions of views online, shows Basin allegedly threatening to put the woman “in the hospital” and then calling her a “bitch.”

A man is seen confronting Basin moments later.

The man, Kama Homan, told Hawaii News Now, “I’m like, maybe I should intervene, and then as I got closer and closer, he was just getting more irate and violent and then saying stuff.”

Homan claimed Basin threatened him by saying, “I’m going to hurt you.”

Video shows the two men getting into a physical altercation and Basin swinging a chair at Homan, who then quickly countered by punching Basin.

“He put his hands on me, and as soon as he tried to shove me, I hit him with a left and a right, and that’s when he stumbled and fell over the chairs,” Homan explained.

Basin appears to lose consciousness after falling backward following the punch.

Homan is seen telling Basin to “wake up.”

“Watch your f**king mouth, haole boy,” Homan tells Basin. Merriam-Webster defines haole as a person “who is not descended from the aboriginal Polynesian inhabitants of Hawaii.”

Homan said he used his mixed martial arts training to knock out Basin.

“Just block it and go for the KO. Just protect myself, which is why I had my hand up and then I adjusted to block the chair,” Homan told Hawaii News Now.

Fox News reported, “Once Basin regained consciousness, he told someone he was ‘going to jail’ before walking away.”

Moments later, Basin reportedly charged toward Homan while shouting obscenities.

The situation escalated when Basin pulled out a knife and threatened multiple people before tossing the weapon into the ocean, according to the Maui Police Department.

Homan said, “He ended up pulling the knife out on me after the altercation, and that was obviously a game changer when I knew he was off.”

Homan claimed that the weapon was a 5-inch switchblade, which he found and turned over to police.

Basin’s attorney, Brandon Segal, argued, “There’s no evidence in any of these videos that have been circulated tremendously that he ever had a knife in his possession. He never had a firearm in his possession.”

Basin was arrested on Saturday and charged with two counts of first-degree terroristic threatening. Basin’s bail was set at $1 million, according to county officials.

Segal called the bail amount “outrageous.”

“These are just allegations,” Segal asserted. “My client has a presumption of innocence.”

The judge ordered Basin to have no contact with Homan and four other people involved in the incident, according to Fox News.

Basin is scheduled to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on Thursday.

RELATED: Former MMA fighter beats battery charges after court said he acted in self-defense during Florida bar fight caught on viral video

The mission statement on the “Kirill for Congress” website states: “Fighting. With Aloha.” Basin moved to Maui during the COVID pandemic, according to a section on the site titled “Living here. Fighting here.”

Basin’s arrest arrived just days before the Democratic primary for the 2nd Congressional District of Hawaii, which is set to occur on Saturday.

Basin is running against three other Democrats, including incumbent Jill Tokuda.

The Honolulu Civil Beat noted that Tokuda’s challengers are “all relatively unknown candidates” and pointed out that “longshot” Basin was “arrested in May for pulling a gun on county workers in a government building.”

Tokuda told Hawaii News Now that her opponent carried out a “very violent act” and noted that it’s “not even his first one.”

As Blaze News previously reported, Basin entered a county building in Wailuku in late May and started “brandishing a firearm and engaged in a verbal altercation with county employees,” according to Maui PD.

Basin was arrested and charged with felony first-degree terroristic threatening.

Basin denied that he brandished a firearm or made any threats.

“According to Mr. Basin, the item being referenced was an unloaded pellet gun inside his backpack, with no pellet magazine in it,” Basin’s campaign told Blaze News at the time. “He states that it was never removed from the backpack, and that the individual making the accusation only saw it inside the bag.”

Just two days before that incident, Basin had to be forcibly removed from a South Maui town hall meeting after he engaged in “a verbal altercation with Council Member Tom Cook and staff members,” according to police.

Jared Agtunong, Cook’s executive assistant, obtained a temporary restraining order against Basin within two hours of the incident.

Agtunong said in his petition, “I did not answer Basin’s phone call, but he left a message telling me that I’m a piece of trash, said I should think of my family, and insisted I call him back.”

Agtunong added, “In additional texts sent on the same day, Basin wished me luck with prison, then at 9:00 p.m., Basin’s text said, ‘You’re f**ked.'”

In an Instagram post shared in June, Basin detailed his history while pleading for Joe Rogan to invite him to be a guest on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast.

“Joe Rogan, I am Kirill Basin, a Ukrainian-born immigrant, NYU Law graduate, former public defender, civil liberties advocate, father, small business owner, and Democratic candidate for Congress in Hawaii’s Second Congressional District,” Basin wrote.

Basin boasted, “I’ve taken on the police — professionally — and won.”

Basin’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Blaze News.

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​Hawaii, Crime, Democratic party, Politics 

The controversial architect of the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic will have to turn over documents related to the shutdown, according to Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier.

Uthmeier said that Dr. Anthony Fauci is being investigated for possibly profiting personally from the pandemic lockdowns that damaged the U.S. economy and had other major deleterious consequences.

‘This is wrong and it could go towards a deceptive trade practice, fraud, public nuisance, you name it.’

Fauci was excoriated by many of his critics for pleading his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination numerous times while testifying before Congress last Wednesday.

“We issued a formal subpoena to Dr. Fauci under Florida state law seeking a breadth of documents ranging to what he knew, when he knew it, his doubts about the safety and efficacy of vaccines that he’s out there promoting,” Uthmeier said in an interview on Fox News Wednesday.

“And we’re really focused in on his self-dealing. Evidence has come to light he was trying to personally profit off of this,” he added. “This is outside of his government duties, his official role. He’s trying to pursue book deals, awards, getting connected with high rollers that might help him come into millions and millions of dollars.”

The attorney general said much of the evidence comes from the diary entries recently released by Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

“This is wrong, and it could go towards a deceptive trade practice, fraud, public nuisance, you name it,” Uthmeier added. “I think there’s many aspects of Florida law that now are implicated.”

Fauci’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

RELATED: Former Fauci adviser INDICTED for allegedly hiding emails about the origins of COVID

“Government officials, they have a lot of immunities. They have protections when they’re doing their job, but when somebody like Dr. Fauci is lying and deceiving the American people, pushing out directives and mandates that he privately questions as unsafe, and he’s deriving a profit from it, that raises larger legal questions,” Uthmeier continued.

“We will get to the bottom of it. We will leave no stone unturned,” he promised.

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​Anthony fauci, James uthmeier, Subpoena, Covid, Florida, Politics 

Amir Hassan posted a gracious video on Wednesday accepting defeat in the Republican primary for Michigan’s 8th Congressional District.

The candidate got an enthusiastic endorsement from President Donald Trump but lost to fellow Republican Tom Smith, who had dropped out of the race and backed a third candidate.

Hassan is the first congressional candidate with a Trump endorsement to lose in this cycle.

Smith, a retired engineer, told Politico he will return to the campaign and work to defeat first-term incumbent Democrat Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet.

“I look forward to working with Speaker [Mike] Johnson and the entire Republican team to expand our House majority and advance President Trump’s America First agenda to lower costs for working families and make America affordable again,” Smith said in a statement.

The political unknown raised very little money for the campaign, and in July he was forced to report his meager $1,850 donations in a handwritten note to the Federal Election Commission, claiming to have had issues signing into the online portal.

A Republican strategist who commented anonymously to Politico said that Trump’s pick had “clear flaws as a candidate” and opined that the GOP base rejected him because they were “reluctant to support a dude named Amir Hassan.”

Hassan is a Navy veteran and former law enforcement officer from Flint.

Rivet was mocked last year by the National Republican Congressional Committee when she sauntered into oncoming traffic in order to escape a tough question.

RELATED: Democratic Party has become so crazed, far-left AG Dana Nessel is avoiding convention over safety fears

“I fell short last night. I make no excuse. It was a tough race,” Hassan said in his video. “I always think of conservative values, and the biggest conservative value is we don’t make excuses.”

He went on to endorse the winner and called on the voters to flip the 8th District.

Politico reported that Hassan is the first congressional candidate with a Trump endorsement to lose in this cycle.

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​Michigan, Midterms, Republican party, Donald trump, Politics