Good morning. Today, we look back on a stormy 2024, and do our best to smoke out some fun. (Note: Individual interpretations of fun may vary.)

But first, a programming note: Business Brief is going on hiatus until the new year, so I wanted to take this moment to thank you for reading these past seven months – it has been a wild, scary, rewarding, humbling and ultimately joyful journey. I’ll still be (lightly) cobbling away over the remainder of year, so feel free to find me as always at cws@globeandmail.com. Let me know what I’m missing, what you’d like to see in 2025, your new year’s resolutions (mine is to use fewer colons: they’re too much of a crutch) and anything else you’ve got on your mind. Now, onto business:

Corus Entertainment Inc. paid $1.8-million in bonuses to five top executives after the company laid off more than 800 employees as part of its struggle to avoid insolvency.

Evolve Power’s chief executive officer said the company is suing Alberta for a collective $16-billion over the government’s flip-flop on coal policy, which he says has decimated investor confidence in the province.

D-Wave is suddenly back from the brink, with a surging stock price and a recent equity issue providing a cash cushion for the quantum-computing company to develop its products and secure customers.

• At home: Statistics Canada reports retail sales for October.
• Abroad: The U.S. releases its November PCE Index, which is the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge.
• In the market: Earnings include Carnival Corp. and Winnebago Industries. I have news on that, but it’s under Winnebargo.
• I’m sorry. Another resolution: fewer dad jokes.

Canada’s economy this year was an Escherian map of ups and downs: slow growth, emergency-level labour productivity, work stoppages that cost the country billions, catastrophic forest fires, rising unemployment, falling inflation, falling interest rates, falling housing prices, and falling loonies all around.

On Bay Street, Toronto-Dominion Bank’s anti-money-laundering failures drew the scrutiny of U.S. regulators and the attention of our reporters, who found a cultural shift that seeded succession woes, risk aversion and an exodus of leaders. Couche-Tard swung for the fences (perhaps with warning-track power) with a bid to buy the Japanese owner of 7-Eleven; Toronto-based Barrick Gold is facing years of uncertainty at its gold mine in Mali; Rogers bought BCE’s stake in MLSE and promised to make watching sports easier to follow; and two of Canada’s biggest hockey-equipment makers changed hands. (No foreign investment review?)

A ”family fallout” in Ottawa, meanwhile, might hasten a federal election. As things stand, Pierre Poilievre has a strong chance at becoming Canada’s next prime minister, and having the opportunity to make good on his pledge to walk back the Liberal government’s signature climate measures.

Could it be anything else? Whether or not you agree with Donald Trump that it’s the most beautiful word in the world, you can’t deny its growing ubiquity and singular ability to galvanize policy makers into action. (At least, talking about taking action. In Canada, both of those things will be necessary as it navigates a federal election and the president-elect’s second term.)

Second place: “Optionality.” Third: “Ventocity.” (More on both below.)

Griftco

In January, Niall McGee reported that Ontario granted taxpayer funds to mining exploration companies called Griftco and Money Money Money. Griftco is named after one of the principal’s friends, and has carried out several deals after being founded as a shell company in 2008. No swindling here. Very little is known about Money Money Money, meanwhile, but you can’t knock the candour.

The meaning of Fartcoin ($FRTC)

Bitcoin stole the spotlight this year as it crested the US$100,000 milestone. But the newest meme coin to let rip in value is Fartcoin. It began, as all great things do, as an idea floated by an AI-powered chatbot that autonomously creates its own content, and rode the digital-currency surge that followed the election of noted crypto enthusiast Donald Trump. (What did I just write?)

In any event, markets are understandably focused on what a hawkish Federal Reserve means for the greenback, and Canadians are watching as the loonie falls to new lows. But neither currencies are of much interest to the growing millions of people pouring their money into digital representations of it. Even if Fartcoin fizzles, however, it will have demonstrated a mounting appetite for money that falls outside the guardrails of political and financial institutions.

What started as an AI-generated fart joke has put up serious numbers in about two months. On Wednesday, it reached a market capitalization of $1-billion.

Market capitalization in U.S. dollars

• Fartcoin: $1-billion
• Office Depot: $781-million
• Guess Inc.: $725-million

Established crypto currencies like Bitcoin are seeing their longer-term outlooks boosted from Trump. But the life expectancy of a meme coin is about the same as its popularity on the internet – which is to say, not long.

In a year that saw some novelty coins generate sky-high hype and instant riches before the shine wore off just as quickly (see: the sordid case of $HAWK) FRTC’s ventocity might be more noteworthy for the fact that it was devised by a robot with the goal of achieving virality.

This was not the singularity we feared, but the singularity that we deserve.