The Modern Gold Rush: These Three Stocks Could Benefit

Aibek Burabayev - INO.com Contributor - Metals


History repeats again and again as human beings don’t change; they only change on the surface. There is a good lesson learned from the Gold Rush in the 19th century – there were some lucky diggers, who made a fortune, at the same time many merchants who were selling equipment and jeans became rich. But many adventurers left broke.

These days we have the Crypto-Mining Gold Rush led by Bitcoin with a market share of more than 60% and market capitalization over $124 billion. This coin is worth as much as the Hungarian GDP and exceeded the market cap of NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) – one of those “merchants” selling “shovels” to modern “diggers” aka miners.

Today, as long ago, the competition gives an advantage to cooperated mining pools with the most advanced equipment, lowest electricity, and labor costs. That’s why there is no surprise that the top mining pools are located in China (70% of the Bitcoin hashrate).

There are two main types of suppliers to the crypto mining industry: electricity suppliers (up to 70% of all mining costs) and equipment suppliers. The massive demand for mining equipment attracts nimble middlemen, for instance, they resell the ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits, microchips) for 2x-3x of the original price tag, making relatively risk-free money on modern “diggers” that risk a lot. Continue reading "The Modern Gold Rush: These Three Stocks Could Benefit"

Modern Paradox: As Large As Goldman Sachs But Has No Intrinsic Value

Aibek Burabayev - INO.com Contributor - Metals


The Riddle

This riddle could be paraphrased as “It is almost worth the gold reserves of France (World #5), it is what all want now at the price of 2016, you would be eager to have it as a gift last Christmas, it stands at 14 GDPs of Kyrgyz Republic (my motherland)”. Yes, you got it right, it’s a Bitcoin - notorious, attractive and, of course, risky.

Last week the market cap of this coin hit an all-time high at the 99+ billion dollars increasing ten times from what it was just a year ago.

Chart 1. 1-year dynamics of Market Cap of Bitcoin in USD

Dynamics of Market Cap of Bitcoin in USD
Chart courtesy of blockchain.info
Continue reading "Modern Paradox: As Large As Goldman Sachs But Has No Intrinsic Value"

This Coin Smashed All...Again...And Again To Pieces!

Aibek Burabayev - INO.com Contributor - Metals


A year ago I wrote about the comparative dynamics of three outstanding kinds of money of different generations – the older generation was represented by gold, the 20th-century generation was represented by the Dollar (Index) and for the modern generation I used the cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC). I think some of you have just discovered the serious value of Bitcoin as it just crushed the rivals doubling its value. The dollar index (DXY) gained only 8% as gold showed negative dynamics in 2015. Below I put the result of the poll you voted on a year ago for the 2016 year performance.

Chart 1. Voting results January 2016: You Bet On Safety

INO.com Bitcoin Poll Results

I noticed that there are a plenty of gold bugs among regular readers as gold gathered the most votes. The second position went to bitcoin and it shows that there are many modern enthusiasts among our readers. It looks like the least amount of optimism was felt about the US dollar’s future although it didn’t rank the last in 2015. Let’s see, in the chart below who the winner was. Continue reading "This Coin Smashed All...Again...And Again To Pieces!"

Which Asset Is A Top Gainer? Silver? Bitcoin? Try again!

Aibek Burabayev - INO.com Contributor - Metals


At the start of this year, I wrote about Bitcoin and its unrivaled blast-off dynamics compared to conventional assets for the Y2015. Of course, the main reason for this was the effect of the 'start-up.' In other words, if we get something useful and demanded out of 'nothing' or better say virtually it surely will show you the rocket dynamics on the chart.

Digitalization is in a full-scale offensive with the smart things coming more and more in our life. The word 'SMART' at the beginning of something new and technologically advanced from SMARTphones to SMART contracts is now a common thing.

Technology moves at a terrific speed these days and what was at the avant-garde of it a few years ago was Bitcoin; now it could be deemed as traditional or outdated. Today I would like to show you a brand new star of the market, which is called 'Ether.' Continue reading "Which Asset Is A Top Gainer? Silver? Bitcoin? Try again!"

This Coin Beats All!

Aibek Burabayev - INO.com Contributor - Metals


Break Rules, Change The World!

Indeed, we are living in an exciting time of dramatic changes in our world. Nowadays, when you talk about the channel, it can be YouTube, not MTV. When you need a ride, it can be Uber, not a taxi. When you are going to shop it can be on Amazon or Alibaba, not at Wal-Mart and we can count on further changes in the future.

By the way, Uber is the largest taxi company, but it has no cars, same as Alibaba which is the largest retailer, but it has no stores. Today I want to review the currency that has no controlling government, but has the value, the value that people are ready to pay for with real fiat money.

Cryptocurrency, digital currency, virtual currency are all the names of Bitcoin (BTC), the digital asset as described in Wikipedia. It doesn't matter what you call it as long at it performs well. Let's look at how it has been behaving for the last year on the chart below. Continue reading "This Coin Beats All!"