Blockchain companies on the public markets right now are like models at the prom. Everyone wants a dance and they don’t care how many drinks they’ll need to buy.
Just a few days after we posted our widely shared Blockchain investment primer, the markets went bonkers for anything blocky and chainy. We can’t take all the credit though – this sector has been nutso for weeks.
It’s been a while since mining stocks were up this hard, but the bad news for the resource crowd is the kind of mining everyone wants today involves digging up data, not ore.
HIVE Blockchain (HIVE.V) sprung out of the gates this morning as it often does on a Monday, with big news the market was hoping for. In this case, the company has opted to purchase another mining operation, quietly chugging away in Sweden, generating Bitcoin and Ethereum, among others.
HIVE BLOCKCHAIN TO EXPAND CRYPTOCURRENCY MINING CAPACITY BY 175% WITH NEW DATA CENTRE IN SWEDEN
Hive Blockchain Technologies Ltd. has entered into a legally binding letter agreement dated Oct. 23, 2017, with its largest shareholder, Genesis Mining Ltd., under which the company will finance the construction of a cryptocurrency mining data centre in Sweden. The Sweden data centre will be a newly constructed GPU (graphical processing unit) mining facility with an anticipated completion date of December, 2017.
The company’s cryptocurrency mining capacity, or hashpower, is expected to increase by approximately 175 per cent with the addition of the Sweden data centre.
The mining centre will cost HIVE US$22 million, and Genesis will host, run, and maintain the site in return for a monthly fee.
Sweden presents a nice opportunity for HIVE in that their number one cost – energy – runs slightly cheaper in Sweden than they do in Canada, which is a third of what it would cost in Italy, and half what it costs in the UK.
The news wall well received, with the company coming out of an early morning halt to lift immediately from its $3.05 Friday close to as high as $3.69 before settling in at $3.58, up 19.94% on the day.
HIVE has two other facilities for mining crypto coin, both in cheap-energy-rich Iceland.
Also having a bang up day Monday was Global Blockchain Technologies (BLOC.V) which is bananas, having gone from $0.40 in August to almost $3.60 in October, back down to $1.85, and now back to $3.10.
It’s up 12% today on no news. I still can’t tell you what they actually do, other than ‘invest in the best blockchain blahdy blah.’ No deal specifics out yet, but am hoping to get some face time tomorrow. Meanwhile, the roulette wheel keeps spinning.
This one we are going to take some credit for: Leonovus (LTV.V) was pretty well unknown until last week, when we dropped some knowledge on you guys and told you we dig it.
Up it went today, up 33.3%.
Okay, it also put out news that a Big 6 Canadian bank is using them for a proof-of-concept deal.
LEONOVUS ANNOUNCES AGREEMENT WITH A BIG 6 CANADIAN BANK FOR ITS BLOCKCHAIN HARDENED LEONOVUS 3.0 DATA STORAGE AND SECURITY SOFTWARE
Leonovus Inc. has signed a proof-of-concept agreement with one of Canada’s Big Six banks. Leonovus will install its unique blockchain-hardened software (Leonovus 3.0) to assist the bank in developing a multisite data storage management fabric with complete data security, performance and compliance metrics that meet or exceed the bank’s data governance policies.
After installing the Leonovus 3.0 platform, the company will develop return on investment and total cost of ownership models regarding the reduction and optimization of data storage and data portability for the bank. Leonovus will also help the bank to leverage its current storage assets to form a secure and compliant private cloud storage network that will dramatically reduce data storage costs while increasing data security.
No word on what sort of financial return, if any, LTV gets in the deal, so keep your knickers up for now. Regardless of whether the deal is for cash or, perhaps more likely, a chance to win a contract down the road once the details have been squared away, this is DEFINITELY a big win for Leo. Everyone wants a deal with a bank, but not many can get in the door. This is step 1. Several more steps to go but, for now, enjoy the stock profits.
Invictus MD Strategies boss, Lithium-X CFO, and now blockchain impresario Dan Kriznic has touched base about his new company Hashchain Technology Inc (formerly Chortle). It’s early days so not a lot of info out there, but Kriznic wins.
Find the website here: www.hashchain.ca
Lastly, little Calyx Bio-Ventures (CYX.V) is raising a million bucks at $0.07 per share to move its cryptoplans forward. The stock closed at $0.10 Monday. I imagine that won’t take long to fill and I might take some myself. As usual, the news release only told what it needed to.
— Chris Parry
FULL DISCLOSURE: Leonovus is an Equity.Guru marketing client. The author owns stock in HIVE and may commence a business and/or investment relationship with Calyx in the weeks ahead. Hashchain may become and Equity.Guru marketing client in the days ahead.
NB: Pursuant to a resolution passed by the directors dated Nov. 27, 2017, Calyx Bio-Ventures Inc. changed its name to Calyx Ventures Inc. effective as at Feb. 5, 2018. The ticker symbol CYX is unchanged.