US sanctions against Russia, based on its barbaric invasion of Ukraine, have been justified from a moral standpoint, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t unintended consequences that must be accounted for by investors seeking to protect and advance their individual financial interests.
Perhaps the most salient is the risk of a shift in the US Dollar’s reserve status because the sanctions represent a weaponization of the reserve currency’s role. While that may be very effective, it also presents a clear case that could be perceived as a risk for other nations invested in that system.
That may be jumping the gun, but some piece of the outcome distribution for future returns must be tied to the potential for a changing global regime. That implies a hedging basis, which further implies the need for major capital managers to take action.
There are only two options in that equation: Gold and Bitcoin.
While gold has history on its side, Bitcoin is much cheaper to store and far more spendable at this point because it has gathered momentum among financial institutions like big banks and payment systems like PayPal Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq:PYPL) and Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA). Imagine trying to buy groceries with a bar of gold.
With that in mind, we take a look below at some of the most interesting stocks in the cryptocurrency space.
Hut 8 Mining Corp. (Nasdaq:HUT) bills itself as a cryptocurrency mining and blockchain infrastructure company, which is focused solely on mining bitcoin.
The company provides investors with direct access to bitcoin, without the technical complexity or constraints of purchasing the underlying cryptocurrency.
Hut 8 Mining Corp. (Nasdaq:HUT) recently announced that it has entered into an agreement with TAAL to conclude its hosting relationship and purchase 960 MicroBT Whatsminer M31S+ effective May 1, 2022. The ASIC miners are currently installed and running at the company’s mining facility in Medicine Hat on behalf of TAAL.
The machines are expected to provide an immediate incremental hashrate of 81 PH/s, bringing Hut 8’s total hashrate to 2.62 EH/s.
“The incremental capacity will deliver an immediate hashrate benefit as ASIC miners are already on-site, installed and hashing,” said Jaime Leverton, Chief Executive Officer of Hut 8. “Over the past 18 months, we have pursued a strategy that is unique among our peer group: in addition to digital asset mining, we support clients with high performance computing, cloud hosting, and collocation services at our five Canadian data centres so they can succeed in the burgeoning Blockchain and Web 3.0 industries.”
Even in light of this news, HUT has had a rough past week of trading action, with shares sinking something like -2% in that time. That said, chart support is nearby, and we may be in the process of constructing a nice setup for some movement back the other way. Over the past month, shares of the stock have suffered from clear selling pressure, dropping by roughly -26%.
Hut 8 Mining Corp. (Nasdaq:HUT) managed to rope in revenues totaling $57.9M in overall sales during the company’s most recently reported quarterly financial data — a figure that represents a rate of top line growth of 345.9%, as compared to year-ago data in comparable terms. In addition, the company has a strong balance sheet, with cash levels exceeding current liabilities ($346.7M against $26.1M).
BlockQuarry Corp. (OTC US:BLQC) has partnered with Bit5ive, North America’s largest provider of collective management services and mining equipment, and Bitmain Technologies, perhaps the largest and most successful overall company in the cryptocurrency space. The upshot is the development of one of the largest mining operations in the US over the next few years based on an interesting hybrid model, with proprietary mining operations complemented by a rapidly growing hosting business.
The company recently updated shareholders on its name and symbol change. On March 1, FINRA approved the Company’s corporate name change from ISW Holdings Inc. (OTC: ISWH) to BlockQuarry Corp., with a new ticker symbol (OTC: BLQC).
BlockQuarry Corp. (OTC US:BLQC) President and Chair, Alonzo Pierce,, recently noted, “Our name and ticker symbol change with FINRA is just the beginning. The next steps for the Company, as far as exchanges go, would be an up-listing. We look forward to working with both regulators and auditors to make it happen. An up-listing could mean great exposure for the Company and great value added for our current shareholders.”
The company is in the early stages of a massive commercialization process in the crypto space that aims to mobilize power agreements giving it access to 200 MW of mining power driving 56,000 miners paired with its POD5 self-mining operation, diversifying its exposure – which makes BLQC more stable than most of its competitors because it stands to drive revenues without being totally dependent on oscillations in the price of Bitcoin.
“Our December Q report isn’t out yet, but we are looking for annual 2021 revenues topping $1.06 million, which comes in well above our projections from midyear and represents nearly 1,900% growth over our 2020 topline,” stated Pierce. “While we suspected our December revenues to level out a bit as a consequence of moving our self-mining facility from Pennsylvania to our Southeastern U.S. location, we effectively minimized the impact of that transition and enter April with tremendous momentum.”
According to the company’s release, at present, and as covered in recent Company updates, BlockQuarry, Bit5ive and Bitmain are managing and hosting partners in Gaffney. The partners delivered and deployed 20 MW of built-out mining infrastructure before the end of March 2022, as previously projected. The project has been scaling up mining activity on a daily basis and will soon represent the largest cryptocurrency mining operation in the region.
BlockQuarry Corp. (OTC US:BLQC) plans to expand by an additional 80 MW in phase 2 to bring its total capacity to 100 MW, which management believes will continue on to eventually reach 200 MW driven by 56,000 new ASIC rigs. BLQC shares have largely outperformed the broad crypto space as well as the broad market over the past 3-6 months. The stock is now battling for support at the $0.90/share zone after a significant pullback.
Bakkt Holdings Inc. (NYSE:BKKT) describes itself as a company that provides platform that operates in the intersection of cryptoassets, loyalty and rewards, and payments.
The company’s platform is designed to expand payment offerings, create new revenue streams, and increase customer loyalty.
Bakkt Holdings Inc. (NYSE:BKKT) recently announced that American Bank has selected the Bakkt® crypto connect solution to enable their bank customers to buy, sell and hold the two largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, bitcoin and Ethereum.
“Consumer saving and investing habits ebb and flow constantly, but more than ever we’re seeing consumer intrigue and interest in cryptocurrency grow,” said Sheela Zemlin, Chief Revenue Officer, Bakkt. “Research1 has indicated that consumers would prefer to access crypto from their existing bank, and we’re excited American Bank is partnering with Bakkt to provide customers a simple on-ramp to cryptocurrency within their trusted bank relationship. American Bank shares our view that banks have a short window measured in months or quarters to execute on their crypto strategies or risk being left behind.”
Even in light of this news, BKKT hasn’t really done much of anything over the past week, with shares logging no net movement over that period. Over the past month, shares of the stock have suffered from clear selling pressure, dropping by roughly -35%.
Bakkt Holdings Inc. (NYSE:BKKT) has been riding a wave of growth in terms of financial performance, but questions remain about its ability to scale and its balance sheet. Shares of the stock have been testing deep support over the past four months with the $4/share level representing a particularly key zone of interest.
Other key players in the crypto space include Block Inc. (NYSE:SQ), MicroStrategy Inc. (Nasdaq:MSTR), Overstock.com Inc. (Nasdaq:OSTK), and Coinbase Global Inc. (Nasdaq:COIN)
