Member Info for fleccy

Bitcoin is driven purely by sentiment, clearly the hype around the halving is pulling in speculative cash. At some point the speculators will want to sell and take profits since most of them aren't believers, I believe the price will crash at some point post the halving; What goes up, must come down. Anyone who argues that Bitcoin isn't a purely speculative asset, please supply proof.

The hype is driven by massive amounts of content produced by Bitcoin bulls on YouTube, and Financial media channels only inviting Bitcoin bulls in to comment. The message sent out by the sector is HODL, HODL, HODL, but I'd argue the speculators will watch the price movement and a significant turn in the price could cause the herd to stampede. If Bitcoin is such an amazing asset, why is there so much hype directed at people to buy and hold? Surely something World changing wouldn't need any persuasion to buy in. No doubt the clever connected ones will make a lot of money out of Bitcoin, many will lose their shirts.

It depends if OFCOM and the CMA still view BT as having Significant market power. My guess is that BT will eventually spin off half of Openreach, and it will become a truly independent company. BT will likely remain the largest shareholder and may spin off say 49% of Openreach, over time, and put 2% into some sort of Escrow non voting holding company.

The 49% they spin off could either be sold as shares on the open market, or sold to private equity. They probably wont sell all 49% in one go, and may decide to sell in tranches over time.

Openreach is only an infrastructure management company, I believe BT still own all the ducts and Poles, and whatever Fibre BT are paying to put in the ground. I don't imagine that BT will sell the actual infrastructure even if they spin off Openreach, another guess on my part, so BT will always receive rental income for PIA, etc, but will pay Openreach to manage the infrastructure.

All of the above is me speculating, but it makes sense.

Not really mole_man, as much as I agree that it's a massive technical achievement to enable satellite communication using an unmodified mobile phone, I'd suggest the satellite would have had to use the maximum gain available on it's antenna to enable that communication, since the mobile phone wont be able to contribute to the overall system gain. Without knowing anything about the upcoming Starlink service, I can safely say that the satellites will only be able to provide mobile service to a very limited number of mobiles and much will depend on the position of the satellite. It'd be great for isolated areas, but a standard sat phone would be just as useful for emergencies. I can see a market for the service, for remote parts of the World, but it'll always provide an inferior service to terrestrial cell service and would be useless in urban locations.

Mole_man, how do you suppose Starlink satellites would cope with hundreds of phones downloading content at the same time? LEO's would be better used as a backhaul for remote cells, where the cell can offer 5G to local mobiles and use higher gain equipment to deal with communication to the satellite. I could imagine cell to satellite might be good if you're on an deserted island, or really remote location with no cell service, but even ships and planes would be better off using a local micro cell and combining the service to backhaul with the satellite.

I take note of the comparison between art and Bitcoin, but I disagree. There's only one Mona Lisa, or Salvator Mundi, whereas there are Millions of Bitcoins. There's nothing to distinguish one Bitcoin from another, apart from the unique identifier. I think the F Art in a bottle is much better metaphor and comparison for Bitcoin.

If I'm understanding everything, by merger they're referring to Fastweb combining with Vodafone Italia. Vodafone wont have any ownership of the combined entity, it'll be entirely owned by Swisscom. The RNS clearly states "sale" with no reference to joint venture or merger.

"Vodafone Group Plc (?Vodafone?) notes recent media speculation and confirms it is in exclusive discussions with Swisscom AG (?Swisscom?) regarding a potential sale of Vodafone Italy to Swisscom for cash.

Subject to confirming binding transaction documentation, the parties have agreed that Swisscom will acquire Vodafone Italy for an enterprise value of ?8 billion on a debt and cash free basis and subject to customary closing adjustments."

To add to my last post, all the narratives supporting Bitcoin valuations are easily argued against because they're false. The reason Bitcoin enthusiasts are so against CBDC's is because it works against the decentralised Bitcoin narrative; Bitcoin will never be adopted mainstream, because it's insecure by nature and design. The idea of making the data available to anyone and everyone who want's to set up a node is madness, since it's only a matter of time before the encryption is cracked and the chain is either broken or open to theft. Bitcoin is just a rubbish way to transact, it's fundamentally insecure and inferior to other centralised methods which come with protections and institutional backing. I've seen all the arguments reasoning why the Chain can't be broken, or this that or the other wont happen, but time and again hackers have proved themselves able to achieve the seemingly impossible; The more barriers you place in front of the hackers, the harder it is for them to achieve their goals, making all the data publicly available makes it so much easier for them. The Bitcoin community has all the hallmarks of a cult, the big institutional players will likely enjoy relieving the believers of their hard earned cash.

TOTHEMOON Bitcoin is sustained purely by sentiment and belief, what little utility it has can be performed better by alternative methods. Most investors in Bitcoin are speculative purchasers, betting on the price increasing, hence the constant rhetoric persuading people to HODL. Some very powerful figures within the financial World have bet the bank on Bitcoin, and by extension their creditors, and since money drives US politics they've managed to shape some policy decisions in favour of Crypto/Bitcoin. Even if Bitcoin went to $500,000 a Token it would still have no real world use, because the Proof of Work energy intensive method of processing transactions, and the limited number of transactions per Block, will always make it an inefficient vehicle to process transactions. Anyone can produce an alternative Token to Bitcoin, just like anyone can produce their own F art in a Jar.

Forget about AI, as that has real world uses, this could be the next big thing to replace Bitcoin. People talk about halvings, flippenings, Crypto could soon be replaced by the jarrings. There's a limited supply of this new thing and arguably it is as useful as Bitcoin, takes less energy to produce, and can be stored in your safe at home just like your cold wallet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F3r5nXu8lw

Do you mean 90p?

Apologies wrong thread.

"Exactly, they and Hamas are cold bloodedly using their own people as sacrificial pawns to turn world opinion against Israel."

Not really, Israel are doing a really good job of that themselves. I'm no bleeding heart Liberal and consider myself more to the right politically, than center, but looking at the evidence Israel have kicked millions of Palestinians off their ancestral land, penned them into a small strip of land, managed all their resources and given them little hope for the future; Gaza is nothing more than a prison with no guards on the inside and allowing the inmates to run the interior. Gaza has a dystopian feel to it, reminds me of the City prison in the film Escape from New York.

Then you have the West Bank where Israel are an occupying force, with settlers systematically evicting Palestinians off their land to build illegal settlements, with the settlers backed up by the IDF; The Israeli Government facilitate the illegal settlements by enforcing an apartheid regime, where Palestinians are second class citizens in what's supposed to be their own territory. Anyone who defends Israel must suffer from tunnel vision, because as far as I can tell they are probably one of the most oppressive regimes on the planet if you're unlucky enough to be a Palestinian living there.

NOFEAR if you're interested in On Exchange vs Off Book, these charts may interest you:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQ49B8X4hFFdtXb6WUx45CDRcgMt5FBglgZCFc5UnApKRpOX8cznaVjvfKeIWdC6xr70q5wCbdhpFe7/pubchart?oid=570999884&format=interactive

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQ49B8X4hFFdtXb6WUx45CDRcgMt5FBglgZCFc5UnApKRpOX8cznaVjvfKeIWdC6xr70q5wCbdhpFe7/pubchart?oid=2070430100&format=interactive

Total Voting Rights show an increase of 3,410,113 for February 2024

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vS0oSavIsBjHgD7k6NMyk7Z591Cm2IrevvLI-Jq95gOmESrOI0Vi_NhA8LIO9rMz90Y5zCOCoFuEItG/pubchart?oid=1812824850&format=interactive

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vS0oSavIsBjHgD7k6NMyk7Z591Cm2IrevvLI-Jq95gOmESrOI0Vi_NhA8LIO9rMz90Y5zCOCoFuEItG/pubchart?oid=1451011517&format=interactive

As far as I'm concerned it didn't matter who the new CEO was; As long as they keep to the current strategy, which I believe to be correct. BT don't need a big personality, they need someone who'll maintain the current heading full steam ahead. The market has pushed Telecoms into the bargain basket for its own reasons, a lot of potential CEO's, with over inflated opinions of themselves, will shy away from Telecom companies for that reason.

If it does go a lot cheaper I'd view it as an opportunity rather than a negative. BT have stated that the dividend is safe and manageable, so any further drops will lock in an even higher yield for any new investment.

Https://investors.vodafone.com/sites/vodafone-ir/files/2023-11/Vodafone-H1%20FY24-Results-Announcement.pdf

"Net debt increased by €2.9 billion to €36.2 billion (€33.4 billion as at 31 March 2023). This was primarily driven by the free cash outflow of €2.0 billion and equity dividends of €1.2 billion.

Current liquidity, which includes cash and equivalents and short-term investments, is €11.2 billion (€16.0 billion as at 31 March 2023). This includes €3.8 billion of net collateral which has been posted to Vodafone from counterparties as a result of positive mark-to-market movements on derivative instruments(€4.6 billion as at 31 March 2023)."

There's no way Vodafone would agree to 100p to 105p, it dramatically undervalues the company. Any entity would have to bid in the region of £2 to come close to being taken seriously. If the sale of Spain and Italy goes through, it would likely bring the Net Debt figure down to around €20 Billion. Vodacom is worth around €9.5 Billion, with Vodafone's share of that being around €6.1 Billion, then you have all the other parts like the Germany, UK, Turkey, Vantage Tower shareholding and other bits like Mpesa, etc, and that's just off the top of my head. Even £2 a share seems cheap to me.

The Net Debt figure will drop simply as a result of holding more cash on the balance sheet

This is where things currently stands according to Vodafone's Bonds outstanding (EU and US) page:

https://investors.vodafone.com/debt-investors/bonds-outstanding-eu-and-us

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRA1ndHTf_Bz7O_moDxmcbWnEtcusZucUu6lEJvm3O4mGooeH4ErFjRqot3RQHBaVXCgoUED1k2CUVK/pubchart?oid=17624073&format=interactive

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRA1ndHTf_Bz7O_moDxmcbWnEtcusZucUu6lEJvm3O4mGooeH4ErFjRqot3RQHBaVXCgoUED1k2CUVK/pubchart?oid=1681133451&format=interactive

If it's the fact that BT's stock price is incredibly cheap at 104p, then It's something everyone with any sense can see.