Member Info for HarChris

I agree wholeheartedly Blubay as long as folk are able to distinguish between the derampers that pop up to celebrate Argo's share price falling and the rest of us who are discussing Argo and the space without any bias. Personally I don't feel vindicated by seeing Argo drop lower and lower as I never predicted it, I've merely highlighted the risks and shared that I think the odds are higher that is goes this way than the opposite. I was a happy buyer at the right price prior to the FTX fallout and subsequent worsening of the macro environment - from that point onwards I've seen no value at any price.

More interested in the space in general. Just bought a few Hut8 to add to my Riot and Bitfarms holdings. Probably my lot now.

Yeah. It is not actually 20% up today, nobody buying on Friday is in profit today, let alone 20%.

Well a few days ago it was looking like the difficulty drop was going to be fully reversed, so it's still something.

Still think that winter in the western hemisphere is playing a part in the stubbornly high difficulty, as things stand we're likely to see large amounts of hash come offline when there's no home-heating benefits to be had and that'll likely coincide with the likes of Corz (and maybe argo) finally going to the ground.

If those that remain after capitulation are healthy enough to hold onto their newly minted coins that could well be a catalyst for bitcoin to recover.

It hasn't gone up 20% today, it closed Friday at 3.05p but the UT made it appear that it closed at 2.7p - it is in fact just under 1% up right now.

Besides a momentary flash drop to 2p this is lowest the share has been since 2019.

Notice how some on here critique posts whilst others just attack individual posters?

Lolol I was making a point that not all arguments are equally valid. And there’s a HUGE difference between being economic with the truth and downright lying in an rns. The former is hard to prove, the latter is easy.

I accept there are alternative views but if, in my opinion the argument is weak at best and downright nonsense at worst I will voice that. You’re welcome to argue that PW is the messiah and will summon God to save Argo but that doesn’t mean that view will hold any weight amongst the financially educated on here.

I'm sorry but second guessing what the company has told you and theorising that they are in fact not as cash strapped as they are letting on is an absolutely ridiculous approach to take. Broadcasting to the market that you are distressed and about to go under is *NOT* a smart tactic for a company in a sector that is totally unloved right now. It is also highly illegal to mislead the market like that.

DCA'ing companies that have fallen on hard times but likely to survive is a reasonable strategy, dca'ing into distressed companies that are telling you they are about to go under without someone rescuing them (and have gone ten weeks so far without any help) is stupid. Take a punt if you want but dollar cost averaging in Argo now doesn't even make any sense.

It's a little more complicated than that Jtan. Yes BTC went through that cycle but in the meantime bitcoin miners rose as much as 10000%. Those that leveraged their share price the most, i.e raised the most and acquired the most through issuing shares at hyperinflated levels are now well set up for whatever the downturn has to throw at them however those that didn't make the most of it, took on too much debt and failed to maintain liquidity (through cash or holding onto bitcoin) have blown it.

If crypto becomes popular again the miners that have survived in one piece will boom again but Argo isn't one of those.

In the same way as we should avoid being sucked in by the bulls when times are good be wary of the bears now. Many of them are perma bears that have been shouting the markets down for decades and only now are getting serious traction because their recent predictions will make them look credible.

Example: Harry Dent also predicted in March 2021 that we'd likely see the 'worst crash ever' by June of that year.

https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2021/03/10/harry-dent-biggest-crash-ever-likely-by-end-of-june/

He also predicted a 70-90% stock market crash in 2016/2017. Maybe he's right this time but worth bearing in mind.

I don't think anyone should be dismissed on age alone but we're talking hundreds of thousands of people that have never invested before hanging on their every word at the time, believing they were going to become millionaires and doing everything they could to get hold of more money to lump on.

This is not a professionalised industry whatsoever.

There is obviously useful information to be gleaned from charts but macroeconomics has far more power to drive price. So many examples looking back of quite ridiculous moments but what's probably maddest of all is how numerous 20 year olds have become so called leading financial experts, kids only just out of school... One of my favourites is this video where, after bitcoin reached an all time high of $68990 on November 10th 2021, it then fell back 10% to about $64000 just two days later. Pompliano decided to make a video with Will Clemente titled 'is the bitcoin bottom in?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-DKsxEchJ0

I'm not sure any of them are nefarious as such but they have a huge platform and influence and they used it to hype the hell out of bitcoin right near the all time highs.

Youtube experts have been predicting the bottom being in for six months+ now, for all their pumping efforts there is no way it's going to fight against the stock market and macroeconomic tide at the moment.

I remember Will Clemente's extensive charts and reasoning in June for why the $21k to $23k range was a once in a lifetime opportunity to accumulate bitcoin and how it was very unlikely to go any lower than that. I could name another 6 or 7 like him that have made bold claims of the bottom being in and being out by some margin (and many months further down the line now).

Charts aren't much use currently, bitcoin won't recover until new entrants with serious money enter the space again.

I hope for your sake you're right PI. My guess would be that they are planning to give away the majority of their assets in order to keep afloat, perhaps to NYDIG (hence amending the equipment finance deal but on far worse terms than they initially wanted). If that occurs Argo survives but they'll be a shadow of the company they were before and any chance of a meaningful recovery would be all but over.

They should both be fine but there's a very simple reason Riot is looking the far better miner, why Mara's fall over the past month alone is treble that of Riot's... Because Riot's debt is tiny in comparison. We're talking roughly $120m vs $780m. Riot's bitcoin holding is unrestricted too, unlike Mara's although they are dealing with that currently.

However thanks to Mara's debt being almost entirely long term all they have to worry about is the interest (majority at a mere 1%) they are both more or less guaranteed to make it to 2025 irrespective of whether there's a bull run or not in between.

I believe they'll be another bull run so if I'm to pick up another miner in the coming months, assuming further share price depreciation, it will now be Mara.

I tend to agree, value at any given time is what another entity would be willing to pay for it and that's about it in this market. With a wider recession looming and bitcoin depressed it's hard to picture that changing any time soon.

If only Argo could mothballed their operations then they'd at least be able to go into hibernation (on a shoestring budget) which would buy them longer for things to turn around. Then with bitcoin rising on the flip side Helios may once again be worth a meaningful amount.

In the November update they said this: 'Should Argo be unsuccessful in completing any further financing, Argo would become cash flow negative in the near term and would need to curtail or cease operations. ' This led me to think simply temporarily winding down operations and reducing costs to just the fixed and the debt repayments were an option but then the most recent RNS no longer uses the same wording (and focuses instead on Chapter 11).

Riot are the best value now because they essentially raised ~$1B when their share price was topping and that more than makes up for the vast fall in the value of the assets they bought with it.

The rest of the miners vary between those that also leveraged their overinflated share prices in 2021 and took on minimal debt all the way to those that barely raised and mainly funded through debt. That's the biggest dividing line currently and then the rest of the differences comes down to costs (PPA, efficiency etc)

Exactly, Riot bought Whinstone for $651m - if they had bought it with debt they'd be another Corz right now but they paid 90% of it in shares, at $48.37 a share!!! That's what you call leveraging your overinflated market cap (current share price $3.80).

Realistically it would probably be valued at ~$150m now.

Riot has the freedom of $255m cash on hand, they can go ahead and spend what they want and wait out however long it takes for bitcoin to turn - Argo hasn't got that luxury.

If I had a Rolex watch it's worth a lot more to me if I have no need to sell it - if in desperateness i'm forced down the pawn shop do you think they'll give me full value?

It's disingenuous to argue that Texas, that the Helios facility is worth nothing, that's not true. It can certainly be argued that it's not worth what Argo paid for it but it won't be a million miles off what it's marked down as in the accounts.

The machines and equipment however, that's a different story. This mining sector is quite unlike any other in that the value swings grossly depending on bitcoin's price/ sentiment. Right now the 2.5EH/s of machines will be worth about 20% of what they were considered to be worth in the last financials.

I imagine if we were to see updated financials now total assets would be at around the same level as total liabilities.