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SP is based on expectations of future fair value. The RNS was broadly in-line with expectations. Interesting to see no mention of total mining capacity for the month. This tells me it wasn't worth shouting about or may have been down (if you think about moving rigs for Terrahash for example). In fact I'd say what was more interesting about the RNS was what wasn't in there compared to prior ones. My guess is they're all rammed, but yours is as good as mine.
Next catalyst opportunity is probably a well-timed announcement about the annual accounts being released on BTC's next leg up, followed by the accounts themselves. Really I'd like to see Peter do an interview with Tamzin on PI World or a session on Mello before then if possible but I wouldn't hold out. If you want the SP to move up we need new money to come in.
I saw a brain-dead comment from Kevin O'Leary about clean bitcoin and China. I thought I'd help investors debunk some myths around this.
Firstly, there is a difference between a clean/green mining operation and a clean/green bitcoin. The former is possible, the latter, based on a misunderstanding of what bitcoin is and isn't. The first (as far as I tell) clean/green mining pool is OgNasty's Nastyclub, set up in 2017 along with others that are no longer around or at least public. ARB will be part of the second. As far as I can tell what they're aiming for is clean/green energy sources. This offsets the environmental cost of bitcoin mining, but not as much as you might think. There are lots of individual clean/green mining operations, many in China who use almost free Hydro during the wet season. Peter touched on this in his interview with Scott Melker on the 1st: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uykUWtB3MHo
The second stage of any clean/green operation will be optimising for things like heat. There's been some great advances in Seebeck/Peltier systems using temperature differentials to generate electricity. ARB have a good opportunity with the Texas facility to look into optimising and reusing waste energy. Think of this as the brakes on an electric car charging the battery.
The final stage of a clean/green mining operation is to look at the supply chain. ASIC Miners are like everything else made using conflict minerals. This is an extremely difficult long-term problem to solve. Companies like Fairphone have been working on this for years. For ARB I think this will become a problem they can start tackling if they start building their own miners. I've whinged about their diversification into Pluto not being real diversification - The Epyc partnership I see as a much bigger deal. If Argo are building (and selling) their own mining kit I see that as a better long term revenue stream through the medium of supply chain security alone than proof of stake although I'll gladly eat those words 10 years from now.
Secondly, claiming that a bitcoin is virgin or clean misunderstands how block rewards work. Bitcoin tracks quantities, not individuals with entire transaction histories. When mining the block rewards contain fees - this dirties the newly mined crypto with previously existing bitcoin. Craig Warmke wrote a paper on all this here: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a04850db1ffb6baba2f5d2f/t/5f66419c902e0625b9101b19/1600536998413/EC.CES.9.16.20.pdf - it's well worth a read but the TL:DR is this: There's no real control over the composition of a fungible token tainted by the inputs and outputs of other tokens.
This applies to Bitcoin, not necessarily to other tokens. I thought it'd be useful to some here. Now when you hear people talking about Virgin, Green or excluding Bitcoin made from specific nations the person speaking usually doesn't understand Bitcoin.
Realistically big moves need two things: a catalyst (e.g. big news) and momentum. I think we'll get some good news next week and there are people here who'll pump their ISAs straight into ARB. Whether that translates to momentum is anyone's guess.
If BTC blows a local top before we resume momentum BTC could be left consolidating for a few months before the next move up. In that case the Pluto IPO may be the next catalyst candidate. If BTC hits a final top early then we might have to wait till Texas delivers results. The Nasdaq appetite will likely be different in a bear market to a bull one.
We're drifting a little and caught in a range, I think we'll break out to the next plateau eventually. Just needs the right news sequence at the right time.
The dilution killed momentum and caused a sell-off. That's done but the momentum is gone. Frank Timis has sold out but that's gone. The lack of momentum means there's little volume and little new blood coming in. Last week's announcement made a bump to stop the slide, but there should be a stonking update probably next week. Sit on your hands for a week and wait for the news. If momentum can be built from there we should see a resumption of volume. If not, expect things to be slow for a while.
If the whole thing was just for PR that would be a terrible departure from everything we've seen to date. I just don't think they'd come this far over time to then come up with a short term announcement with no meat underneath. That's the kind of crap I expect from some dodgy AIM share, not Argo.
If as @Kozzi points out DMG were supposed to be running Bitmain's Texas site DMG might be helping Argo with their Texas site. If DMG are fulfilling contracts, leasing out hashrate to DMG in exchange for help on building Texas would be a good move. Not the only option, I'm sure we'll find out in due course. Am I right in thinking Argo has some Bitmain gear? If both have the same bitmain gear in the pool the tech issues become less complicated.
@LimpingAlong If they were as you put it 'in the business of making money over sentiment' the lowest cost power matters, not the environmental impact. They've made ESG noises before so there's at least some sentiment there on the Argo side. I believe their general ops are all renewable (unless someone knows otherwise).
Front-facing consumer mining contracts like NastyMining's setup work commercially because they control the hardware. Argo won't control DMG's hardware. From a technical standpoint it's an odd setup. I read Argo stopped taking on new mining contracts for others a while back. If DMG are fulfilling contracts, Argo might lend hashpower through a pool to support DMG but that would divert hashpower from Argo's current plans.
"Why do it then?" is a very good question. I guess we'll see when more details come out.
@DSFLAT - It's not the first. Hydrominer was running a green/clean pool from Austria, NastyMining have run a green/clean pool in Arizona for years. There have been plenty of others, most don't survive because running a green pool is counterintuitive. Individual green rigs, sure (and there are many - f2pool has many greent mining facilities in their pool but isn't 100% green). A green pool can't be open to all so there's not much point in doing the pool. Different mining Cos will use different gear with different optimizations and different cost bases. Working out what to mine across multiple miners in a closed pool is usually more hassle than it's worth.
Not saying it can't be done as it clearly has been done before but doing it doesn't add real value, nor does it make a mining operation green/clean.
@stnz pools use software to coordinate mining activity. The software picks the crypto based on optimal reward the miners mine. More hashrate = greater chance of mining a block. They then split the rewards. Pools are usually public, private or tied to mining contracts.
Public mining pools can't be green because there's no way to audit each contributing miner's power source. There's no real benefit in partnering with other miners to form pools. In fact it's more complicated as different miner orgs have different gear with different capabilities.
Some orgs partner and form private pools but there's no benefit in disclosing power sources. F2Pool is the biggest pool and does contracts. Many (but not all) of it's facilities are 100% green. To have a single combined pool site would be comparable to one of F2Pool's green sites. What's weird is a bit of googling shows this isn't a world first. There are green mining pools out there already. Have been for nearly a decade. They should've checked before declaring it a world first.
To be fair breaking ground on the Texas facility is probably fairly intensive for the team. After all the dilution hoo-hah I'd rather they're make progress on Texas than sit on their backsides doing interviews to pump the SP.
@jezconnor your sentiments re running costs vs placings mirror mine and my takeaway from the funkyfinance interview was that placings is how they run the company, placings will be used as needed and if you don't like it, don't invest.
At https://www.edisongroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Games-Workshop-Group-No-cracks-in-the-plastic.pdf
Interesting write-up, I think their valuation is a tad high but GAW at anything under £100 is a steal. Sold something else in the LISA today and took the opportunity to top up. I still see this as buying Marvel before the first X-Men movie came out.
It's pretty straightforward. Different aspects of the last placing broke the narrative that this was going to be the biggest thing ever. People started diversifying profits reducing share demand and the shares were sold bringing in downward price pressure. It's lost momentum as there's been no news capable of bringing in new money since. Next RNS should be around the 6th. It should be very bullish but it'll take time to recover momentum. When the nasdaq announcement comes out it'll move up. When the mining profits are announced it may move a little. If there's another placing before it goes back up it'll probably be damaging for SP. Be properly sized for this leg and wait. Consolidation after this kind of run is perfectly fine.
Glad I made so many of you laugh yesterday morning with news I'd reallocated some ARB to Greggs. Good results out today. I'm 3% up including fees. Still have plenty of ARB but goes to show sizing is everything. GLA