Member Info for Lottohopes

GSSpanner: no issues. It’s just musings :)

Kozzi: Theodore Papadakis has been appointed head of data centre ops. Whilst people are arguing about how rubbish the company is and how the share price is languishing, the team is being bolstered. Additional job ads also out for 2 repair techs on LinkedIn. Presumably there are some interesting plans for expansion, but they aren’t just chucking money at miners.

I think Texas property is being built from ground up, to allow Argo to have other revenue streams apart from bitcoin or alt coin mining. We know ePIC is going to have some space there, and this allows us to customise miners to suit our requirements. The current share price reflects the fact that Argo CHOSE not to participate in the arms race that bitcoin mining has become. Instead we have chosen to diversify, to go into DeFi, NFTs and other threads. The value of our investments there or indeed any other projects that Argo labs is pursuing, is not obvious at this stage.

It has been incredibly frustrating for bitcoin believers who chose this as an ISA wrapped vehicle of exposure, to watch it get decimated month after month. The argument then boils down to: does one want exposure to the myriad aspects of blockchain without the headache of looking into various companies, a sort of one stop shop for blockchain upside? Or does want a bitcoin pure play. This is not a bitcoin pure play or hasn’t shaped up to be and may well be outstripped by other listed companies during the bull run. It will come into its own when the rest of the sector gets the attention it deserves, when the sector matures. Indeed I believe it will shine if/when bitcoin goes into a bear. Some of the other miners might find themselves over leveraged, with machines that are not returning on investment. Raoul Pal speaks about diversifying into the space instead of being a bitcoin maxi and believing that huge money will flow into the space; and there will be numerous projects/few coins that will hit jackpot; whilst many will flounder and disappear.

Put another way, investors need to ask-are they investing because they wanted bitcoin related exposure? Or did they want exposure to the wider crypto space including DeFi, NFTs and other projects? If its the former, then there are many other miners out there and the market is pricing us against peers. If its the latter, then the upside is unrivalled. I cannot see any other bitcoin miner diversifying as strategically as we are.

I do think the time line slippages are being punished by the market too. I hope Peter understands that time lines need to be respected. Our expansion in March-May got shelved via an RNS in June. Our next RNS said capacity would be upgraded by mid Oct. Now we get an RNS stating “mid” Q4, which is second week of November. Its a volatile landscape, transit delays, chip shortages, manufacturers probably milking the cycle. All understandable. The slippage in Pluto listing plans hasn’t helped us either.. All this is just translating into poor sentiment and can switch in a heart beat. If the machines are getting installed as planned and next 4-5 weeks sees our capacity increase to 1.7EH, the numbers look compelling. Until a plan is executed, it remains just that. A plan. Peter is described as a guy who likes to get things done. The gauntlet has been thrown down. Can he get this done? I think so. Just 5 weeks to find

Thanks for sharing the video Sunshine69 :)

https://argoblockchain.com/meet-the-team/

Website has few updates inc team additions. Patience needed. That’s it. Paid to sit on our hands.

Starting new threads, desperate deramping. :) just hold and wait patiently. Once bitcoin crosses its previous ATH, the greed kicks in.

We don’t need to wait years imo. There are plenty of risk averse/fearful people who are watching both bitcoin and miners from the sides. There is doubt about a further leg up or not, in many investors minds. Once (if) bitcoin crosses it’s all time high, many of those on the sidelines will jump back in. Ridiculous as it sounds, greed always triggers action. People aren’t willing to buy at £1.20. But they will at £2, £3, £4 just like the last rise lol. ARB will surpass previous highs if bitcoin does what many are saying it will. Big if I know. But high risk is high gain. All imho. I have chosen a long time preference of decades as far as bitcoin (and miners) is concerned, rubbish at trading so not fussed about bumps in the road.

Nearly 30% of ARB was held by American investors. BEFORE this IPO. What is notifiable and what is in the hands of PIs is two different things. DYOR.

I referred to ETC attacks being unsuccessful based on founder members saying so. Some of the thinkers behind ETC are the original ETH team who worked alongside Buterin. They are determined to keep developing it. They see it becoming the base layer for smart contracts. It’s an asymmetric risk for non techies like myself. Quite happy to take it.

Longinvestor: your observations are correct. Henry also published a paper on ETC. I like it because its the underdog and has held on to immutability (unlike ETH). I hold a fair bunch of ETC because the arguments in its favour appear convincing. However going against ETC being favoured by Argo, is the fact Hamdy Argo’s systems manager on one occasion poked fun at it (on twitter) saying it has had 51% attacks etc (which btw were unsuccessful). Not long to find out.

Repair and maintenance being in house or on site would bump up efficiencies. ePIC having space at Texas to develop its product/s, jointly contribute to maintenance would create a truly seamless vertically integrated mining outfit. This will take time but worth pursuing imo.

I think machine down time/inefficiencies is also a big unknown factor for all miners due to which our rudimentary calculations often end up incorrect.

Thank you Zydecoco, sharp observations as always

the_chuz: I think several other coins/projects will succeed, it needs time to mature and obviously many will fall; diversifying into blockchain is the way forward. Indeed I think a counter cyclical growth strategy is important. Our prospectus mentions that proof of stake and DeFi projects are on our to do list. Argo innovation Labs is working on it. The issue for share price is we are simply compared to other bitcoin miners and values accordingly. If one believes the diversification strategy then this has bigger potential than the pure bitcoin miners. If not, then one should sell, as other miners have grander plans than Argo. The market is fickle and bitcoin has had violent corrections. Buying new machines by the truck loads and then worrying about returns on investment is not what I m looking for, from Argo. I concede others might want it to emulate what US miners are doing.

To add: I believe we are building 3EH by Q2 22, but buying only circa 2EH machines from Bitmain. Ie the rest goes to ePIC machines. These will likely be a different coin/asset and this is intentional diversification. And I reckon a proportion of solar energy supply will be established by Q2 22. Again conjecture and time will tell.

Longinvestor: some of this is conjecture on my part. For ex there has been mention of a renewable energy mix in our plans for Texas. Apologies I don’t recollect the exact source. Soluna mentions developing 50MW of power in the US, but doesn’t give any details. They mention that a 3 acre site can support a 25MW data centre. It talks about discrete containerised data centres, operating off isolated energy sources. Soluna is mentioned as a partner of ePIC on ePICs website.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210415005241/en/ePIC-Blockchain-Completes-7.5-Million-Series-A-Financing-Round

Above article mentions funding round, 3 rigs aimed for 2021 and early orders for ePICs rigs. Of course there may well be delays due to chip shortages. But Henry has solid links with TSMC given his previous tenure at AMD. I have read elsewhere about ePIC considering listing in the future. The August RNS stated we had the option of investing $5m into ePIC stock.

Another partner of ePIC mentioned is Core Scientific. This is another giant due to list imminently on Nasdaq, and describes “vertically integrated mining”. Incidentally these exact words were used by Henry when describing the collaboration with Argo. Note the comment suggesting integration, by Luxor CEO in that funding round article: “With the triumvirate of Luxor's mining pools, Argo's infrastructure and ePIC's mining machines, the North American mining landscape has never looked better.” Luxor has also mentioned it will list in the future. Their hashrate optimising software for ZCash was trialled by us. I recollect they are working on similar software for bitcoin hashrate optimising.

Our close relationship with Core Scientific has been mentioned time and again. The general idea amongst investors is of listed miners competing with each other in an arms race. However I believe PW is keen on a culture of collaboration. We see this in Terra pool and other innovations. I see us leveraging the solid relationships we have developed over the last few years, to grow smartly. Energy is unnecessarily wasted when people are divided and fight each other. That’s true at every level. Atleast that’s my two pence belief.

Longinvestor: I humbly disagree on some your comments. Epic blockchain is due to release the second of its 3 miners scheduled this year. Given the pedigree of people like Henry Quan, I expect big things from epic within 3-6 months. They intend to disrupt the market. N America desperately seeks its own producers of ASICS. Argo is a partner supplying space at our facilities and collaboration. We may invest in Epic if it lists.

Secondly Pluto which is completely discounted with our 25% stake.

Thirdly I m of the opinion some solar energy will be produced at Texas lowering costs further. We will have one of the most efficient vertically integrated mining ops of all the listed miners. Of course I m invested and talking my position. As are you ;) Good luck.

Great RNS to end the week. Expansion occurring in Q3-4 2021 is on time. I doubt they will build a 3EH facility and fill it with just 2EH capacity. There will be further machine acquisitions imo, but it’s best to wait closer to the time of commissioning..

“As we all know the share price is also pretty irrelevant to the team, yes they will make it rich at £1.57 as Individuals…”

What are you trying to say? The options are granted with exercise price at £1.57/share ie they pay that price. You make it sound like they are issued free. Any of us could buy shares lower than this right now.

I’ve clarified this with IR. The blackout is on promotion type stuff. Actual news ie updates, developments have to be reported as usual. They are price sensitive information.

Blubay: Fully agree it’s like an arms race as regards hash capacity and infrastructure. It’s a rat race. But that’s exactly why ARB decided they aren’t rats. They are approaching it more creatively. Full vertical integration of mining process. From energy production to hardware (ASIC miners) to software optimising to owning facilities.

The question is: how much MORE value can be squeezed by owning all aspects of the process? We get to customise every aspect. Whether that’s hashrate (Luxor) or hardware or immersion. It’s my belief that this efficiency will be the differentiator. The green tag is important but as you point out, not unique to us. Eventually the industry will go green.