1. Most analysts in both the gold and mainstream investment communities seem to be in “summer doldrums” mode.  They are nervous about stock markets because of rate hikes and the late stage of the business cycle.  That’s understandable.
2. Unfortunately, they also seem to be unaware of the fabulous uptrends developing in many gold stocks.
3. In contrast, I’m extremely excited by the price action in a wide array of gold stocks, silver stocks, and blockchain currencies.  I have predicted that the upside fun will continue and is poised to accelerate quite dramatically in the second half of this year.
4. Please click here now. Western governments focus on regime change in Mid-East while China takes another step forwards in what I call the gold bull era.
5. Morgan Stanley’s stock market indexes are a institutional benchmark, and China’s gold demand growth is strongly correlated with income growth, stock market performance, and overall GDP growth.
6. In terms of goods and services produced and consumed, China is by far the world’s largest economy.  Soon it will become the richest as well, leaving demographically-impaired and debt-obsessed America in its wake.
7. Gold investors in the West can choose to live in an emotional state of doldrums and boredom, or they can feel great comfort as they watch China put a relentlessly rising floor under the gold price.
8. I choose to enjoy the mild excitement and great comfort generated by the gold bull era.   
9. Please click here now.  While China expands its gold-oriented influence, India is functioning like a gold-oriented starship attached to a Chinese locomotive train with a gigantic rubber band.
10. As the strong season for gold in India begins in the summer, inflation has suddenly started a nasty turn to the upside.  Indians and Germans are the global citizens most concerned with inflation.
11. As inflation begins to stun most observers with the power of its surge over the next eighteen months, I expect Indian gold demand to begin a historic leg higher.  Germans will join the fun, and institutional money managers around the world will commit to substantial gold stock buy programs as that happens.
12. Please click here now.  Double-click to enlarge.  There are only four to six weeks before the strong demand season for gold begins, and does so against the background of more rate hikes, QT, a fading US business cycle, and inflation that could grow like “Jack And The Bean Stalk”.
13. There’s not much time to get positioned in my key $1310 – $1280 buy zone before the strong season and rising inflation raise the gold price floor above $1400 and keep it there for decades.
14. Nervous accumulators can mitigate their nervousness with a put options strategy, but even if bullion pulls down to $1280, I expect many miners to keep rallying!
15. Please click here now. I’m in absolute agreement with Pete Boockvar, and I’ll take his views a step further and suggest that in the current environment QT and rate hikes are going to make inflation grow like Jack and the golden beanstalk!
16. Please click here now.  My “line in the sand” head and shoulders top neckline for US T-bonds looks ready to break.  There could be some hesitation but I think a June rate hike and accelerated QT from Powell will seal this deal.
17. That could create an equity market panic and more concern about real estate mortgages.  Previous Fed hikes have coincided with the start of significant gold price rallies, and this one could turn into a real barnburner.
18. Please click here now. London’s biggest metals dealer has announced bitcoin and gold trading.  There’s a growing synergy between the blockchain and gold community.
19. I expect that to intensify quite dramatically as miners like Agnico and Goldcorp get more involved with the technology.
20. Please click here now. The excitement being generated by the blockchain currency assets is incredible.  ZCASH is a key currency and it has surged 40% just in the past twenty-four hours.  The Gemini exchange run by the Winklevoss billionaires just received regulatory approval for institutional and retail trading of more great blockchain currencies like ZCASH!
21. For bitcoin itself, I have an eighteen-month target of $50,000 a coin, and an ultimate target of $500,000. 
22. I’m a miner myself, and I’m installing a lot of solar panels to ensure I have more than enough juice to power my joyous blockchain era upside ride!  Investors who want to get richer with blockchain currency action can subscribe to my maverick www.gublockchain.com newsletter.
23. Please click here now.  Double-click to enlarge this important GDX chart.  Some individual component stocks of the GDX ETF are going to keep rising in the uptrend and others will pull back a bit before blasting higher.
24. At this point it’s simply unknown which route GDX follows before global inflation begins to grow faster than what I’ll call Jack and his bull era bean stalk!  What is known is that I want all gold community investors to be comfortably invested in key gold stocks so they build maximum wealth as the bean stalk of inflation begins to grow… and grow… and grow!

Thanks!

Cheers

Stewart Thomson , Graceland Updates

https://www.gracelandupdates.com

stewart@gracelandupdates.com

Stewart Thomson is a retired Merrill Lynch broker. Stewart writes the Graceland Updates daily between 4am-7am. They are sent out around 8am-9am.The newsletter is attractively priced and the format is a unique numbered point form.  Giving clarity of each point and saving valuable reading time.

Risks, Disclaimers, Legal

Stewart Thomson is no longer an investment advisor. The information provided by Stewart and Graceland Updates is for general information purposes only. Before taking any action on any investment, it is imperative that you consult with multiple properly licensed, experienced and qualified investment advisors and get numerous opinions before taking any action. Your minimum risk on any investment in the world is: 100% loss of all your money. You may be taking or preparing to take leveraged positions in investments and not know it, exposing yourself to unlimited risks. This is highly concerning if you are an investor in any derivatives products. There is an approx $700 trillion OTC Derivatives Iceberg with a tiny portion written off officially. The bottom line:

Are You Prepared?

Typically, main stream banks are late to the party when it comes to coverage of early stage companies because these companies still present risk to conservative investors. However, since we are in the early innings of the new blockchain/cryptocurrency economy that is here to stay, firms are starting to look at companies that have adopted the new model early. 

One such company is HIVE Technologies Ltd. (TSX-V: HIVE) which listed preceding the huge upswing in bitcoin prices that has attracted analysts’ attention and which presents a compelling opportunity to invest in the new sector.

On Monday, GMP Richardson Securities analyst Deepak Kaushal, P.Eng., CFA initiated coverage of HIVE with a “spec buy” recommendation.

Mr. Kaushal notes that HIVE offers investors a unique exposure to the emerging blockchain sector with a competitive advantage, high growth, free cash flow, attractive return on capital and exposure to diversification in the cryptocurrency space.  

The investment thesis presented by Kaushal is that blockchain technology enables new decentralized economic systems that will profoundly change the nature of monetary transactions and will become critical to the global economy.

“For investors, we see a new, high-risk high-reward sector that has low correlation to other investment classes. We see miners as essential infrastructure providers for blockchain networks that can build diversified portfolios of cryptocurrencies at attractive returns on-investment. Today miners are accelerating investment to capture cryptocurrencies as early as possible, to maximize the potential for value appreciation. Over the long term, we believe miners will become utility-like in their risk-return profile, as blockchain networks mature and cryptocurrency spot price volatility stabilizes. We think miners are a good option for new investors to the sector given the potential for diversification to mitigate company and application-specific risk.”

He set a price target of $5.35.

Secondly, PI Financial analyst David Kwan also initiated coverage noting that HIVE is well positioned to outperform its peers.  Mr. Kwan recommended the Vancouver-based firm with a “buy” rating.

The analyst cited Hive’s low-cost operations in stable jurisdictions and its partnership with cryptocurrency miner Genesis Mining Ltd. which brings a “key competitive advantage.”

“HIVE is leveraging Genesis’ extensive cryptocurrency mining experience and expertise as well as benefiting from cheap power costs, access to leading edge technologies, and lower operating and equipment costs amongst other things… Genesis owns over 25 percent of HIVE and has two representatives on the Board. We believe Genesis has a strong financial incentive to make HIVE a success.”

However, he warned that investing in the cryptocurrency and blockchain sector remains a risky proposition because of the volatility seen in cryptocurrencies and share prices of companies in the sector. He expects regulatory uncertainty and creep to be a problem in the near term.

However, Mr. Kwan is optimistic because Hive stands out in the space. “Some of the key attributes of a successful miner are cheap power, a cool climate…With operations in Iceland and Sweden and its partnership with Genesis, we believe HIVE checks all of these boxes and will be one of the lower cost miners, enabling them to generate stronger margins and cash flow in the good times and better weather the down times.”

The analyst set a price target of $5.25.

As of the close on Tuesday Jan. 30, 2017, shares in HIVE could be purchased for $2.60.

1.   Please click here now. I’ve predicted that a long period of deflation in the Western world would end with a Fed taper, rate hikes, and quantitative tightening.

2.   That’s clearly in play now, and the deregulation of America’s thousands of small banks is perhaps the most exciting event taking place on this new “inflationary frontier”.  Because of these powerful monetary trends, I’ve predicted big problems ahead for Wall Street and somewhat better times for Main Street.

3.   Having said, that, I think investors would be making a major mistake to assume America is going to experience any kind of fabulous rebirth and relive an economic growth era like the 1950s, let alone the Golden Age of the 1880s. 

4.   The country now sports some of the worst demographics on the planet with horrific debt levels that are still growing under a president who is a spectacularly successful businessman.

5.   What happens when President Businessman is replaced with President Socialist?  Some sort of currency revaluation endgame is what happens.  The problems of America and most of the Western world are not going to be solved with pump-up speeches, sporadic tax cuts, and insane “good guys versus bad guys” wars. 

6.   American GDP growth is going to continue to wallow at low levels while China and India blast into what I call the “bull era” at very high velocity.

7.   Global investors need to make themselves great, and the blockchain/crypto asset class is one way to do it with style.  I view blockchain as a sub-sector of the gold asset class.  Importantly, blockchain trading is set to become more regulated very quickly.

8.   Promoting regulation that doesn’t interfere with a market’s price discovery process appears to be a key goal of the Trump administration.  It looks like new bitcoin regulation will be focused mainly on specific criminal schemes.  That won’t stop the great upside price action taking place now on the legitimate exchanges.    That price action is defined by great demand and rock solid fixed supply.

9.   Institutional-grade trading of the cryptos is already beginning to happen, as demonstrated with the superb launch of fully regulated bitcoin futures on Sunday night. 

10.        The launch proved that institutional money managers view the $16,000 price area as solid. 

11.        My long term price target is two million US dollars per bitcoin.  At www.gublockchain.com I analyse the main cryptos that are ready for serious upside action.  A week ago, I highlighted key currency Litecoin at $100 for the gold community, issued a $1200 target, and showed potential subscribers a solid-looking chart. 

12.        To view that chart, please click here now.  Double-click to enlarge.  To view the updated price action since then, please click here now. Double-click to enlarge. 

13.        Even after this mighty blast higher, the $250 area for Litecoin should probably not be viewed as anything but a minor pitstop on a rocket ride to $1200.

14.        I’ll be highlighting what could be the “next Litecoin” for profit-hungry blockchain subscribers today.  It’s critical for investors and freedom fighters to understand that in the big picture, both gold and bitcoin will remain investments that only create huge fiat money profits… until they are widely used in daily life for payment of regular goods and services. 

15.        Then they can begin to compete with fiat money as the money of choice for citizens in a very serious way.  I’ve predicted that this will happen because of the ability of blockchain technology to create digital gold-backed currency.  That currency can be kept in a regulated and insured account, like a bank account. 

16.        Debit and credit cards based on these accounts are coming, and when that happens I’ll dare to suggest that Mr. and Mrs. Fiat are going to start feeling very uncomfortable.  If these blockchain payment systems go mainstream, government could soon find itself becoming obsolete in many ways. 

17.         I predict that central banks will begin buying bitcoin as an asset to hold once it hits $2 trillion in “market cap”.  

18.        The US Treasury should have initiated a bitcoin buy program years ago to help fix the government’s balance sheet.  Instead it wasted precious time playing stock market cheerleader, government bond enthusiast, and ruined the bank account income of ageing citizens.  That was a truly horrific mistake, one that all the citizens of the world can only hope never happens again. 

19.        Please click here now.  Double-click to enlarge this superb daily gold chart.  Gold has a rough general tendency to rally after the US jobs report, unless a Fed rate hike is upcoming.  In that case, gold often stagnates until the rate hike is announced, and then surges higher.

20.        The Fed is scheduled to hike rates tomorrow, and gold is now poised magnificently inside a bull wedge, ready to stage a mighty blast higher if a hike is announcedtomorrow.

21.        Also, Chinese New Year buying will begin very soon.  That tends to bring enormous demand from not only Chinese citizens, but also from gold-obsessed Indians who want to get in on the action.  The combined population of these two countries is about three billion people.  Please click here now.  Goldman analysts just released a key study of gold and blockchain liquidity flows.  I’ll take it a step further, and state adamantly that blockchain will increase demand for gold.  Indian investors will seek to put a portion of their huge blockchain profits into physical gold because they are essentially mandated to do so by their Hindu religion.  Western investors will do the same thing when the stock market finally rolls over.  If gold-backed blockchain currency goes mainstream, demand for gold would increase even more significantly, and do so in a sustained way. I think it will happen.

22.        Regardless of whether it happens or not, when Chindians get serious about buying gold, the most powerful traders in the West also quickly position themselves to profit from the inevitable upside price action.  On that note, please click here now. Next, please click here now. The powerful commercial traders have covered huge amounts of short positions and are eagerly racing to buy longs.

23.        What’s particularly exciting about these two COT reports is that the reports only cover the flows through last Tuesday. It’s highly probably that the commercial traders have taken even bigger buy-side action with gold and silver since the reports came out.

24.        Please click here now.  Double-click to enlarge this key GDX chart.  I’ve outlined the $23 – $18 area as a vital buy zone for gold stock enthusiasts.  Within that price area, the $21 and $18 price points are most technically significant.  The tiny bear flag in play suggests that investors will get a chance to buy the $21 area before an imminent major gold price rally carries GDX much higher.  Investors can join me in placing some larger buy orders at both price points now, to be sure we’re all poised to participate in the ensuing rally time fun!

Thanks

Cheers

Stewart Thomson

Graceland Updates

https://www.gracelandupdates.com

Email:

stewart@gracelandupdates.com

Stewart Thomson is a retired Merrill Lynch broker. Stewart writes the Graceland Updates daily between 4am-7am. They are sent out around 8am-9am. The newsletter is attractively priced and the format is a unique numbered point form.  Giving clarity of each point and saving valuable reading time.

Risks, Disclaimers, Legal

Stewart Thomson is no longer an investment advisor. The information provided by Stewart and Graceland Updates is for general information purposes only. Before taking any action on any investment, it is imperative that you consult with multiple properly licensed, experienced and qualified investment advisors and get numerous opinions before taking any action. Your minimum risk on any investment in the world is: 100% loss of all your money. You may be taking or preparing to take leveraged positions in investments and not know it, exposing yourself to unlimited risks. This is highly concerning if you are an investor in any derivatives products. There is an approx $700 trillion OTC Derivatives Iceberg with a tiny portion written off officially. The bottom line:

Are You Prepared?

On Monday Sept. 15, HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd. (TSX-V: HIVE)  began trading on the TSX Venture Exchange.  The company commenced mining operations and began accumulating cryptocurrency the same day.  It is providing access to the seemingly complex world of cryptocurrencies in a traditional way, through the public markets. However, it is also providing investors a unique opportunity to get access to the blockchain technology that will change how business is done.

At the very core of the global economy are contracts, transactions and records which define the economic, political and legal systems people operate in.  However, the global system has not kept paced with advancements in digital payments systems which is creating massive slowdowns and backlogs for transactions being processed through financial intermediaries; this will have to change.  

Blockchain could solve this problem. The technology is at the heart of bitcoin.  Blockchain is an open, distributed ledger that can track transactions between two parties in a verifiable and permanent way. The ledger is programmable to trigger transactions automatically.

In a digital world where increasingly two parties never meet and will never meet, there needs to be a way to ensure confidence and the origin of any agreement or payment. When Ronald Reagan was negotiating with Russia over a nuclear arms deal, he often quoted a Russian proverb: “trust but verify.”

Blockchain offers this and helps to remove and reduce much of the insecurity and necessary due diligence with a built-in verifiable method, allowing transactions to quickly proceed with confidence which improves the speed of business to match the booming digital economy.

With blockchain, contracts are embedded in digital code and stored in transparent and open databases, where they are protected from deletion, tampering, and revision.

Every agreement, process, task, and payment would have a digital record and signature that could be identified, validated, stored, and shared.  Intermediaries like lawyers, brokers, and bankers might no longer be necessary. Individuals, organizations, machines, and algorithms would freely transact and interact with one another with little friction.  Blockchain is a disturbed network, a peer-to-peer network that does not rely on a central authority because of its inherent security. Here lies the massive potential of blockchain technology.

Blockchain was introduced in 2008 as part of bitcoin, a virtual/digital currency that does not rely on a central authority such as a bank or government for issuing the currency, transferring ownership, and confirming transactions. Bitcoin and digital currencies are the first examples of blockchain technology.

E-mail enabled person-to-person messaging, bitcoin with blockchain accounting enables person-to-person financial transactions without going through a financial intermediary.

The development and maintenance of blockchain is open, distributed, and shared. A dedicated team of volunteers around the world maintains the software. Just like e-mail, bitcoin first caught on with a relatively small community. However, the community of supporters is changing as people are realizing the potential.

According to Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani writing in the Harvard Business Review, at the end of 2016 the value of bitcoin transactions was expected to hit $92 billion. That’s still a fraction compared to the $411 trillion in total global payments, but bitcoin is growing fast and increasingly important with instant payments and foreign currency and asset trading, where the present financial system imposes limitations.

According to a recent IBM study, one-third of C-level executives are using or considering adopting blockchain technology within their organizations. The study found that executives hope to enable new transaction applications that could help create trust, accountability and transparency among their organizations and partners.

Eighty percent of the 3,000 executives surveyed in the IBM study, indicated that they were using or considering blockchain either to develop new business models in response to a changing financial landscape. Furthermore, 71 percent of business leaders who are actively using blockchain believe that industry associations will play a key role in advancing the technology, suggesting widespread creation of industry standards.

The earlier a company is able to develop a business model around blockchain, the better they will be able to control its and its profitability.

Bank of America, JPMorgan, the New York Stock Exchange, Fidelity Investments, and Standard Chartered are testing blockchain technology as a replacement for paper-based and manual transaction processing in such areas as trade finance, foreign exchange, cross-border settlement, and securities settlement. The Bank of Canada is testing a digital currency called CAD coin for interbank transfers. According to the Harvard Business Review, there should be a proliferation of private blockchains that serve specific purposes for various industries.

All this is going to create massive demand for digital currencies to enable the blockchain infrastructure to work. However, there have been many campy and independent solutions created to mine digital currencies however the small scale limits their scalability and corporate adoption.    The heavy data requirements limit the average user from mining without incurring massive expenses.

Industrial-scale mining is highly profitable even with cryptocurrency prices far below current levels. Professional-grade, scalable infrastructure is necessary to support a growing blockchain ecosystem.

In 2013, Marco Streng, a 29-year-old German mathematician, saw an opportunity for industrial digital mining and built a privately-owned cloud cryptocurrency mining company, Genesis Mining.

Crypto miners secure transactions on the blockchain and, in exchange for expending considerable computing resources to do so, are rewarded with newly minted cryptocoins.

Genesis’ customers purchase contracts that secure the computer processing power used to create Bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum. The processing power is produced in data centres built in remote northern locations (to keep the computers cool), with access to cheap electricity and great web connectivity. The company’s first industrial data centre was in Eastern Europe, with facilities added in Iceland,  Sweden, and more planned locations.  

Streng realized something was missing – accessibility. Many people won’t purchase Bitcoins or buy a cloud mining contract because of its complexities–both real and perceived, and yet these same individuals want to invest in what is fast becoming the future of banking and finance.

This is why one company, HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd. (TSX-V: HIVE) was created with the goal of building the leading listed blockchain company through the development and ownership of cryptocurrency mining infrastructure and other related blockchain businesses.

“The concept with HiVE is to give Genesis a footprint outside of the cryptocurrency world and build a bridge from the blockchain space to traditional capital markets,” commented Marco Streng said in an interview.

HIVE fills a gap in the equities markets by offering access to the growth of the blockchain sector in a traditional investment vehicle, shares. Shareholders gain exposure to both an operating cryptocurrency mining business and resulting cash-flow and price performance of a growing portfolio of cryptocurrencies generated from mining activities without having to select from the wide variety of currencies being developed.

HIVE is a partnership between Genesis Mining, the world’s largest cloud bitcoin mining company with over 700,000 customers, and Fiore Group, a leading Canadian merchant banking firm led by Frank Giustra, Gord Keep and Brian Paes-Braga.  

Frank Holmes serves as the company’s non-executive chairman. Mr. Holmes is the founder and CEO of U.S. Global Investors, an award winning asset management firm specializing in gold and emerging markets.

Bjoern Arzt, Tobias Ebel, and Olivier Roussy Newton have also joined the board of directors of HIVE. Mr. Arzt and Mr. Ebel both advise Genesis and are Managing Partners of Logos Fund, a successful cryptocurrency mining investment fund based in Zug, Switzerland. Mr. Roussy Newton is an investment banker and entrepreneur focused on early stage blockchain and quantum computing firms.

Transformative applications of the blockchain are being developed and it is far from being a mature and established industry. But it makes sense to evaluate their possibilities now and invest in companies developing the technology for commercial purposes.

The long term value in blockchain will be most accretive when tied to a new business model in which to underlying value of the peer-to-peer frictionless transactions detaches from the short sighted use of blockchain for cryptocurrencies.  

In the interim, HIVE technologies offers a safe and understandable route to participate and profit in digital currencies and from a technology that is in its formative stage which eventually will change how global payments are done.

The ground floor on blockchain technologies is here.