VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / January 31, 2018 / Blockchain may have been around for going on a decade, but it has only recently started to capture the attention of investors that are very slowly starting to see its near limitless potential. While it’s the word that everyone knows, cryptocurrency (i.e. Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.) is just one application for blockchain. Companies are now beginning to demonstrate their vision in all the other ways that blockchain can reshape our world today from individuals to industrial-scale. The potential certainly has not escaped leadership at Global Blockchain Technologies (CNSX: BLOC)(OTC PINK: BLKCF), a company that is standing out as a leader in the space with a diversified and aggressive investment strategy that is giving investors exposure to the entire blockchain ecosystem.
This is Disruption at its Core – A Trillion Dollar Market
People all too frequently use the word ”disruptor” to try and give a sense of importance to a technology. Blockchain, however, epitomizes the idea of a technological disruptor. It’s not some sort of je ne sais quoi, it’s very definable attributes as a decentralized ledger that transcend nearly every industry and BLOC management is moving with light speed to get in on the ground floor of some of the most exciting, near-term opportunities as an incubator, accelerator and investor.
The world is starting to get a glimpse of blockchain uses. Just last week ocean cargo giant A.P. Moller-Maersk and technology powerhouse International Business Machines (IBM) announced a joint venture to develop a blockchain-based global trade digitization platform. The plan is to bring blockchain into an industry starved for innovation that involves the shipment of $4 trillion in goods each year.
”A distributed ledger technology, blockchain establishes a shared, immutable record of all the transactions that take place within a network and then enables permissioned parties access to trusted data in real time,” the companies said in a statement on the partnership, summing up the value in a matter of a few words.
Kodak (KODK) saw shares skyrocket four-fold this month after saying it is launching a platform called KODAKOne and KODAKCoin, new technology and digital tokens designed to help people protect copyrights to images. Overstock.com (OSTK) has already jumped into the blockchain space via is subsidiary tZERO. Kodak intends to launch its KODAKCoin through tZERO’s much-anticipated security regulated ICO (initial coin offering) exchange, making it the first third-party cryptocurrency to do so.
Retail investors didn’t have a chance to get a piece of the KODAKCoin at the enviable pre-ICO stage, but Global Blockchain did, subscribing for all 8 million KodakCoins that were available, making them the lead investor in the new coin.
”This is about sovereign identity. Kodak was an embattled camera maker that has regained relevance and has the opportunity to displace companies that overran them by empowering artists to protect what is rightfully theirs,” said Global Blockchain President Shidan Gouran in a call with Baystreet.ca.
”This is just the tip of the iceberg,” he added. ”We’re working with companies that are building a variety of tools to make transactions frictionless, data tamperproof and intermediaries obsolete, while at the same time making the information transparent. It’s a revolutionary, once-in-a lifetime opportunity and we’re not going to relent in aiding its development.”
A Multi-Heading Investing Monster in 2018: Photos, Parts, Mining, Gaming
The new year is only about three weeks old and Gouran’s mission statement is clear in their news stream. The Canada-based company’s subsidiary, Global Blockchain Mining Corp., received regulatory approval to complete its purchase of 6,666 Antminer S9s, the preeminent cryptocurrency mining machines today, from Beijing’s Bitmain Technologies for $20.0 million, with delivery expected in March.
Cryptocurrency miners are paid for solving complex cryptographic equations, puzzles if you will, to validate data that is put into a ”block,” stamped with data connecting it to a preceding block and added to the ”blockchain.” Every block in every blockchain, regardless of application must be mined. In the case of Bitcoin, the current payout is 12.5 Bitcoin to the company that solves the equation first, with new blocks created about every 10 minutes. At $12,500 for a Bitcoin, each puzzle is worth $156,250, delivering a fast return on investment for successful miners.
Global Blockchain isn’t taking the traditional mining strategy. Instead it is leveraging the value of the machines as a bargaining chip to use as investment in promising mining companies. For instance, BLOC has a $10 million commitment for a stake in Coinstream Mining Corp., who will accept the equipment as payment. Similar arrangements give the company and its investors indirect exposure to the mining space and its lucrative compensation without devoting resources to the energy-intensive infrastructure.
The company has also recently made a strategic investment in high-performance semiconductor company Spectra7 Microsystems (TSX: SEV). Late in 2017, Spectra7 released a new product line optimized specifically for blockchain processing data centers. Branded BCI-2500, the products enable copper cables up to 3x the reach of passive copper cables at dramatically low power levels than other products today.
Bitcoin mining data centers are little more than rack upon rack of computers designed to do nothing else but solve the cryptographic problems. To that point, the main monthly expense is the energy that they use running 24/7/365 and other energy to try and keep them cool, a bill that can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars every month. A superior product (up to 80% less power consumption than competitors, scalable server and switch line rates, and lower price tag than inferior competitors) that can lower that expense in any fashion while improving efficiency is of great demand to miners worldwide. The BCI-2500 product line is a first-in-class product to address this need. Global Blockchain, or GBT for short, has a piece of that pie now via participation in a private placement that resulted in the company receiving 2,000 senior unsecured convertible debentures with a principal amount of C$1,000 each and 2.85 million warrants to purchase shares of SEV at 50 cents each through January 9, 2021.
Last week, GBT agreed to invest $2 million in Millennial Esports Corp. (GAME) through participation in a private placement, giving the company exposure to gaming, an industry lauded as a prime target to incorporate blockchain technology. The investment comes as Millennial is acquiring 82% of Eden Games, the maker of the wildly popular racing game franchise Gear.Club. The mobile version of the game has been downloaded more than 6.5 million times. In November a console version of the game called Gear.Club Unlimited was released for the Nintendo Switch, the most popular gaming console during the holiday season, which has sold more than 10 million units worldwide. PlayStation and Xbox versions are being developed.
Millennial is expanding into the blockchain space, planning to launch its own token and announcing a new division focused on the creation and implementation of blockchain-based ”in-game and cross-platform” game and digital content tokens. As with the KODAKCoin, GBT intends to be the lead investor in the initial token offering with an investment of $5 million.
Between the more than 20 million viewers of Eden Games’ O’Gaming platform and the almost 7 million users Gear.Club, the content tokens will be introduced to a passionate gaming community.
Investors have been giving a lot of value to companies getting their heels dug in the blockchain/gaming space. For example, Enjin hosts a community of millions of gamers and wants to have ownership of game items built on the Ethereum blockchain as well as a smart wallet. Game developers turn ENJ coins into game assets and players can liquidate the assets back into ENJ currency at any time. Earlier this month, the Enjin Coin had a market cap of $366 million.
UniKoin Gold, a newer version of UniKoin Silver, is a little vague in its strategy, but it appears aiming to become a leader in casino-like payment token and gambling platform. According to reports, they are keeping control of 80% of their tokens, which makes little sense. Still, earlier this month UniKoin Gold tokens had a market cap of $292 million.
This should lend some color to the value and vision of Global Blockchain management to take a stake in a company that already has a massive audience in the Eden Games’ faithful and make you scratch your head about a market cap of only $52 million for BLOC.
For the initial $2.0 million investment, Global Blockchain purchased 2.86 million units of Millennial Esports Corp. at a price of $0.70 per unit. Each unit consists of one common share and one half of one warrant, with each warrant is exercisable at $1.20 per share for a period of 24 months.
The Certainty of Blockchain
Blockchain is a real anomaly in the investment space. There seems to be almost no scenario in which it will fail to transform the world. It is the 1996 Internet on steroids and likely will be bigger than the vaunted Internet of Things (IoT). It makes all the Virtual Reality (VR) hype look like a side note to the 2010’s.
”It’s interesting that some pundits hypothesize that Bitcoin will fail, while others see it going to $100,000 or more and then there’s noise about China and South Korea and cryptocurrencies,” said Gouran during the call. ”The one thing I never hear anyone talking about is blockchain disappearing; all I hear about is new investments in the technology that can turn countless industries on their heads. That’s what we’re passionate about. We’re excited about the future and ecstatic about the diverse portfolio that we are building and the fact that we’re giving everyday retail investors access to the opportunity on the ground floor.”
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Contact:
Aaron Bodnar
aaron@baystreet.ca
SOURCE: Baystreet.ca Media Corp.
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