The number of questions about this one is going off the charts, so I’ll look into it for you — even though it’s related to not one but two bubblicious sectors that are designed for the manipulation of investors, so I might get a little grumpy. Bear with me.
Here’s a little tantalizer from the top of the ad…
“Right now, we are living through not one… but TWO of the most profitable market explosions of all time.
“Cryptocurrency… and marijuana.”
That’s what has Gumshoe readers all hot and bothered about the latest pitch from Matthew Carr for his VIPER Alert service — the idea that somehow the ridiculous trading spikes of marijuana stocks and cryptocurrency prices could be combined into one super-duper extra-huge gain.
And, sez Carr, he’ll “guarantee” you a 2,500% gain on this excitement (don’t get too excited… more on that in a minute). You really couldn’t come up with a better story to lure an investor — two hot trends that taste great together!
So you can probably guess that I’m planning to be a bit skeptical here, as usual. Here’s some more of Carr’s ad, to give you a taste of what we’re being sold:
“As you probably know, California just fully legalized recreational pot use… And this market is projected to surge six times bigger than Colorado’s. Then there’s the Canadian and European markets setting up to be 8 1/2 times larger…
“So you’re going to see pot stocks rocket even higher….
“The main commodities exchanges both launched bitcoin futures recently… the NYSE just applied to list not one but TWO bitcoin ETFs… and Goldman Sachs is setting up their own crypto trading desk.
“It’s clear cryptos will also have a mammoth year in 2018.
“But instead of trying to predict which market will be hotter… crypto or pot…
“I’ve discovered a way to supercharge your returns by playing BOTH at the same time.”
He calls it a “Crypto Pot Trade” and, naturally, the promise of gains is extraordinary… more from Carr:
“The Crypto Pot trade I’ve discovered could alone hand you up to $1.1 MILLION.
“And best of all, with this much potential, you could get started with a small stake and still transform your golden years.
“In fact, I’m going to guarantee the chance of at least 2,500% in the coming year on my Crypto Pot recommendation.”
Just to check the math for you there, to get to $1.1 million you’d need to start with a pretty large investment — even if he’s right about the wildly aggressive 2,500% gains he’s “guaranteeing,” you’d have to start with $40,000 to get to $1 million. If you have enough to bet $40,000 on something this wildly speculative, which you know in your heart has a really strong chance of falling to near zero overnight, then you’re not the kind of person who probably believes ridiculous predictions from investment newsletters. Even pricey ones, like this VIPER Alert (currently $1,597).
And yes, in case you’re wondering, that “guarantee” is easily offered and easily backed up… but it still doesn’t really mean anything. They back up that “guarantee” that the VIPER Alert will present the opportunity for 2,500% returns this year by saying that if they don’t get to that, they’ll give you your money back.
Ha! Just kidding.
Of course, they’re not going to give you your money back if they’re wrong, and they won’t give you a 2,500% return if they’re wrong, either, or make good on your losses if it turned out to be a terrible idea. They will instead give you another year for free — Carr says this puts him “on the hook” for $1 million in free subscriptions if he’s wrong, which somehow is supposed to make us believe he’s really personally committed to this idea and that he thinks this “guarantee” means something… but we know, of course, that offering a free year of an electronic newsletter costs them exactly nothing in marginal costs, and if they actually mail you a paper copy it probably costs them about $20 a year.
This is what I like to call the, “I guarantee you’ll like it, and if you don’t like it I’ll give you twice as much!” promise. Don’t like that yogurt flavor? Here, have another! It’s the same, so you probably still don’t like it… but it’s twice as much!
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To be fair, they’ve gone a step further and said that if you still don’t like it, your pro-rated subscription fee can be transferred over to another Oxford Club newsletter… so you could get another flavor of Oxford-ness if you prefer. But, again, the sale is done and you’ve paid for their advice and their “guarantee” really means “I guarantee that The Oxford Club is going to keep your money.” As we’ve seen in lots and lots of newsletter promos over the years, “guarantee” may cause you to think of the happy little word, “refund” … but they don’t mean the same thing.
And, of course, they have “only 250 slots” available to send in your $1,597 fee — so hurry!
Man, I’m feeling kinda snarky today. Maybe that’s because so many folks asked about this “Crypto Pot” idea, and because it seems like such a transparent money grab. There is, of course, no real connection between “marijuana” and the possible advantages of a distributed ledger… other than the fact that bitcoin has been used since its inception as a way to semi-anonymously buy drugs online. This is just a “there have been two bubbles in the recent past with crypto stocks and marijuana stocks… wouldn’t it be fun if we could smush them together and inflate a super-crazy bubble?!”
So if you want to dabble in this kind of magical thinking, go right ahead — you’re a grown-up, and sometimes people do win the lottery… but please don’t think of it as the real retirement savings you need to be making, or that you can’t save enough for retirement so you have to gamble on finding the next wild bubble stock. Keep in mind that just $250 a month for 25 years, thanks to compound interest, turns into $200,000 in future spending power (that’s at 7% annual returns, roughly the 1950-2016 average after you take out inflation)… so if you’re relatively young and you waste too many of those “$250 a month” investments on wild speculations, you get further and further away from long-term returns that you need for retirement.
If you can’t afford to be investing substantially more than $3,000 a year in saving for retirement, by the way, you should probably run, don’t walk, away from every investment newsletter, especially these expensive “exclusive” or “upgrade” services that cost a lot more than what you might spend on your local newspaper or on a few books or magazines. Try not to spend more than 1-2% of your investable savings on research and advice and investment newsletters and management fees — most folks can’t afford that indulgence, and spending too much for advice is just asking for low returns, whether it’s a foolishly high expense ratio on your mutual fund or a $1,500 newsletter you’re using to inspire the management of a $20,000 portfolio.
Sorry, I have a tendency to lecture when I’m feeling grumpy. I should get back on track… you do still want to know the name of this magical “Crypto Pot” recommendation, yes?
Here are some more clues:
“Due to one event coming on July 1, my research shows the crypto and pot markets are going to collide… and we could see Crypto Pot gains hit the THOUSAND or even TEN-THOUSAND percent mark over time.
“It will soon be all over the news.
“This single Crypto Pot investment combines these two markets…
“Turbocharging their profit potential.”
More details from the ad…
“In short, the Crypto Pot investment I’m talking about is a cryptocurrency…
“One that’s specifically designed to solve a HUGE problem specific to the marijuana industry.
“I’m talking about banking.
“This industry desperately needs financial services.
“Checking accounts… payment processing… currency exchanges.
“Because here’s the thing.
“While some states and municipalities have legalized weed, there are still strict regulations about pot at the federal level.
“And that often means pot companies can’t use banks to handle their finances – or even accept credit card payments.”
And you can already guess what’s coming next…
“BUT a new Crypto Pot currency is set to solve all of that.
“As Investopedia notes, ‘Cryptocurrencies are making it easy for people in the marijuana business… to carry out transactions.'”
“… now that the industry is really starting to take root around the world…
“A Single, Dominant Currency for the GLOBAL Marijuana Industry
“Crypto Pot is positioned to be the “reserve currency” for everything pot-related all over the world. The team wants ‘agricultural goods and services around the world to get priced using the crypto.'”
Well, geez, that means it’s gonna work! My plan should work, too — I “want” all transactions around the world to be made in GumshoeCoin, which I have not yet developed but have a “white paper” for on a post-it note somewhere on my desk, and I will work on it as soon as you send me $100 million (Dear SEC: Just kidding!)
Isn’t it great how different stores use different money? I love how when I go to the grocery store, I use my FruitCoin… and how when I go to the doctor I pay in MedCoin, and that I get to use GasCoin when I fill up at the pumps. This is way better than when we used to use one currency for everything, right?
Said no one ever.
So let’s be clear: There are at least a half-dozen marijuana-themed cryptocurrencies… but there is no reason to use “Potcoin” or “Hempcoin” or whatever the hell else someone dreams up to be the next currency. If the blockchain works to create a viable transactional cryptocurrency that can handle retail sales to the satisfaction of buyers and sellers (which itself seems to be a bit of a stretch, still), you don’t have to have a different currency for each sector of the economy. If a marijuana retailer needs to use something other than credit cards because banks don’t like to deal with illegal businesses, they don’t have to use hempcoin or potcoin if, say, bitcoin or ethereum or whatever future crypto could work just as well or better and possibly also be a viable currency that makes sense for the non-marijuana parts of your existence.
Yes, perhaps there’s a future real application for blockchain — but so far it still stinks as a transaction system on any measure of real-world convenience, cost, or service, and any blockchain-based currency that does end up being useful for transactions, or as a real alternative to the established bank networks, would be fine for everything. If there’s one sector of global commerce that lends itself to “winner take all” business plans, it’s currencies — and having 1,000 different upstart currencies does not mean that any of them will end up being used. Save your blockchain for something it’s good at, whenever you find that, instead of trying to identify niche applications that all do essentially the same thing (facilitate payments outside of the banking system).
Of course, that doesn’t mean this dumb idea won’t go up 10,000%.
Certainly lots of other dumb things have appreciated remarkably on waves of speculative trading, and sometimes some of them turn into real business or real investments in the end… and, well, I hesitate to admit this, but sometimes I’m also just wrong and totally misunderstand the appeal of a business plan or investment. That’s the beauty of what Warren Buffett calls the “no called strikes” advantage: You don’t get charged for avoiding investments you don’t like or understand.
But anyway, what you wanted was the name of the actual coin, right? Thinkolator sez, after reviewing all the clues dropped in the ad, that Carr is teasing HempCoin (chosen abbreviation: THC), which seems to be one of the four or five most talked-about marijuana cryptocurrencies (the others I’ve noticed are PotCoin, CannabisCoin, Paragon Coin, and CannaCoin). HempCoin has been around for about four years, so it’s one of the older cryptocurrencies, and it is self-identifying as focused on providing options for farmers and the supply chain instead of retail purchasers… though that seems to be in flux as well, since their website also says they “aim to offer” HempPAY options for retail customers for card-based and online payments.
Like most other cryptocurrencies, HempCoin appears to be traded on cryptocurrency exchanges, but not to actually be in use — the payment services they aim to facilitate seem to be “in development” and “coming very soon.” So perhaps Carr is basing his “must buy now” urgency on the fact that they could have news fairly soon, I have no idea. The development “roadmap” on their website is not currently available (it’s apparently being revised), but they have been tweeting about their coming developments and implying some progress “soon.”
Here’s more from the ad:
“Eventually, everything in the industry could be priced in Crypto Pot.
“Seeds… grow lights… shipping fees… insurance… and yes, retail marijuana as well.
“It has the potential to take over the entirety of the global marijuana industry.
“The pot business is projected to reach $63.5 billion in the near future…
“So even if this Crypto Pot currency is used for just 20% of that…
“You could see 115,300% gains.”
Wait, what? Just from participating in the blockchain network that processes 20% of the payments, you get massive gains? How?
Last quarter, Mastercard processed $1.4 trillion in payments and only earned $3.6 billion in revenue (mostly fees on those payments), translating to $1.5 billion in income. That’s 0.1% of transaction volume turning into profit for what is arguably one of the most efficient companies in the history of the world.
Presumably this HempCoin or whatever would take less of a cut than that, since cryptocurrencies are supposed to get rid of the middlemen and reduce costs, but even if we assume that the overall “income” is the same as on the Mastercard network, that HempCoin network would someday process 20% of this theoretical $63.5 billion in future marijuana transactions, which would be $12.7 billion… and 0.1% is about $12.7 million in “fees” that are somehow, theoretically, shared across this network.
That’s how cryptocurrencies are supposed to work, right? Instead of paying a fee to a central body, like the Mastercard banking network, which shares its fees among the various members who make it work and takes a little profit off the top… the actual peer participants who verify those blockchain transactions (that’s what “mining” is) are compensated by the creation of new “mined” tokens.
So what you’re buying is a piece of a token that will be comparable to the tokens that future facilitators of the network (miners) earn as participants, so you’re effectively betting on how much those future rewards for miners will be worth. Assuming, of course, that it’s a rational system and that it isn’t faced with technical problems or fraud. This is all just generic “crypto” thinking on my part, I have not read the white papers or details about HempCoin, but I assume it’s designed to be more or less standard in structure.
And, of course, the denominator of this whole thing makes a big difference in the daydream numbers you come up with — lots of people are making wild guesses about the eventual size of the legal marijuana market in the US, mostly the level of recreational marijuana sales (since that’s expected to be the huge volume driver), and most of the estimates I’ve seen put the 2019 estimated US marijuana sales at something in the $15-20 billion neighborhood, though the number is heavily reliant on guesses about California. 0.1% of 20% of that is $3.4 million, a lot smaller than $12.7 million… though both numbers, of course, are made up out of whole cloth and presume a massive market share for a product that doesn’t yet exist.
I don’t know if the number of HempCoin tokens to be released in the future is fixed, or what these “Masternodes” are that they say will be the foundation of the network, but according to CoinMarketcap.com the total value of all the current HempCoins is about $27 million (it was about $150 million back in January, so yes, this one has experienced the same boom and bust spike as almost every other cryptocurrency). So if Carr is right and this HempCoin somehow takes a huge share of payment processing in the legal marijuana business, the “market cap” of the coin can probably be considered rational. Those are big “if’s,” in my book.
All of my skepticism is not meant to imply that banking for the marijuana sector is not a problem — it is. That’s why most marijuana dispensaries do most of their business in cash, just like illegal drug dealers do, though they might well have an ATM on the counter to let that process happen without people having to actually walk the streets with a lot of cash.
And things are gradually easing and changing, it appears, even with the continued pressure from Attorney General Sessions — states presumably want rational banking options for the legal marijuana businesses that operate in their state, if only because it makes it easier to track the taxes they want to collect, and there are lots of stories of retail businesses doing work-arounds to accept credit cards, as well as a growing number of local banks that are willing to provide some banking services to marijuana businesses. There are also already plenty of non-cryptocurrency payment options being pushed forward in the retail marijuana space, including PayQwick out West and probably others being hatched as we speak.
It seems to me, though, that marijuana’s success will be the eventual undoing of all the specialty services built up around marijuana’s “semi-legal” status — if we go to full legalization eventually, and the banking system happily starts to deal with marijuana companies, there immediately becomes no reason for them to be thought of as any different from any other retail or supply chain business. As an aside, that’s a potential future problem for the only “pot” stock I own, too — Innovative Industrial Properties (IIPR) is a REIT that uses buildings to provide financial flexibility to medical marijuana growers: Those companies can’t get bank loans or go public in the US, so they do ludicrously expensive sale/leaseback deals with IIPR, which enjoys rents that are double what a comparable building would earn from a different industrial tenant. If conventional financing becomes more available to marijuana companies, I expect those kinds of deals will dry up in the future.
More blather? You got it…
Carr says… “And as adoption of this cryptocurrency continues to skyrocket… its value will go through the roof.”
Which is similar to what lots of people say about lots of different currencies, and it doesn’t mean anything — particularly since “as adoption continues to skyrocket” is a pretty ambitious prognostication to make for a cryptocurrency that, like almost all cryptocurrencies, is not actually “adopted” for any real world use yet at all (other than the real world use of ‘speculating on cryptocurrencies,’ which is the main use of pretty much all alt-coins so far).
So what’s the real reason for this teaser pitch? Honestly, it seems to me that Matthew Carr is just saying that combining two hot sectors will create a super-spike. And perhaps it will, I don’t know — he uses several examples of cryptocurrencies that were somehow mash-ups with other “hot” sectors (Steem as a social media cryptocurrency, Golem as a cloud computing cryptocurrency, Storj as a cloud storage cryptocurrency, or IOTA as an “Internet of Things” cryptocurrency), and those did indeed rise dramatically into this past winter’s cryptocurrency peak.
None of them make sense to me, so I may well just be missing out, and I may just be an old fuddy-duddy. Time will tell, and I’d be happy to hear your comments on the matter using the friendly little comment box below — you can even be a little mean to me if you want, just be nice to each other.
So what do you say? Will HempCoin save your retirement dreams? Will it become the financial backbone of the marijuana industry and rise in value? Let us know with a comment below.
And, of course, we always want to know what you think of the newsletters you subscribe to — so if you’ve ever tried out Oxford Club’s Viper Alert, please click here to let your fellow investors know what you thought. Thanks for reading!
Well pot and cryptos. Tried that with MassRoots and promptly lost half my investment. Tried cryptos by themselves in an index and promptly lost more than half my money. tried weed by itself and promptly lost more than half again. There be dragons here.
This is best summary of cryptos I’ve seen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6iDZspbRMg
I’m in the same boat as big tuna. Bought MassRoots, not once, then sold, and then was dumb enough to buy another chunk, and sold that, also at a loss. Also tried Oxford once and that was not exactly one of my more brilliant moves.Never again with them. There’s a lot of snake oil salesmen out there guys, and a sucker born every minute.So I’m one and done with Oxford — they, like so many of the other investment newsletters, make their money on selling their hype to wannabe investors, NOT by investing in their own recommendations. I’ve got nine pot stocks now, so pot stocks, si. Oxford and their totally out there pitch, no.
A little info about mass roots it’s run by a 25 year old opioid addict 4 employees he crashed his Lamborghini while hi on the pills the car was paid for by the stock holders the computer took the owner to court requesting his resignation they settled by receive company stocks allowing him back the cane out claiming to be the facebook of pot their web site was a joke 12 people chanting about pot few paid ads they didn’t pay their rent and were evicted from their Denver location stock went from 60 to 20 cents during all the great news during the company webinar given to raise more money for ages a new car first time i’ve ever called in to only here one investors question asking about the quality of the website the kids response is we are getting away from that and headed in a different direction claiming a new imaginary partner the company never reported one profitable quarters earnings but nice car. Last vote it only doubled because they all do first chance that stock goes up closer to June get out.
My experience over the last year every struggling company announced they were coming out with a payment solution . That is always a red flag no body takes the other company coins most people buy them to collect the fancy looking coins. Marijuana manefesto has them in their portfolio and their claim early on was they check out all the companies to see who are just a fancy name and he obviously didn’t with mass roots who also claimed to partner with the Uber of pot. The Uber of pot is Pineapple Express deliver in 1 hour so buy almost any pot stock at its low point approaching the vote except this one
opinions needed…TGOD?
Massroots was a dog, for sure. I lost a little on that one. My pot stocks haven’t moved much, up or down, the last month. I’d love to know which coin the federal government plans to use. That would be a good bet. Casey calls it fedcoin. I don’t know that area at all. To me, it’s all a bubble without any value. If anyone has a clue about fedcoin I’d like to know about it.
Is this a cousin of Fedcoin? Last time I looked, Bitcoin is down about 50% from its high. That’s like gold falling from $1300 to $650 or the S&P falling from $2700 to $1350, or AMZN dropping from $1600 to $800. All would be eye-popping events. Carr would collect about $400,000 in subscription fees and of course you can bet your stash of Bitcoins that he will gladly take in more than 250 new subscribers. All he has to do is take in just over 600 subs and he will have made HIS $million, risk free. I was once an Oxford Club member, maybe like 15, or 20 years ago, but as with all the other subs I have tried, I didn’t reap much in the way of profits. Guess I should have saved my subscription money in the bank so that now I could take advantage of Hempcoin. Excuse me while I run to the bathroom as this nonsense has upset my stomach. Of course, there are those who have made a fortune with this type of sub and to you I salute your luck and good fortune.
Crypto markets are up 100% or so over the past month. That was after a crash so still well off all time highs. Lots of opportunities.
Well, some of the top crypto coins are not up 100% over the past month: Ethereum is up 83% at the moment, but Bitcoin is up only 30% and Litecoin 20%. (This per Coinbase, a primary exchange for the coins.) Whether this means “lots of opportunities” – don’t think anyone has any way of knowing. Bitcoin is at $9,636 right now, still way way way down from its high a bit under $20,000 toward the end of last year. I own a very very very tiny bit of a Bitcoin (well less than 1), and 3+ Litecoin – just a “what the hell why not hail Mary, because I can easily afford to lose the very small “investment” I made – but I’m highly skeptical, personally. Huge amount of hype from those who have already made money with crypto coins about the “great future” awaiting us – but hard to know if they really know what they’re talking about other than wanting to keep the gravy train moving along – and sell expensive advice letters.
I never get the down from the top commentary. No disrespect, but one year ago it was around $2750, today it’s $7700, that seems like a win to me of epic proportions. I guess if everyone is getting in at the top it’s a serious loss, but it’s consistently averaged 2.5 to 3x annually since it’s advent. That’s a pretty damn good bet for buy and hold for me.
What’s the deal with the July 1 date, when this thing is supposed to pop? Is that merely the date when Canada is expected to legalize marijuana (unless the Parliament’s conservatives delay it).
I assume it’s related to HempCoin’s anticipated next phase of development — they’re trying to sign up potential merchants now, and say they’ll be moving forward “soon”. Canada should be irrelevant — they are fully legalizing recreational marijuana, so there’s no reason for marijuana merchants to not use standard credit cards and other banking services in that country.
I just get why you even need something like HempCoin or Potcoin, if you want to use crypto use Bitcoin or Monero if you’re concerned about privacy. Unless the coin has additional innovation or is a fuel for distributed applications, doesn’t make sense. I know of a MJ related coin that is partnering and building a ERP system that can handle the need to keep business silo’d in state (to avoid violating interstate commerce limits), etc. That’s different and innovative, but even there, not sure they need their own coin.
YOu need to reconsider your assumption there is no way in heck it’s hempcoin. The banking solution all in one pot coins are GreenMed and Paragon Respectively. I am not huge into PARAGON but they already have established use case for their personal businesses before venturing into blockchain. But when it comes down to it. SAFEST BET Greenmed
On our national news, marijuana will not be legalized until late August or fall as they are still working on the laws to put in place.
BEEN PUT BACK TO THE FALL. THEIR LAWMAKERS ARE TRYING TO PUT THE VOTE BACK TO 1984
Travis,
Thank you for your insight.
I think the primary draw of the MJ industry is that it is borderline illegal. Some of us like the sense of “taking money under the table” (myself not included.) I am guessing that cryptocurrencies will not go away as long as people like skirting the law. Only a federal statute making cryptocurrencies illegal and potentially criminal together with a massive enforcement effort could stop this “industry.”
The federal government is unlikely to undertake that effort unless they start to see a massive loss of tax revenues.
I was trained to understand that government bureaucracies almost always become the servant of the industry they are supposed to regulate. Applying that trusim to the pot business itself I think that it is likely the pot explosion is unstoppable and that credit card companies when they recognize that fact will press for law changes that allow them to serve the pot industry and get their piece of the action.
nmartinsd
What are the ticker symbols of the 2 Crypto ETFs he refers to?
Got a headache and didn’t read the secondary stuff he was teasing — could be HBLK and/or LINK in Toronto (Blockchain Tech ETF and Evolve Blockchain ETF), or BLOK, BLCN, LEGR or KOIN in the US, though ARKK sometimes gets mentioned too. Haven’t looked at any of them in detail, they’re mostly broad tech holdings that have some minor connection to blockchain technologies.
We are already dealing with crypto currencies in the form of credit cards and electronic transfers of money from bank to bank. One of the big advantages of crypto is the absence of inflation which I have witnessed over my 76 years of living. You go right ahead and hang on to your fiat currencies. I am sick of loosing. So I and many others are taking a risk that cryptos will stop the nonsense and eradicate government irresponsibility. By the way, Hemp won’t be around long, Dash does the same thing better.
Allen….heh heh….stop the nonsense of government irresponsibility? You obviously think the current price swings of any given crypto currency makes sense????
How can you possibly tie inflation to crypto when it can’t stay put for three days straight as it is?
The only true way of handling any transaction is to negotiate a deal with someone else for what you both want to exchange, commonly called bartering.
Sorry for the rant, but all I see is people gambling via market tickers, which by the way, the government still gets a cut of when you sell.
But grab that dough while you can! I could invest all my money in a pumpkin farm and they would call off Halloween. 😉
pardon my ignorance, but what is dash?
https://www.dash.org
????????
I’m guessing here.
They have instantsend (immediate transaction confirmations), private transactions and a very cool self-funding/self-governance model. Strong team.
Speaking of which, I think an interesting blockchain stock is Neptune Dash Technologies (DASH.V). They buy and operate Dash masternodes, which generates a healthier return than simple mining of cryptocurrencies.
Here’s where to get info. Reddit, coinmetrics, Bitscreener, Cryptoclarified. There are many many more, but this is a good start.
oh yeah, I agree.
I’m down over #3.000 from Oxford club suggestions since Dec. of 2015. They stink and accept no responsibility for the loses a subscriber takes. They just move on with more lies and stupid guesses. They tell you to buy a stock, and then when it goes way down right away, they say they predicted it would drop. So why did they tell everyone to buy it then in the first place? Maybe in 20 years it will let you break even.
$3,000 is what #3.000 should say.
I agree with your opinion of the Oxford Club. Actually, I have the same opinion for Agora, and “The Money Zone” by Shah Galani, and most of the stock advisory newsletters. I was forced into retirement far earlier than I wanted,and was unprepared. I have a small amount of money to invest. I don’t understand how these self-proclaimed hedge fund “multimillionaires and billionaires” made any money in the market if they followed their own maps. I don’t understand why they can push these newsletters for thousands of unrefundable dollars, Isn’t there any way to get them to be accountable?
A state owned public bank could house all that cash along with the states cash, & make record profits every year, just like the bank of North Dakota has been doing regardless of the ups & downs of oil, & they don’t even have any pot money. The state makes double digit profits, not the private bank.
Thank you Travis for the lecture on crypto, no you are not being grumpy nor a fuddy-duddy – your comments similar to another crypto discussion you had ?3-4 months ago…….thank you, thank you for reminder. No crypto’s for me.
When and if US Fed’s remove cannabis as a class 1 felony (and banks then be involved) – please let us know when you sell IIPR from your portfolio, I own a few shares too.
I do own 8 OTC marijuana stocks, in small speculative $2k each – waiting for value to rise later this year or next, after Canada recreational legal this fall, ….. California rec. legal Jan.1, 2018.
IIPR shouldn’t be in trouble with their current deals if we see full legalization, assuming those tenants stay solvent — they’re 15 year leases. They’d just lose the ability to sign more such deals, I imagine. We’ll see.
Travis, Thanks for the additional info on IIPR.
BTW, I meant DEA cannabis classification as Schedule 1, not class 1 …… which you understood.
Steve…how did your pot stock picks fare this last vote? Are you holding?
Crypto’s are here to stay. Bitcoin has endured and survived 264 obituaries to date.
Very large financial institutions, e.g. JP Morgan, Citibank have in the past been very vociferous in condemning crypto’s into oblivion. The very same institutions and most of the others are now “embracing” the future and applications thereof.
Crypto’s are very volatile, and will be for some time, but patterns are emerging. Bitcoin and some of the other Altcoins (i.e. any other coin that Bitcoin) are starting to follow the general trends of the markets.
There are in excess of 1500 crypto’s out there (with new ones emerging virtually daily), of which the majority (to the tune of ± 1450) will not survive. The only ones to consider are the ones within the top 30 – 50 market caps (https://coinmarketcap.com/)
There are very strong indicators and rumors that leading online retailers will start accepting crypto’s as a form of payment, which will place crypto’s in a very different space and may result in a significant surge in value. To that effect Amazon, E-Bay, Home Depot, Walmart have recently registered all conceivable domain names relating to crypto’s, e.g. Amazonbitcoin.com, Walmartcrypto.com, Ebayethereum.com etc. Amazon’s domain registrations were only done towards the end of 2017. My common sense tells me there must be a reason for that.
Amazon “disappointed” by not announcing as was expected during the recent earnings announcement that crypto’s will be accepted as a medium of payment for purchases. It is however implementing blockchain technology to a much larger extent and has a shareholders meeting coming up later this year.
And for those who still do not get Bitcoin – here goes:
https://www.facebook.com/BITCOlN/videos/958428317645472/?t=0
Leon
trader709 at yahoo dot com
Good article but missing an underlying opportunity IMHO. The processing and extraction of the many properties (chemical ingredients) of marijuana will lead to opportunities for companies that are in the foreground right now in developing the equipment and needed chemicals to make the product profitable and meet the very, very strict standards and regulations in effect now. Companies like Evolab, Restek and others that are pioneers today…can reap the benefits of huge returns when , not if, marijuana , in all its uses, is legalized in the US. Just speculating but not about legalization.
dash is slang for money. there are many slang words for money
oh boy am I glad that http://www.global-investing.com can be an honest advisory because we are 20 years past being co-owned with Agora publishing which puts out stuff like this to the detriment of rationality to say nothing of investment performance. Of course Bill Bonner makes more money than Travis or me but at least we earn our subscription profits honestly in good conscience.
Travis, you nailed this one. Mathew is an idiot or a fraud. HempCoin has been at best a pump & dump coin its entire existence with no real world use. Dispensaries can just use bitcoin, as their is no need for ‘sector’ coins. With that said, there is still a lot of exciting development going on in the alt coin world. A month ago, I said that EOS is by far the best crypto to own. If anyone out there listened to me, they’re up 200% on their investment
The only way you are going to get high yields is to benefit from smoking the product!
I eat edibles. I like the gummy bears. I don’t see the marijuana market exploding this summer. Greedy government leeches are charging high fees to start a business at the city level. Taxes are so high it’s keeping people out of the business. Southern California cities are facing lawsuits from angry dispensary promoters. Canada is still debating back and forth. I’m not selling though. I’m just going to sit patiently until it pops.
This is even better than the combination of Dots and Coms!
Love this thread… I was interested to read that IBM is pushing it’s blockchain as a means to control the process of pot…from seed to store. One can only hope that stellar will take off . It was in British Columbia, I believe
The supply chain tracking problem is not really the security of the database used, I don’t think, its that inputting and updating the data for every step in the chain is expensive and annoying. That’s true whether it’s a traditional system or some new blockchain software.
Yeah, the fact that this is a thing seems to spell the end
It would be the beginning of having our currency backed by “Not a Finite resource.” Already the CO2 levels in the atmosphere are considered “beyond the tipping point” and fields can process it into clean air quickly. It would be the end if this change didn’t happen.