The cryptocurrency space has attracted a considerable amount of attention over the last 12 months, with the price of Bitcoin (generally regarded as the bellwether of the industry) rising from less than $1,000 this time last year to current prices in around $8,300 a piece. In line with this price increase, we have seen a large wave of capital flow into the space by way of what have become known as initial public offerings (ICOs), which are essentially crowd sales built on an IPO-type model but without the companies raising capital by issuing shares and instead issuing a token that is in some way linked to operational expansion.
The ICO space remains very risky, however, with the current framework offering very little in the way of regulation (indeed, regulation is practically nonexistent in the space right now) and this makes it tough to participate with any degree of confidence in the security of an investment.
This leaves investors that want to gain exposure to the dramatic rise in the price of Bitcoin and in the combined capitalization of the companies that make up the space but that, at the same time, don't want to buy Bitcoin directly, with very little in the way of allocation options.
There are a handful of publicly traded companies that have aligned themselves with the Bitcoin space but, again, many of these right now aren’t particularly active from an operational standpoint and are seemingly trying to draw speculative volume based on a link to the sector as opposed to any real potential growth opportunity within the Bitcoin, blockchain and cryptocurrency ecosphere.
Of the few that fall into this latter category – that is, they are operationally active in Bitcoin and blockchain and are publicly traded – one of the most promising is Global Blockchain Technologies Corp. (BLKCF).
Global Blockchain Technologies is a Canadian technology company managed by a team of industry pioneers and early adopters of all major cryptocurrencies. It's listed on the TSX as a primary exchange (hence its over-the-counter listing in the US) under the ticker BLOC and is headquartered in Vancouver.
As per this announcement last month, the company is also listed in Australia on the ASX.
So, Global Blockchain Technologies Corp was set up to offer individuals who wanted an exposure to Bitcoin and blockchain but that didn't want to buy cryptocurrencies directly or that aren't in a position to allocate capital towards individual startups in the sector (without ICO participation, which we have already outlined is incredibly risky) the opportunity to gain exactly that.
Essentially, the company acts as a publicly traded venture capital fund, raising money through its listing and allocating the capital raised towards promising entities in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sectors.
The key to success for this sort of company is a strong team and it's the team behind Global Blockchain that justifies its highlighting as part of this piece.
The company's CEO is Rik Willard, who is regarded as a pioneer in the blockchain sector, having founded the Agentic Group LLC., a 51-company federation on five continents supporting and developing the blockchain ecosystem.
Steven Nerayoff is Chairman and is another early pioneer and leader in the blockchain industry and a senior advisor to Ethereum and Lisk. He's credited with personally coining the terms "Gas" or "Fuel" to describe the functionality within Ethereum's protocol. For anyone not familiar with the space, Ethereum is that platform that allows for ICO capital transactions and it's basically single-handedly responsible for the billions of dollars that are flowing into the sector right now. In his position as an advisor to the early iteration of Ethereum, Nerayoff essentially created the framework and crowd sale model on which ICOs are built.
CSO, Kyle Kemper, is the Executive Director of the Blockchain Association of Canada. In this role, he has been featured on major Canadian and international radio, broadcast, and print media as well as the majority of blockchain related media outlets.
Also on board is Jim Rogers (yes, the Jim Rogers that is very well known for his commodities outlooks and bullish agriculture thesis) and Michael Terpin, who is a founder of Transform PR, a global public relations firm that has served 100+ clients in the blockchain field.
So this is a company that's set up to invest in blockchain type entities and – in doing so – to offer traders and investors a chance to piggyback startup growth in this fast-growing space. It's a company that's run by some of the blockchain and commodities/equities spaces biggest names, meaning the people that are going to be making the decision as to which startups to invest in are very well positioned to do so.
And with that established, Blockchain Global just gave us some insight into it's specific target investment areas with the announcement that it's created a cryptocurrency mining division, called Global Blockchain Mining Corp, and has executed on a deal with an entity called Coinstream Mining Corp, that will see the former pick up a 49.9% interest in the latter.
The deal paves the way for a streaming agreement that serves to provide a low-cost inflow of reduced dilution capital for the companies that it invests in. This is a new model for this space but it seems to make sense given the expected rise in the price of Bitcoin over the coming years and the company's potential to leverage this price rise in its capital access efforts.
Keep in mind that this remains a risky space, regardless of who is in the driving seat. The blockchain sector is a nascent industry and – with this relative youth – comes a high degree of uncertainty as to which companies will manage to break through the junior phase and become leaders long term.
With that said, Blockchain Global seems to be positioned well at a time when the majority of other publicly traded exposures to this sector are dubious at best and this could easily translate to some near to medium-term growth, assuming the price of Bitcoin continues to rise in parallel.