Stock Trading - Entry 33

I will admit straight up that my view of the blockchain ecosystem has changed since a year ago and this article shows where it all started - - in the regular economy.

In short, I was fumbling around looking for some good, cheap stocks one day and one of the ones I landed on was LQWD Technologies (LQWD). It wasn't so much the price that caught my eye, it was everything I learned the deeper down the rabbit hole I went.

To start, why would a company want to acquire over 100 bitcoin by the end of 2024? According to one of their investor decs, they have partnered with Alby to get access to technology to drastically speed up blockchain transactions. That would make sense given they hold a financial technology (fintech) company. But apparently, that isn't the only thing LQWD is involved in.

If you look at their November 2024 financial statements, you will find that LQWD also owns a 100% stake in a few other businesses. Which ones? Good question given the names are basically 123456 BC Ltd. - a business name provincial governments in Canada (in this case, British Columbia) give to businesses who don't register an an actual name for their business. Fortunately, the BC government lists them and in LQWD's case, they can be found here. I did some reach and will elaborate on what I discovered for each via the following list (without funky numbers as names):

• Skyrun Technolgy - a payment firm based in the US
• formerly Lynx Gold Mining - mines in Arizona
• formerly Lynx Petroleum - oil and gas consulting firm in Alberta
• formerly Lynx Clean Power - hydro power generation and servicing
• Coronado - coal mining that supplies the steel industry

My jaw dropped because these are all very lucrative enterprises in and of themselves, let alone the obvious money-hungry empire-building going on here. So back to my original question, why would such lucrative business holdings want to convert profits to bitcoin? How do their staff get paid? Why partner with an open-source technology (emphasis on open)? I don't know, but I bought a few shares so I would, hopefully, become privy to all this information. Note: I am not dispensing financial advice in this article. But holy jeepers am I ever curious to learn about the strategy being used this group of companies!

Now let's compare and contrast that company to Neptune Digital Assets (NDA). Their aim is to squarely get into the bitcoin fintech world by seemingly doing everything they can to acquire bitcoin (to-date as of publication of this article), just like LQWD Technology. But that's pretty much where the similarities stop. Yes, Neptune has an impressive C-suite when it comes to those experienced in the blockchain sphere. But they are borrowing to finance those acquisitions and they are getting into derivatives. No! Didn't 2008 teach us anything? That mix is so freaking risky for me that I have decided not to touch that stock with a ten-foot pole.

So all of this got me to wondering what, if anything, has really changed in the whole blockchain-as-currency concept? Then, I stumbled onto this YouTube video where someone in a suit explained things super-simple to a US Senator in under five minutes. That video completely revolutionized my thinking.

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