Investor Ideas at 2018 VRIC; Hear Thought Leaders on #ICOs and #Blockchain,
#Mining and the Economy;
@Cambridge
Frank Holmes of U.S. Global Investors and Chairman of HIVE Blockchain
Technologies Ltd (TSX.V: #HIVE.V), Peter Schiff, President and CEO of Euro
Pacific Capital, Amir Adnani of Uranium Energy Corp (NYSE: $UEC), Eric Fier,
CEO and Director of SilverCrest Metals Inc. (TSX.V: $SIL.V) at VRIC
The 2018 Vancouver Resource Investment Conference
(VRIC), held at the Vancouver Convention Centre on January 21 and 22 in
Vancouver, Canada, attracted over 8000 attendees, speakers and exhibitors
meeting to explore 250 public and private resource and mining companies.
Among the more eagerly awaited speakers was Frank
Holmes, CEO and Chief Investment Officer of U.S. Global Investors Inc., and
Chairman of HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd (TSX.V: HIVE). Holmes’s
speech, titled “My Journey Thru the Blockchain and Cryptocurrency World”,
enthusiastically highlighted the emerging blockchain technology that underpins
HIVE, and the shift happening in the investment community toward cryptocurrency
and initial coin offerings (ICO’s).
Holmes said a part of the growth of ICO’s was the
change in values between his generation and young people today.
“There are more millennials than there are
baby-boomers,” he said. “The baby-boomers have all the capital, but the
millennials have the technology. And their world, their values and beliefs are
very different from ours. This is why the ICO’s are growing rapidly and they
are taking away a lot of money from junior mining. Last year $4 billion dollars
went into these initial coin offerings (ICO’s).”
Holmes also mentioned the speed and convenience of
getting involved with cryptocurrencies and how it has led to greater flow of
money in non-traditional investment models.
“It’s so easy to open an account at Coinbase; like
five minutes. It can take two days to open an account at Schwab,” he said.
“There’s a big shift happening. Crowdfunding garnered $50 billion dollars last
year outside of the normal securities market.”
Holmes attributes the success of blockchain in part
to Bitcoin, which he said was comparable to the impact of email.
“Bitcoin is like the email that woke up the
internet,” he said. “When the internet first came out it was basically a place
for gambling and porn, and it was slow at both. And then all of a sudden along
came email, with AOL, and everyone started using it. What Bitcoin is doing for
blockchain is the same thing.”
Another high profile speaker was Peter Schiff,
President and CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, who had a more pessimistic speech
titled, “The Real Financial Crisis is the one That’s About to Hit.”
Schiff burst the bubble of many investors by
demonstrating the artificiality of the stock market boom and the U.S. economy
under Trump.
“The economy has not improved under Trump,” he
said. “We don’t have a booming economy. Trump keeps telling us we have a
booming economy, but nothing is booming.”
Schiff disputed the impact and validity of
unemployment figures.
“Yes the unemployment rate keeps going down, but it
was going down before Trump became president,” he said. “The trends that have
continued are the collapse of labour force participation and the proliferation of
part-time jobs. In fact, real wage growth is actually lower.”
Schiff said the tax cuts under Trump will not
benefit the economy because government spending has not been reduced to
correspond with lower budget.
“Are they going to grow the economy? No, because
they didn’t cut government spending,” he said. “You don’t get government for
nothing. Taxes pay for government, but if you cut taxes and you don’t cut
government, how do you pay for that government? That’s all we did with the
Republican tax cuts. We decided to borrow the money instead of raise it with
taxes.”
Though there was a lot of talk about
cryptocurrencies and blockchain, the conference was still dominated by resource
and energy companies. Amir Adnani, founder and CEO of Uranium Energy Corp (NYSE: UEC), spoke about
the increasing focus that the Trump government has placed on uranium, which the
country still mostly has to import.
“This is about Trump having appointed Rick Perry,
the former governor of Texas, the energy capital of the U.S., to lead the
department of energy, and has given him a mandate to make the states more
focused on this issue of uranium imports,” he said. “Almost 98 percent of U.S.
uranium requirements are being imported.”
In anticipation of a healthier uranium market in
the U.S., Adnani talked about his company’s impressive assets and robust
position to take advantage of any opportunities in the market.
“We look at the downturn in the uranium market as
an acquisition opportunity,” he said. “We’re aggressively making acquisitions.
After 13 years of building this company, today, our asset portfolio is
diversified and large. We have 99 million pounds of uranium in the ground, 70
million pounds of vanadium, and the world’s largest highest grade titanium
deposit in Paraguay.”
“If uranium prices go up tomorrow, we don’t have a
CAPEX to finance to build a processing plant. It’s there, it’s permitted for
two million pounds per year.”
In a workshop, Eric Fier, CEO and Director of
SilverCrest Metals Inc. (TSXV: SIL.V; OTCQX: SVCMF) gave some background to the
company’s Las Chispas property in Mexico and brought investors up to date on
its findings.
“The Las Chispas property historically started
production in 1790 with the Spanish,” he said. “It produced intermittently up
to 1930. There was approximately 100,000 ounces of gold and a significant
amount of silver. We didn’t think we’d be finding such grades, but that’s what
we’ve been hitting over the last two years in our exploration program.”
“This resource will be one of the highest grade
silver to silver-gold, silver equivalent ratio in the industry.”
By Samuel Mowers, Investor Ideas
About 2018 Vancouver Resource Investment Conference; @Cambridge
SilverCrest Metals Inc. (TSXV: SIL.V;
OTCQX: SVCMF) is a featured company on Investorideas.com
About Investorideas.com -
News that Inspires Big Ideas
www.Investorideas.com is a meeting place for global investors, featuring news, stock
directories, video, podcasts, company profiles, interviews and more in leading
sectors. Sectors we cover include tech (AI, drones, internet of things),
payments, crypto and blockchain, biotech, mining, energy, renewable energy,
water, marijuana and hemp stocks, food and beverage, defense and security
(biometrics/cyber), Latin America, sports, entertainment, luxury brands and
gaming.
Visit the Investorideas.com directory
of publicly traded mining stocks at:
For a list of publicly traded blockchain stocks visit:
More about our
podcasts:
The Investorideas.com podcasts are also available
on iTunes, Tunein, Stitcher, Spreaker.com, iHeart.com and Google Play Music.
Subscribe to Investorideas.com Podcast RSS:
Disclaimer/Disclosure: Investorideas.com is a digital
publisher of third party sourced news, articles and equity research as well as
creates original content, including video, interviews and articles. Original
content created by investorideas is protected by copyright laws other than
syndication rights. Our site does not make recommendations for purchases or
sale of stocks, services or products. Nothing on our sites should be construed
as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. All
investment involves risk and possible loss of investment. This site is
currently compensated for news publication and distribution, social media and
marketing, content creation and more. Contact each company directly regarding
content and press release questions. Disclosure is posted for each compensated
news release, content published /created if required but otherwise the news was
not compensated for and was published for the sole interest of our readers and
followers. More disclaimer info: http://www.investorideas.com/About/Disclaimer.asp. Disclosure: TSX-V : SIL is a paid
PR, news and social media client on Investorideas.com
Contact Investorideas.com
800-665-0411
Amir Adnani,
founder and CEO of Uranium Energy Corp (NYSE: UEC)
Frank Holmes,
CEO and Chief Investment Officer of U.S. Global Investors Inc., and Chairman of
HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd (TSX.V: HIVE)
Investorideas.com
features content for Bitcoin, Blockchain and Digital Currency Stocks and ICO’s
at Cryptocurrencyinvestorideas.com and Investorideas.com
