Sí, eso parece, mucha competencia en minado y mucha inversión necesaria, así como gasto en energía.
He estado mirando una empresa que puede ser interesante (pero en el el último trimestre de 2020 ha pasado de 15 a 75$, subiendo como todo lo relacionado con cryptos), que es Silvergate Capital ($SI), la dueña del Silvergate Exchange Network que proporciona servicios de préstamo y depósito para “negocios innovadores en fintech y criptomonedas”
https://www.silvergatebank.com/solutions/digital-currency/sen
Dos enlaces a SA y unos extractos de lo que comentan antes de que les pongan la pasarela de pago
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4322310-silvergate-capital-banking-on-crypto
- Silvergate Capital is one of the only banks that specializes in the digital currency industry.
- The bank has grown its digital-currency customer base significantly over recent years and is leveraging on its proprietary money-transfer network “Silvergate Exchange Network”
- While the bank’s deposits fell last quarter, the recent large breakout of crypto-currencies may cause significant growth over Q1 2020.
- Unlike most growth stocks in the digital currency business, Silvergate is only slightly more expensive than peer banks with a price-to-book of 1.3X.
The bank is quite unique in that most of its customers are in the cryptocurrency industry and three-quarters of its deposits are non-interest bearing. Unlike many recent IPOs, the bank is not very expensive and has high growth potential, but only time will tell if that growth comes.
The bank’s “golden egg” is its “Silvergate Exchange Network” which is a proprietary network that allows free instant money transfer between digital currency banking customers. This perk has helped Silvergate acquire value customers such as the leading cryptocurrency exchange Kraken. Other clients include Coinbase, Gemini, bitFlyer, Bitstamp, and Bittrex.
Silvergate is at the forefront of chasing the technology and has successfully become the predominant banker for it. Because of this versatility/managerial mindset, I believe that the bank will successfully adapt to likely significant future changes in the industry. In other words, it appears that the bank will continue to beat its competition for new customers and potentially become a true growth opportunity.
Growth companies, particularly those in the cryptocurrency industry, are usually far more expensive than Silvergate which is only slightly more expensive than a traditional bank despite high historical deposit growth. Indeed, “growth” and “bank” are words that rarely go together, so investors may be underestimating Silvergate’s potential value.
- Digital deposit growth expanded with increased price and volatility in Bitcoin, allowing for near zero cost of deposits for SI’s securities and loans portfolio.
- Digital customer growth from the Institutional and Other categories has also factored into digital deposit growth.
- Digital fee income now meaningful at 17% of total interest income, and doubling year-over-year rates.
- SEN Leverage just transitioning from pilot program to full deployment. Will there be a step up in digital fee growth as well?
SI has been the beneficiary to date of having first-mover advantages. They became the bridge between traditional financial institutions and the upstart crypto universe. However, they are now seeing traditional banks begin to move in on their territory, and even some of their customers are gaining limited forms of banking service capabilities. In this article, I’ll review what progress SI has made in growing their key SEN Network, and monetizing its value to their bottom line. I’ll also discuss what I think are key elements to track in their financials going forward. This stock is not the traditional value proposition it was a few months ago, but I’m still optimistic about their performance and future to maintain holding my current position.
There are three types of customers using the SEN Network: 1.) Crypto Exchanges, 2.) Institutions and Hedge Funds investing in crypto, and 3.) Other Customers that are building products and services within the crypto industry. The value of the SEN to these customers is the ability to move capital anywhere in the world 24/7 near instantaneously for free. That’s very similar to digital currencies themselves. The difference is that this capital is fiat currency in nature, and can be used in traditional financial services and economies. While businesses within the digital currency industry may believe in a financial future radically different from our historical experience, the fact remains that they have to pay expenses and transact with their customers mostly still in fiat. This has led to triple-digit growth year over year in both transactions and total value in the network. Clearly, SEN has been providing value to SI’s customers utilizing it to date, and in Q3, the trend appears to be accelerating.
