- How to buy your own thoroughbred racing stallion online…
- A push to change the rules for private investing…
- Self-driving cars are heading to the Big Apple…
Tonight’s the night. I’ll reveal the anomaly that I’ve spotted in the stock market… A “glitch” that can help regular investors identify big market moves days or weeks before they happen.
My research shows that by using this “glitch,” investors could have doubled their money – or more – as many as 17,000 times. This glitch is one of the financial elites’ most guarded secrets… They’re perfectly happy leaving regular investors in the dark.
That’s why tonight is so critical. At 8 p.m. ET, I’ll be breaking this anomaly wide open at my Outlier Investments Summit. I’ll explain what it is… how it works… and how we can profit. Attendees will also receive the name and ticker of a top “glitch” stock for free.
So if you haven’t yet reserved your spot, please do so now.
And I’ll look forward to seeing you tonight…
Savvy investment capital continues to flow into NFTs…
We talked about OpenSea’s big $23 million venture capital (VC) round back in April. I know that it has only been a matter of months, but there is so much development and demand in this particular industry that the company just raised again.
To bring newer readers up to speed, OpenSea is the world’s largest marketplace for non-fungible tokens (NFTs). NFTs are digital assets that are cryptographically secured and authenticated on a blockchain. They are essentially digital collectibles.
We can think of OpenSea as the Amazon of the NFT space. Consumers can find virtually any NFT they could possibly want. Digital art, trading cards, comic books, real estate in virtual worlds, Pokémon, and more are posted for sale on OpenSea’s platform.
As we discussed a few months ago, prominent VC firm Andreessen Horowitz backed OpenSea’s $23 million Series A round. This was an early sign that investors are starting to bet big on NFTs.
Now think about this – OpenSea just completed a $100 million Series B raise. And once again, Andreessen Horowitz led the round. Clearly, the firm sees an incredible opportunity in the NFT market.
And this Series B round values OpenSea at an impressive $1.5 billion. This makes OpenSea one of the few unicorns in the blockchain space. That’s incredible for a company that was insignificant and almost unheard of just 18 months ago. And it’s indicative of how fast the NFT trend is moving.
Roughly $2.5 billion worth of NFTs were sold in the first half of this year. And OpenSea sold $160 million in NFTs just last month. That’s incredible considering NFT sales were insignificant at this time last year.
As for its business model, OpenSea takes a 2.5% commission on every sale completed on its platform. That puts it on par with the credit card companies. They typically take a 2.5–3% cut of every credit card transaction.
And we have to talk about one of the biggest drivers of volume on OpenSea’s platform. It’s a game called ZED RUN. This is interesting.
ZED RUN allows consumers to buy their own digital horses in NFT form. These horses can then be entered into horse races. Each horse has its own set of “traits” – like distance preference and how quickly it becomes fatigued – that can affect the odds of its winning. The horses can be bred for better performance, too.
And the races are very much like the real thing – except everything is digital. Each race has an entry fee. And the winner receives a payout in the form of WETH tokens (“wrapped” Ethereum), which can be converted directly into Ethereum (ETH).
Have a look…
ZED RUN Race
Source: ZED RUN
I know this sounds crazy on the surface, but it’s a great idea.
For one, the gaming element to this is incredibly “sticky.” Users can sit and watch as their horse jockeys for position. There’s also a social element – racers can interact with each other.
And ZED RUN blends these key elements with tokenized assets on the blockchain that can be converted into Ethereum – one of the world’s most prominent digital assets. While the average horse sells for about $30, one player sold a stallion for as much as $125,000.
So I’m not at all surprised to see OpenSea doing so well. This is definitely a platform to watch.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see another major VC round within the next 12 months. Things are moving that fast. And at that point, OpenSea may start looking for avenues to go public.
Bigger picture, this shows us the NFT market is becoming a legitimate asset class with serious “staying power.” And at Brownstone Research, we have been hard at work behind the scenes researching ways for normal investors to play this trend. Readers can expect to hear more about that in the coming weeks.
Insight into the Nasdaq’s latest move…
The Nasdaq just announced that it will spin out its private market division into a separate company. This is an interesting move that has me excited. I’ll explain with a little background…
Back in 2013, the Nasdaq teamed up with a company called SharesPost. This is a company I know well. I’ve spoken with the executives there several times over the years in my efforts to bring private investments to normal investors.
SharesPost is a secondary market for shares in private companies. It facilitates the sale of pre-IPO shares. This allows early investors or employees of successful private companies to cash out prior to the company going public. And it allows others to invest in private companies that they wouldn’t otherwise have access to.
The thing is, SharesPost only caters to accredited investors. The existing regulations prevent non-accredited investors from participating in these markets.
Well, the Nasdaq took an equity position in SharesPost back in 2015. That became the core of its own private market for pre-IPO shares. And now the two are spinning this project out into a new company in partnership with several major banks. This includes Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and SVB Financial.
Here’s where it gets interesting…
These banks are the major underwriters of initial public offerings (IPOs) in the United States. And the private companies that typically trade in secondary markets like the Nasdaq’s private market will eventually conduct their IPO through one of these large banks. In other words, these are mature, established private companies with a path for going public.
For that reason, I suspect that we may see a renewed push to loosen the regulations on non-accredited investors when it comes to private shares.
After all, these major banks are constantly in touch with regulators. And they would love nothing more than to increase the transaction volume in this new private marketplace. To justify this, they can show the regulators how safe and secure these well-established private companies they deal with are.
That’s what is most exciting to me about what the Nasdaq is doing here. There is a chance for regulatory change to allow non-accredited investors in the door when it comes to private investments on secondary markets. That’s a cause I’ve been trumpeting for years now.
So I will be watching this closely to see how it develops. I’ll also be keeping an eye on the pulse of what’s happening in D.C. If we do in fact get some regulatory changes, it will greatly expand my ability to recommend private companies here at Brownstone Research. That’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.
Intel’s Mobileye is now testing self-driving cars in New York City…
Big news on the autonomous driving front. Intel’s self-driving division, Mobileye, just got permission to test self-driving cars in New York City (NYC).
As anyone who’s been there knows, NYC is an incredibly challenging driving environment. And it’s been very difficult to get autonomous driving approvals there. In fact, Mobileye is the only self-driving outfit that has received a permit to test in all boroughs of NYC.
So this alone is a great accomplishment for Mobileye. And what really caught my eye was Mobileye’s approach.
Up to this point, Mobileye has been known for its advanced driver assistance system (ADAS). This is a system that employs cameras and sensors to detect objects around the car to help drivers avoid accidents. That’s great, but it’s not a self-driving system.
Well, now Mobileye is testing out autonomous cars that use only artificial intelligence (AI) and computer vision (CV) technology. There’s a nuance here.
Except for Tesla, all major players in the self-driving space employ lidar and radar technology in conjunction with CV. These are 3D sensors that help the AI detect objects around the vehicle.
For the longest time, carmakers thought these sensors were necessary. But Tesla has had tremendous success with its vision-only system. Now Mobileye is doing the same thing. This could potentially validate Tesla’s approach.
And there are two big implications here.
The most obvious is that lidar sensors are by far the most expensive part of self-driving systems. The companies without lidar can produce their cars at a drastically lower cost point, which will result in cheaper self-driving cars for consumers. That’s a major competitive advantage.
And the less obvious implication is that self-driving systems that rely exclusively on computer vision allow the AI to make decisions most closely to how human drivers make decisions.
I’m very interested to see how Mobileye’s vision-only tests do. In addition to NYC, the division also has permission to test in Detroit, Jerusalem, Paris, Shanghai, and Tokyo. That’s a strong lineup of test cities that few other companies can match.
That said, my interest in Mobileye is exclusively in how it impacts the autonomous driving industry as a whole. I don’t want readers thinking that this is bullish for Intel. The revenue contribution to Intel by its Mobileye is almost inconsequential.
As we have discussed before, Intel drastically overpaid for Mobileye. It acquired the company for $15.3 billion back in 2017. Yet Mobileye has only generated about $1 billion in revenue for Intel to date. At this rate, Intel will never generate enough profits from the acquisition to have ever justified the deal.
So my guidance on Intel (INTC) remains the same – steer clear of the stock. Still, I’m excited to follow Mobileye’s progress over the coming months.
Regards,
Jeff Brown
Editor, The Bleeding Edge
P.S. One final reminder about tonight’s investment summit… To make sure you aren’t left in the dark, simply go right here to make sure you’re on the list to attend. See you in just a few hours…
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