I was going through my old photos looking for something that might fit what I planned on talking about today. Unfortunately, the number of photos I have that include things like gold or treasure are pretty limited. I couldn't really find anything that spoke to me, so I settled on the shot above of the sunset down in Columbus, OH. I'm pretty sure we were on our way home from a long day of watching softball when I took this shot. It was a beautiful way to end the day.
So here we are, twelve hours away from the Bitcoin Halving. Give or take a few minutes of course. It's pretty crazy to think that by tomorrow morning we will be ushering in a new era of cryptocurrency. I totally missed the hype surrounding the last halving, I think I was too busy playing around with NFTs or something like that.
Personally, I don't feel like this is going to be that big of a deal. Yes, it is important, but to me the more exciting thing that happened this week was the announcement of ETFs over in Hong Kong. Which I think launch today.
Almost as exciting as the release of Taylor Swifts new album. You better believe I will be listening to that on repeat today!
It is time again for another Finance Friday/Friday Finance. This is a series I started where I talk about random bits of financial stuff that I have seen, gathered, or experienced during the week. I hope as a reader you find it informational, entertaining, or both. I also hope it can generate some good discussion and edify the community.
As many people have said, the halving probably won't have much impact on things in the short term. We might see a bit of a dip here as miners continue to liquidate to cover their costs, but I also think the ETF announcement I mentioned above might help to stop the bleed a bit.
Anyway, back to my reason for wanting a "gold" themed photo this morning. I actually have seen a lot of interesting precious metals stories this week which is why I am putting this post in the #silvergoldstackers community.
Let's get to it!
Iron Pyrite Valuable? No Fooling!
I found this article in Newsweek earlier in the week talking about how iron pyrite (better known as fool's gold) might be more valuable than was previously determined. I'm not saying it is going to surpass the value of gold, but the fact that it has been found to be abundant in lithium means it could play a big role in the near future.
They aren't sure yet how easy the process of extraction is going to be, but the fact that we might have another alternative to the current process is encouraging. If only those old prospectors had known that worthless junk might have actually be worth something!
Got Milk?
Speaking of extraction... I also came across this article this week talking about how gold can be extracted from e-waste using old milk.
I understand that extracting gold from these materials isn't anything new, but the fact that the previous methods use some questionable chemicals to achieve the results is always a bit concerning. Apparently, this new method uses an aerogel derived from milk.
I've got a pile of e-waste sitting in my office right now, but I will leave this process to the professionals. Though I wouldn't mind getting my hands on a gold nugget one day!
Not Goldeneye, Goldene
The final precious metal related article I found this week was talking about a new material scientists have synthesized called Goldene. At just one atom thick, Goldene is expected to capture light in a specific way that it can be applied to several use cases.
Check out the article if you want to really dig into the science of it, but I think it is interesting that they are still discovering new things every day. Is it possible Goldene could bring even more value to a precious metal that is already a hot commodity right now?
That's all I've got for today. Between you and me, I am just kind of waiting around for alt season to really get moving. Once that happens I will likely have a lot more to talk about here!
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