$GOLD Bullionfx crypto, page-35

Simon's view

I've always loved rodeos. There's something inspiring about hopeful souls grabbing a rope with one hand, climbing onto 900kg of annoyed unpredictability and finding out if they have enough skill, wit and stamina to emerge in one piece after a wild ride. Which brings me to cryptocurrencies, many of which hit new record highs on Wednesday, ahead of crypto exchange Coinbase making its NASDAQ debut. The NASDAQ set a reference price of US$250 per share, valuing Coinbase at nearly US$50 billion, if only to benchmark its performance ahead of the direct listing overnight. $COIN shares opened at US$381 and quickly climbed to $429 before ending the session at $328 for a market cap of US$84 billion. For comparison, that's more than four times the valuation of the actual NASDAQ, which has a market cap around $19.4 billion (the ASX is worth US$10.8 billion). Something doesn't add up. But kudos to Westpac's investment fund, Reinventure, which dropped US$50 million investment in Coinbase back in 2015 and could realise a 15x return or more on that investment. At the same time as Coinbase shares soared, Bitcoin set record prices, surpassing US$64,000 (but fell today). Ethereum now sits above $2400. The world's most lucrative joke, Dogecoin, sits above $0.138, having climbed 125% in a week. Shut up and take my money, right? Well, the world's richest/2nd richest man, Elon Musk, might have a few billion in cryptocurrencies, but remember the bloke is worth about US$175 billion - more than New Zealand's GDP. The Tesla boss splashing about in the crypto pond is not walking on water, it's more like watching the juniper bushes scene in Life of Brian played out on Twitter. Perhaps one lesson to take from the Coinbase float is offered through Australian Bitcoin fund company DigitalX (ASXCC), which saw its share price skyrocket 37.88% to $0.091 yesterday, after releasing its Bitcoin exposure that morning. Today it fell nearly 10% to close at $0.082. Riding a bull looks like fun. Just remember a lot of cowboys get thrown off.

Most have a fair idea of the big picture once the Cowboy falls from the bull.