11 Ways To Profit From Blockchain Without Buying Bitcoin
Investing.com | Feb 16, 2018 16:24
Though Bitcoin and its volatile price swings tend to hog the headlines, most will agree it's blockchain technology that's the true disruptor. Blockchain acts as a decentralized ledger, recording all data simultaneously across all nodes on its network. Ratings agency Moody’s LeadCoin believes blockchain has the potential to disrupt a variety of industries, in particular web marketing:
“For example, web marketing is an extremely centralized industry dominated by the Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) duopoly. A decentralized web marketing solution that's based on blockchain technology could shift the power back to the hands of the businesses themselves allowing for trusted and secured transactions between two anonymous parties without any middleman.”
He foresees numerous changes occurring via blockchain to a growing number of centralized industries including banking, data storage and supply chain management.
Still, though it's relatively easy—albeit potentially expensive—to invest in at least some blockchain based cryptocurrencies, there are a growing number of ways to invest in, and even profit from blockchain technology without owning any digital currencies. From publicly traded mega caps to fledgling start-ups, as well as two ETFs, the following 11 alternatives could be appropriate vehicles if you don't feel up to weathering the extreme volatility recently seen in crypto markets:
1. Eastman Kodak
The once seemingly impregnable photography giant has experienced some rough years recently along with a slide toward obscurity as the photo industry moved beyond paper and chemistry and toward digital technology. Kodak (NYSE:KODK) missed that boat and shares have been sinking for years on lower growth and diminished profitability.
However, shares of the company spiked on January 10 after the company announced on January 9 it planned to launch its own form of blockchain technology which it dubbed “KodakCoin,” for use by photographers to help protect their image copyrights. Though some saw it as a potentially canny way for the faded giant to regain some of its luster and positioning, others see it as something of a Bankorus markets itself as a new paradigm for high net worth individuals whose capital is tied up in illiquid assets. The company says it applies AI and blockchain technology to crypto investing in order to help these individuals move their assets into the digital environment. Gregory Van den Bergh, co-founder and chief executive officer explains that blockchain provides a huge possibility for asset and security tokens which back real world assets, such as real estate, investment funds, or art. Bankorus says it handles a combined AUM of $30B with more than 200,000 of the world’s wealthiest clients across China, Europe, and the US. It has offices from Beijing to London.
10. - 11. Blockchain ETFs
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Newly launched ETFs Reality Shares Nasdaq NexGen Economy Fund (NASDAQ:BLCN) and Amplify Transformational Data Sharing Fund (NYSE:BLOK) are worth considering, though shares of both don't directly correlate to cryptocurrency price moves. Of course, for some more risk-averse investors that may be the biggest selling point for these funds.
BLCN tracks an index it created "comprised of companies committing material resources to developing, researching, supporting, innovating or utilizing blockchain technology for their proprietary use or for use by others." Among its top 10 holdings, by weighting are Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC), IBM, Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO), Microsoft and HIVE Blockchain.
BLOK calls itself "an actively managed ETF that seeks to provide total return by investing at least 80% of its net assets in equities of companies actively involved in the development of and utilization of transformational data sharing technologies." Some of BLOK's top 10 holdings by weighting include Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE:TSM), NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA), Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) and HIVE.
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