Bitcoin hater James Rickards does a U-turn and endorses one crypto to go to the Moon

Lawyer, economist, portfolio manager and best selling author James Rickards is well known for his strong dislike of Bitcoin and crypto currency in general. In dozens of media interview Rickards has dismissed Bitcoin and crypto currencies as a ''scam'', ''useless" and vehicles for ''terrorists and money launderers''.

However, Rickards has recently performed something of a u-turn, whilst still maintaining that Bitcoin and 99% of crypto's are a scam. During February he claimed to have discovered one crypto that is not a scam. Indeed Rickards is very excited about this crypto claiming this is his most important investment call of 2018 calling it, ''An explosive opportunity that is set to deliver a massive cash windfall'' for his readers.

In the Daily Reckoning newsletter of Friday 23 February Rickards explained why he is so excited about this crypto:

''I’ve just uncovered a very special cryptocurrency that’s trading for just around $0.70. To put that into perspective, if this tiny crypto goes as high as Bitcoin’s peak, you’re looking at a rare total profit of nearly 3,000,000%! That’s enough to turn a small investment of $100 into over $2.7 million. That’s how much money is at stake''.

In a special broadcast on 27 February Rickards revealed his 3 reasons why this crypto out of the 1,300 out there is so special.

Reason 1

Firstly, it is backed by one of the world's biggest companies – IBM along with a dozen banks and Deloitte one of the world's biggest accountancy companies. Apparently, IBM has hundreds of staff working on developing an international payments platform that will allow banks and individuals to send money all over the world. As Jim points out sending money across borders can take days and be expensive once fees are added in. So this crypto is set to transform the multitrillion dollar foreign exchange market. He notes that Fortune are predicting $87 billion will flow into this crypto from cross border payments by 2019.

Reason 2

Rickards states that 99.9% of cryptos do not pass his five COINN criteria. I would be interested to hear what readers think about his claim that only one crypto passes this criteria. The COINN criteria are below:

C * Consensus – The user base lends credibility, like the way Google ranks search results

O * Open Source – Cannot be controlled by the government
I * Impenetrable – Cannot be hijacked with tricks like “51% attacks,” “gatekeeper attacks,” and “Sybil attacks”
N * No-Nonsense Governance — Must be efficient and not get bogged down by “work”
N * Nimble — Fast, easy, cheap payments processing.

Reason 3

Rickards claims that IBM want to launch this crypto on its payments platform this year. Once IBM launches its payments platform this will give this crypto a huge pump up in price and make investors a very handsome return. Indeed, he claims that a flood of money could push this crypto up by 1,000% higher by the end of 2018!
After dangling all these carrots in front of your nose Jim finishes his special crypto call by saying that if you want to find out what this crypto is you will have to take out a subscription to his newsletter. If memory serves me right this one off special offer would have cost you a mere £1,400!

Well sorry folks but that is just a little too expensive for my thread bare wallet. Now I am no Sherlock Holmes and would never claim to have research skills as good as Jim's but darn it I was determined to try and find out what I was missing out on.

Jim mentioned that this crypto was in a formal partnership with IBM and other companies such as Deloitte and KlickEx group. A simple Google search revealed that our special crypto, the only one that is not a scam mind you is ….STELLAR LUMENS!

Together IBM and Stellar are working on a project called Hyperledger Fabric which aims to build open source blockchains to facilitate cross border payments. I hate to end on a sour note but all may not be as rosy as it seems for the IBM-Stellar partnership. Jesse Lund, IBM's VP of blockchain, told Fortune that:
''According to Lund, though, the banks use of Stellar’s digital currency is likely to be temporary. He predicts that, in the next year, central banks will begin issuing digital currencies of their own, and that these will become an integral part of blockchain-based money transfers''.

Nor should we forget the competition from Ripple and Qtum both of which have signed partnerships with big names in the banking, cybersecurity and cloud storage space. Time will tell if this partnership will bring about a revolution in cross border payments. More pertinently, time will tell if Jim's call of a 1,000% increase in the price of Stellar Lumens comes true. Hold on to your seat for the wild ride to come.

Please let me know your thoughts on Jim Rickards forecast for Stellar Lumens.

Sources:
http://fortune.com/2017/10/16/ibm-blockchain-stellar/
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4137850-ibm-cryptomania-upside
http://time.com/money/5104082/meet-stellar-the-cryptocurrency-poised-to-be-the-next-bitcoin-and-ripple/
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/02/theres-a-new-hottest-coin-of-2018-so-far-stellar.html
https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/01/17/step-aside-ripple-and-stellar-qtum-just-landed-2-b.aspx
https://ripple.com/insights/cambridge-use-xrp-faster-global-payments/
https://www.stellar.org/blog/Q1-2018-stellar-and-state-of-crypto/