What are some good Android apps where you can earn money by riding a bicycle? [EU]
Hello, so I searched on the sub and on Google if there's such app, but there are multiple of them, So far I found Ridevert, ByCycling, Bikuh, etc.. which one do you think I should use? Thanks.
I know this is a long shot, but can you cite the apps that you use that could earn you money? I spend a lot in prepaid load weekly so I figured that I should put it in good use somehow. Pera Swipe is an example.
BB -- Blackberry AWS -- Amazon Web Services IVY -- Intelligent Vehicles Yo. I don't actually know if this stands for anything QNX -- Quick-Unix perhaps? It's a Unix-like embedded microkernel RTOS (real-time operating system) EOY -- end of year PT -- price target SP -- stock price EV -- electric vehicle SoC -- System on a Chip IoT -- Internet of Things TL;DR: Blackberry ($BB) is almost daily announcing new partnerships and new clients for their software, including new deals with companies that are just now or just this year launching autonomous vehicles that run on QNX software. The big kahuna of all these deals is BB's recent partnership with Amazon to go 50/50 into BB's software IVY, a scalable cloud-connected software platform designed for intelligent vehicle data gathering and data sharing. With Amazon's Jeff Bezos stepping down, and Andy Jassy filling his shoes, who was the CEO of AWS, BB will have some very firm support behind Amazon's new CEO. BB and Amazon are having a webinar Feb. 23rd about their partnership and IVY, which should be a strong catalyst moving forward. IVY beta earnings are projected to begin impacting BB's Q3 or Q4 earnings beginning in November this year, with IVY fully being integrated around the 2023 timeframe. Through a lot of reading and analysis, I believe BB has a four-tiered business model dating back as far as 2013 when BB's CEO John Chen was hired to begin the massive BB turnaround process. Tier 1 was development of QNX and IVY, lasting from 2013 to today and onward, however, Tier 2 overlaps Tier 1. Tier 2 was customer acquisition, primarily distributing their secure software in QNX, SecuSuite, Spark, and AtHoc. They secured 37 automakers during this time, including 9 of the top 10 automakers, over 106 governments from around the world, including all of G7 governments and 18 of G20 governments, as well as 77% of Fortune 100 companies, including partnerships with Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Sony, XPENG, XPEV, NVIDIA, Intel, Qualcomm, Baidu, IBM, LG, Samsung, and others. Well if they have such an incredible market share, why are they so undervalued? The answer is that QNX was not the end-all-be-all product. It was the base that the rest would be built on. Particularly IVY, which is the real money-maker. Tier 3 is IVY beta, and Tier 4 is IVY distribution and subscription revenue streams. So why is IVY the big deal and not QNX? They are both big deals, but QNX was never designed to be the money-maker. They are charging a one-time fee per vehicle use. There is a bigger goal here, to secure their clients as their customers for the bigger product in IVY. They also need QNX is to be a secure system in order for IVY to be trustworthy and reliable. And it certainly is secure. QNX has ISO26262 certification, as well as US government clearance, NSA clearance, and CIA clearance. The US government uses QNX and Blackberry products. Just let that sink in. That should tell you something about its security. Anyways, IVY will be used in autonomous vehicle level 4 and level 5 communication (note that QNX is level 5 certified... it has a business moat just in its security level and clearance), as well as EV and gas vehicle data collecting and AI-powered data synthesis. See below for more details on IVY. Wrapping up this TL;DR, BB is going to do well this year as IVY unfolds, but will do even better in the next 2-5 years. I have a PT of 25 by EOY and a PT of 80 by 2023 EOY, and a PT of 160+ by 2025 EOY TL;DR: TL;DR: BB go up, but go slow for now because IVY revenue not here yet, but big fast later. Make big monies, BB is the future tech that Amazon, Microsoft, Google, etc will be building upon in the EV and IoT market
FAQs:
1) Why is Blackberry stock price going down? A: A few possible reasons. One, as of today the whole market is down. BB is connected to overall market swings as most companies are. Two, there may be some market manipulation by bearish financial institutions as there are a lot of calls expiring on 2/19. I would expect that BB SP to be volatile between $11 and $14 between now and then, and to move upwards after 2/19 and especially after 2/23 (Amazon + BB webinar). Three, there are bearish investors who still think BB is a phone company and don't understand the underworkings of BB's business strategy, their software, their patents, or their partners. Their revenue has been affected by coronavirus and has not been particularly phenomenal so far this year. 2) Should I invest now or later? A: First off, I'm not a financial advisor, these are just my opinions. Invest at your own risk. In my opinion, BB will see a large SP growth by EOY, anywhere from 50% to 150% growth by EOY. While revenue will likely not increase much this year, the partnership with Amazon and news regarding IVY will likely create new floors for their SP much higher than the current SP right now, at around the $12 SP 3) What's stopping competitors from building a similar product and hurting BB's business? A: There's a lot of reasons why BB has a huge moat right now. One, notice the partners that BB has with QNX. They've got all the big boys working them, aside from Apple and Tesla. Seeing as SpaceX runs on QNX, and seeing that Apple was trying to make a deal with Hyundai that did not go through, I think it is still possible that either Tesla or Apple or both companies could also make a deal with BB to use QNX as their OS system. BB worked to develop their QNX embedded microkernel OS for the last eight years or so. Anyone trying to step into the game now is far too late. Apple has the best chance of all companies, as it has its own OS and Apple knows security very well, but this still requires an entirely new system in order to work in the EV sector. Also, Apple announced recently that they would be developing their own EV, although they did not give much details beyond that statement. The likelihood that they are both working on the hardware and software side of this thing is slim given the large number of difficulties that come with certification as it relates to the cybersecurity software space. Regardless, I would suspect that either Apple or Tesla is the most likely to be competitors in this space, but neither company has successfully completed a certified OS system, particularly for the emerging sector of autonomous EVs. Tesla is currently building a Linux-based system that is having a lot of difficulty in passing certifications such as ISO26262, a struggle that has been ongoing for years now. They may achieve a product that passes these safety regulations and certifications, but the question remains whether this will be in time as the EV and autonomous market picks up speed, and whether competing companies would even be interested in using their product. In fact, any car company is unlikely to develop their own OS software because none of their competitors would be likely to use it. BB is the perfect business to license since it is not competing in the hardware sector for the EV market. This argument can also be used for Apple if they are also building an EV. 4) Why is BB's revenue so low if they have so many customers and partners? A: QNX has been licensed so far as a one-time purchase, per vehicle or IoT using their software. IVY will be a subscription-based software that also includes a one-time purchase. Thus, BB's revenue streams are somewhat unimpressive currently, but they are playing the long game. If my hypothesis is correct, it is John Chen's goal to lay low as software is developed and customer relationships are built. It's the same with the book market. It's the sequel that makes all the money, not the first book. QNX is just the first book of a series looking to hook in its customers with low costs before hitting 'em with the strong follow up in IVY. Additionally, in order to build a competitive business moat, it was to their advantage to not forewarn any competitors of their involvement and plans. Consider John Chen's work as a CEO in his last business Sybase. Chen worked as the CEO of Sybase for 10 years. For the first 7 years, the SP remained at around $10 a share. Three years later, the SP was at $100 a share. I suspect he is implementing a similar model with Blackberry. Chen joined Blackberry in 2013. BB stock actually dropped for most of the last 7 years, resting at a stock price of around $5. Now BB is at $12 a share. I would not be surprised if BB reaches $50 two years from now.
Blackberry Clients and Partners Automakers: Honda, Audi, Jeep, Mitsubishi, Ford, Hyundai, Volkswagen, Bentley, Lamboghini, Byton, Mini (cooper), Toyota, Subaru, Fiat Chrysler, Mazda, Nio, BMW, Porsche, Lexus, Kia, Land-Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Buick, Jaguar, Visteon, Skoda, Chevrolet, Nissan, Acura, Continental, General Motors, Baidu, Motional Other: Denso, Aptiv, Bosch, Panasonic, Harman, Bugatti, LG, Vodafone, Bell, Carahsoft, CACI, Telus, iSec, KPMG, Tableau, Qlik Major: Amazon, Google, Sony, XPENG, XPEV, Li Auto, NVIDIA, Canoo, Microsoft, Intel, Verizon, Qualcomm, IBM, LG, Samsung Major Investors: PRIMECAP, Hamblin Watsa, Ontario Teachers’ Pension, Vanguard, Harris Associates, ETF Managers Group, Wells Capital, Arrowstreet Capital, Kahn Brothers Advisors, Norges Bank Investment Governments: Albania, Andorra, Angola, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belarus, Belgium, Benin, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Canada, Congo, Croatia, Czech Republic, DR Congo, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Gabon, Germany, Ghana, Gibraltar, Greece, Guadeloupe, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, Latvia, Lesotho, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Macedonia, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Malta, Marthinique, Mauritania, Mauritus, Mayotte, Mexico, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Réunion, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Martin, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Turkey, USA, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Vatican City, Western Sahara, Zambia, Zimbabwe
Blackberry Current Revenues:
BlackBerry Revenues: How Does BlackBerry Make Money? -- Trefis This display the biggest bearish argument to BB. Until IVY begins producing new revenue streams, BB is likely to not exponentially increase revenue streams, but only sustain moderate YoY growth
Blackberry Analysis Regarding Infotainment and Google and Ford Deal:
see "Blackberry (BB) Stock News Analysis | What I need to say..." by Financial Live by LEYA on the forbidden video website The media recently picked out a story that left out a lot of pertinent information, making it seems that BB lost Ford as a client. This is not true. QNX is designed to be a SoC. This means that other operating systems, such as Linux or Android, can be easily added to QNX. It is in fact encouraged. The Ford and Google deal was simply announcing the Ford would be using Android as their infotainment system. I believe that BB was never intended to try and be the predominant entity for all software systems in EVs or IoTs, but the backbone that connects all together, and to protect all components in a secure system. Autonomous EVs and even regular EVs in general would not be possible without a secure system protecting the product, as is true with IoTs. This is also why things like US Fighter Jets run on... you guess it, QNX. Ford is still using QNX. It is simply also now using Android that is running on top of QNX more commentary on this: Analyzing Blackberry Bear Argument - Case No. 1: Ford Deal
Image This is an interesting one to be sure. Facebook was being evil, like the do, and were caught using a number of BB patents. They settled in February, and the day that the settlement was finalized, John Chen (BB CEO) tweeted reminding everyone that BB is used on the ISS https://twitter.com/JohnChen/status/1358853064153784321?s=20 Well, the connection and speculation here is that Blackberry is going to the moon, and that the settlement is rather significant. Someone else also dug out some information in Facebook's most recent 10-K, specifically a portion for a 'non-cancelable contractual commitment' of an amount of $7500 million dollars. That's 7.5 billion btw. We don't know how big the settlement is, but it is worth noting that BB's entire market cap is 7.5B. I highly doubt that a settlement would reach such lofty numbers, but it could be possible that FB settled for some initial amount of $1B or so, as well as $1B in reoccurring payments over several years. We won't know until March 15th actually, so stay tuned.
Blackberry New Partnerships
Within the last few weeks, Blackberry has announced a stronger partnership with Baidu (China's Google), as well as their involvement with Baidu choosing to use QNX for their autonomous vehicles that will be hitting the road, as early as this year and next. BB has also announced their involvement with Motional, a joint venture between Hyundai and Aptiv, which will use QNX for their autonomous vehicles. Motional will be partnering with Lyft to use autonomous vehicles to begin serving customers and will be deploying their vehicles in 2023. It was also announced that QNX will be working with AOSP (Android Open Source Project), as well as announcing yesterday that QNX Hypervisor 2.2 is now released, which is what allows Android and Linux to run on top of QNX. A sum-up of all the recent news on $BB
Rumor: Blackberry Buyout? Here's why that's not happening:
Just read this post. It's quite revealing: Great Day for BB despite stick dipping. TL;DR: Amazon could have easily bought BB. Why didn't they? Well, all the big players are interested in this EV and IoT emerging sector. This is the new wave of technology that will dominate the market. First we had the dot.com boom, then the cell-phone and smart-phone market, and now we have the autonomous EV and IoT market. If Amazon were to buy BB, they would have to submit a tender offer. This would be a red flag to all the big players that Amazon were trying to buy up the best security out there. It would be a bidding war that could result in a double-digit multi-billion dollar buyout. It was much more to their advantage to create a secret alliance with BB and establish a 50/50 partnership, whose contract includes exclusivity for their use of IVY. Ouch! That's gotta hurt. This is where the importance of QNX lies. BB will be able to pull the rug out from any company that chooses to use something other than IVY. No IVY, no QNX, no EV. It will be a package deal where IVY is the big money maker. All other companies will have to build from the ground up or be forced to license QNX and make their money off of other sectors, such as the infotainment sector, as Google has already begun to do with the Ford deal. When this deal happened, the other big boys wet their pants realizing they needed to get into this space, and fast. Microsoft partnered with Cruise/GM. Apple tried to partner with Hyundai, who was so flattered, they may have initially said yes or indicated so, before realizing that they were already partnered with BB, so it was a no-go. Not sure if that is fact or fiction, but it is an interesting proposal.
Blackberry IVY + AWS Partnership:
Alright, so what's the deal with IVY? Why is it going to be so profitable? Why is IVY the real money-maker, while QNX has been used as the customer-acquisition software tool? Check out this picture: Image For one, IVY is designed for real-time communication between EVs or other IoTs. Autonomous driving level 5 requires vehicles to communicate with one another. This is where IVY comes in. IVY connects the different software components of an EV (which presumably are running on QNX), as well as harvesting data on those systems. The data used can be distributed for a wide-variety of uses, including, but not limited to, automakers and suppliers, app developers, consumer services, smart cities, EV charging providers, insurance companies, and vehicle maintenance providers. All of these different sectors will be willing to pay subscriptions for these data services, as well as the automakers and IoT makers who will also be willing to pay subscriptions for IVY. For instance, IVY can help share information between vehicles that will allow for a car detecting ice roads in one area so that other cars using IVY can take a different route. This results in less crashes, which helps the automakers. Insurance companies can use data from all these different data points as well, allowing them an inside-view of their clients. The list of what is possible here is inexhaustible. As for price points, the subscription models for multiple outside companies wanting to use the data will be create huge revenue streams for BB. With Amazon as a 50/50 partner, and with their resources and strategic management, BB will be poised to be the foundation in security and data sharing for the entire EV, and somewhat of the IoT market (the IoT market has more competitors for sure) see "Is BlackBerry Stock Undervalued?" by Wealthy Mindset on the forbidden video website see "Roadmap to $180 a share (BlackBerry Stock)" by Wealthy Mindset on the forbidden video website
Revenue, revenue, revenue...
Blackberry is poised to be an industry leader in EV, government, and IoT security and data sharing with products such as QNX, IVY, Spark, and their other software products. Stock price will likely stay somewhat stunted until IVY revenue begins picking up. It is possible that more announcements and marketing related to IVY will make this growth more rapid. In my opinion, either way BB over the next 5 years will 10x. The question is whether you want to get in now at $12 / share or two years from now at $40 a share or something similar, assuming that either way this stock is going to push for that 100B market cap (it's currently at 7B). There will be bearish analysts that will continue to say that Blackberry is a worthless company until those IVY revenue streams begin to come in. It is also possible that a realistic competitor may emerge within the next three years, such as Tesla or Apple. But if Apple is seeking to create its own EV product, then both companies will have a hard time finding any way to license their software to any other company. It remains possible that Apple and/or Tesla may strikes deals with BB as well in order to be able to produce autonomous vehicles and get a bite of that market share
Really, no competitors?
Well it's called a business moat for a reason. As we have recently seen, QNX is working with AOSP, and so clearly, they are not to be worried about. Tesla is not a true competitor as their OS product is not certified yet, and has demonstrated difficulty in doing so, and additionally, other automakers will not want to benefit their competitors by using their product. A third-party non-auto-maker will be much more desirable. Other companies such as VxWorks, have a lot of to prove both in security and certifications, as well as producing an OS product that is compatible with an emerging autonomous level 5 EV market. QNX's embedded microkernel RTOS is very much unique in this regard. This type of system allows for real-time processing and power distribution, while protecting the system from attacks. In an embedded microkernel system, if one part of the system is attacked, the whole system will not shut down, in layman's terms. This is essential for the security of any high-risk product that is built upon an underlying software that controls that different components of the system.
Conclusion:
All eyes are turned towards Blackberry right now. People want to know what this deal with Amazon will look like, how it will work, what they will focus on, (will Amazon also use this system for a fleet of delivery drones? hmmm), what the revenue streams will look like, what are their projections, what markets and sectors are they targeting, what are their future goals, what will Amazon be doing on their end, etc, etc. The Amazon + BB webinar may answer some of those questions, or maybe they won't. Time will tell (Feb. 23rd, specifically -- here's a link to sign up and watch: Next-Gen Vehicle Architectures Unlock Unprecedented Opportunities for Automakers). Also look out for that FB settlement numbers on March 15th, and Q4 earnings March 31st. I don't expect Q4 earnings to be particularly interesting unless they include the FB settlement numbers. Could those numbers instead be put into Q1 earnings for 2021? Possibly. Initially IVY beta is expected to begin being released late this year. I will also be looking forward to see how Apple and Tesla respond in the coming months. Ultimately, BB is a long-term play, but is poised to dominate this emerging industry with the partnerships and security focused software they have secretly been building. Now if only the could do something about their logo, some rebranding would be nice... This is not financial advice, just my own opinions. I am not a financial advisor nor a professional. I own 14k shares in Blackberry, as well as options (10x 8/17/21 20c BB). Do your own DD and fact check me as well
As an extension to my DD yesterday, lets make sense of todays psy-op
Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. I do not recommend any position here. Everything here is speculation and my personal opinion and not to be construed as factual in any way. I may not be correct on some of my numbers. Do your own research before making a play. Link to previous DD: https://www.reddit.com/GME/comments/lgo0f9/im_going_to_ely5_the_situation_were_in_from_a/ So I'm at the point where I don't even care about the data, all I really care about right now is studying their moves (i.e. psychological attacks) and reading the chart. It's best of we keep things as simple as we can and not over analyze things. So, what happened today? Today, there was a small blip up and down in the morning, a consistent, steady pattern to the peak, and a steady pattern back down. Volume was higher on the upswing than the downswing, and the downswing happened 15-20 minutes after the news was released that Fidelity exited their position. As a side note, on WSB all GME talk was concentrated to one non-stickied thread and the "new rage" is all about weed stonks. Lets break this down into key points (bold is TL;DR): 1) I suspect the price action today was completely controlled by the shorts. Just looking at the price action with no other context, it just looks fishy. The way I am reading the chart is they are progressively covering, and shorting, and covering again as to not build buying momentum against them. Then at 1:07, release some "bad news" about Fidelity, give it 15-20 minutes to spread to the plebs, and then start to drop the price to trick people into selling. But if you look at the volume on the downswing, ain't nobody selling. It is a pathetic attempt to shake people. Here is what the chart today looks like: just look at the smooth line up, and the smooth line down 2) The changes to WSB today are obvious. So after the bad news comes out for the hedgehogs in the form of SI, they need to up their control of WSB to help stop the bleeding. So they pump weed stocks and SNDL and quarantine GME to one non-stickied thread. Hopefully the dumb money will sell now! 🤡 3) The Fidelity article is fake news, literally. I might not be 100% accurate here, so please someone correct me if I'm wrong and I will amend this post and/or provide sources. But what I understand is that the data referenced is included in the Jan 29th FINRA report for SI. Also, it is incredibly misleading because Fidelity actually increased their stake. Really, this is old news and irrelevant and they are grasping at straws by bringing this up. Honestly, it's kind of pathetic. EDIT: sauce- https://www.reddit.com/GME/comments/lh75kf/about_fidelity_13gs/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share 4) AMC and GME are continuing to follow the same pattern. This isn't something I care to follow too heavily, but I noticed that the AMC chart was a little less concise as the GME chart. I suspect there is more liquidity in AMC which would account for a less linear rise and fall. More evidence of manipulation. 5) GME is inversely following SPY. This is indicative of rebalancing to finance their GME position. This tells me they are bleeding. Here are the two charts, see for yourself: GME SPY 6) Liquidity is bone dry. I highly recommend purchasing level 2 data if you can, because the tape tells a story that you won't get through any other means. The bid/ask spread is always wide and even the smallest amount of buying volume sends the stock flying. If you watch the tape, you can literally see when and where they are defending the price from exploding. Everytime they do this, they dig their hole deeper. Low liquidity is the most bullish sign for the squeeze there is. If a big dick buyer comes in tomorrow or Friday then the gamma squeeze would be epic and the shorts would be fuk. Side note that just by looking at the 1 minute chart, you can see the lack of liquidity. The damn chart looks like a crypto chart with tons of near-0 volume doji candles. That is the gist of it. Overall, their desperation is palpable but it is so easy to diagnose. It also seems like they are in complete control of the price, but we are in complete control of the shares. So, where do we go from here? Well, it still stands to reason that the shorts want to report a good SI from Fridays settlement date. However, they probably know that a large amount of covering will cause the price to skyrocket very quickly. So that is the conundrum the shorts are in. My prediction is one of two things happen: 1) Shorts attempt a controlled cover to 100-200 and liquidate a lot of other positions to fund a short attack to keep the price as low as they can. 2) Shorts say "fuck covering" and continue to try to keep the price low and manipulated. If this happens, February 24th is a key date. What am I doing? I am holding on to my shares obviously, and today just added 3/19 500c/800c spreads (cost basis $39) and 3/19 550c (cost basis $110). My thought being that if they continue to kick the can down the road, GME earnings might prove to be a catalyst. Please poke holes in my reasoning and challenge my thoughts. I want to be wrong.
My uncle left me a shifty little bar in his will. One of the regulars told me he had a doppelgänger.
Not a lot of people visiting my bar are completely normal, well-adjusted individuals. It took me a long time getting on the same wavelength with most of our regulars, but I'll never forget the day I had my first close encounter with one of them. This happened when I was still quite green, as you'll see. His name was Cole. He'd been coming to the bar a lot since we'd opened up again but Andrik said he hadn't seen him around that often before. A few times, yes, but he didn't know anything about him safe for his name. Cole would never talk to anyone. He'd keep his head low and order his drinks in a rough, quiet voice. He stuttered a lot. Once he'd received his beverage of choice, he'd sit down in the emptiest corner of The New Saloon, where he would stay for up to four hours. I'd watch him from time to time. His head would always be hovering just a few inches above the table, his eyes half-closed. I felt sad for him. He looked sort of defeated, although I didn't know by whom or what. The fact that he drank a little more with every visit concerned me. I knew it wasn't really my place to snoop around in my patrons' lives, but I didn't have to be intrusive–all I wanted to know was whether he was okay. So one time when I handed him his beer, I simply asked. He stared at me for a split second, his eyes wide and watery, before he broke down sobbing. He tried to keep it in at first but eventually buried his face in his palms, tears dripping down his chin. I handed him a napkin before rounding the counter and walking over to him, waving for Andrik to take over for a little while. "It's none of my business," I began cautiously, "but if you want to talk…" "Yes," he breathed. "That might help." I nodded and we went back over to his corner booth. Glancing around, I assured myself nobody else was in earshot before sitting down across from him. I didn't have to prod for him to begin. "I'm going to kill someone very soon. He's taken everything from me, that bastard. But honestly, I'm scared." He lowered his voice. "This thing, it's not…" "Wait, slow down," I said softly. "What's he taken from you?" "Simply everything. My house, my job, my wife… It all started when I came home late from work to see the same car I own already parked in my driveway. The exact same one, down to the license plate. I went inside the house, planning to ask my wife about it, but then I heard something. My wife's voice, but also another man's. I could hear them from downstairs in the living room when I came in. I sneaked up to the bedroom, opened the door and there they were. My wife… and me." "You?" I repeated, frowning in confusion. Cole shrugged and took a sip of his drink. "Not me of course, but he looked like me. He had the same birthmark on his back, he even sounded like me. I've heard my voice recorded before so while I didn't realize it right away, his was just like mine. Before you ask, I don't have a twin or anything. The instant I saw him, I knew he wasn't human. He was something else, I didn't know what but… either way, the two of them hadn't noticed me and once I'd gotten a good look at him, I was too shocked to speak up anymore. Weak reaction, I know, but what was I supposed to do? "I went back outside and after a bit of thinking, I decided to call the police. But when I told them there was someone in my house who looked just like me and that I was scared, they hung up on me. Granted, I probably sounded like I was drunk or high or something. I was not, you should know that. I've never had any problems with my mental health either. That was just the beginning though. I'm not a confrontational kind of guy and I wasn't just going to barge in there. I was afraid and then of course, there's the fact that he literally managed to trick my wife into… I know I should have done something right away but I just couldn't. I ended up letting it happen, that and so much more. I slept in my car that night, parked somewhere public since my spot at home was occupied." Cole let out a dry laugh and emptied his glass. "You must think I'm crazy." I was staring at him with my mouth agape. I'm not sure what I had expected to hear, but this was not it; this was terrifying. I believed him though. Knowing where Andrik and the others working the bar came from, the concept of doppelgängers didn't really seem groundless. I shook my head. "I believe you," I replied quietly, my voice raw from my parched throat. I was starting to feel like I'd need a drink as well. "Go on." Cole raised an eyebrow in disbelief before taking in a shaky breath. "When I came in to work the next day, he was already there. He was sitting at my desk, reading through the papers stacked up there. I watched him for a little while. I kind of felt like something was draining from me. Maybe my energy or whatever, I'm sorry. I'm not good at storytelling. I suddenly felt incredibly hopeless is what I'm saying. I waited in the corridor outside my office for someone to come by. I wanted to talk to my co-workers; surely they'd notice that there were two of me. When the place got more crowded, they did come by, but they all just ignored me. They didn't so much look at me, not even when I tried to speak to them. It was like I wasn't even there. "And then I realized it. My wife hadn't noticed me either, even though I had been standing in the doorway right across from her. Nobody I knew was noticing me. When I turned to look back at the other me sitting in my office, he looked right at me, the only one to look me in the eyes in that entire building, and he smiled. "Again, I did nothing. I simply went back to my car and drove around, crying like a baby. I remembered The New Saloon and that's how I ended up at your bar again. See, I have nothing else to do anymore… and no one to talk to either. I don't have any siblings, my parents live overseas and I don't have any friends who'd stand with me in this. Even if I had, they would have probably forgotten me by now as well. This is the only place for me." He sighed and raised his glass. It was empty then but I smiled at the gesture, though sadly. Cole tried to smile back but his lip was quivering. "It's warmer here than in my car and the drinks are cheap, so I can just forget about everything for a little while. Besides, you guys here don't know me and since only strangers seem to acknowledge my existence anymore, I'm grateful for at least being alive here… being a person here or whatever. This thing pushed me out of my own life. I don't even dare to walk by my own house anymore because of how much it scares me. I still have access to my bank account but who knows how long that's going to last." "So now you want to kill him." "Of course. It's the only way. No clue what he is but… I bought a gun from some shady guy selling weapons underhand and I'm just going to fire until that thing isn't moving anymore. I've been waiting for too long already. Once he's dead, I'll take over again. I didn't have much of a life, but I was with the woman I love and I earned enough money to afford some luxury. My life wasn't busy or glamorous or anything but it was good, and it was mine." I nodded. I didn't know what to say so I offered to let him sleep at the bar that night since it was warm in there at least. Cole shook his head no. "I appreciate it but I have to start looking for a chance to… you know. It'll be difficult. I need to do it somewhere no one else sees, and I need to keep my wife from finding out. I don't want her to know. Maybe I should tell her, maybe I will, someday, but she'd have a complete meltdown and I just want to keep her safe. I'll be missing out on a lot of sleep from now on and I won't be showing up here as often anymore but this has to be my priority now until it's done." "Is there anything else I could help you with?" "No. I really don't want to drag anyone else into this mess… who knows what's gonna happen. But for what it's worth, thank you It was nice having somebody listen to me. And looking me in the eyes, I suppose." He rose from his seat and handed me the money for his drink directly. I watched as he left, his jacket pulled tight around his shoulders. He gave me a quick glance before he disappeared through the door, the tiniest of smiles on his lips. "Good luck!" I called after him, catching a few surprised looks from my other patrons. Smiling awkwardly, I got up and walked over to Andrik, who was just in the process of drying off a clean glass. He raised his brows quizzically. "It's nice you're getting to know your regulars, but you don't always have to take that long. You don't have to play therapist for whoever comes in here," he told me. I sighed as I joined him behind the counter. "I wasn't playing therapist, this guy just really needed someone to listen to him. He's got a bit of a situation. Say… do you know anything about impostors? Like, doppelgängers." Andrik tilted his head. "Well, a doppelgänger doesn't always have to be just that. Usually an encounter with one is said to be bad luck, so in a way, they're harbingers of misfortune. However what you mean is basically an evil twin and that can be anything." He rubbed the glass in his hands with a thoughtful look on his face. "Any being able to mimic something or someone else can set its sights on you and try to push itself into your life. However very few succeed. It'd have to be powerful to deceive its victims' entire social circle. I mean, you'd have to get every detail about them down cold." "And what if it can do that? And can it copy a person's belongings too? Like a car or something." "It'd have to be even more powerful to do that," Andrik replied. "By the way, I'll gladly tell you anything I know, but since your questions are very specific, I'm guessing this has to do with your friend from earlier." I nodded quietly. "Care to share what exactly he told you?" "I'd rather not for now. But can you kill something like what you just described, like, with a gun?" Andrik let out a mirthless chuckle. "If you could, life would be so much easier for folk like me. But no, most certainly not." I dropped the cleaning rag I'd absent-mindedly been wiping the counter with and rushed outside, my heels clacking on the wooden floor. I burst through the door, ran past Bo who flinched upon seeing me dash by, and called out Cole's name, shouting for him to come back. I walked the length of the street trying to find him. I had to warn him somehow. If what Andrik said was true, he wouldn't stand a chance. Maybe he could start anew somewhere else instead, it'd beat dying at the hands of that shapeshifter. After half an hour, I realized I wasn't going to find him. My head low, I returned to The New Saloon. When I came in, Andrik was still where I had left him, but he now had an almost sympathetic look on his face. I took position beside him again. "Go do something else, please," I muttered. "I've got this." I just wanted to be alone with my thoughts for a bit. I listened to the sounds of people chattering as I dried off glasses and cups, tidied up behind the counter and gave out drinks. I didn't know Cole very well, but I'm the type of person who gets kind of invested, I guess. At least I used to be back when this happened. I overheard May whispering something to Danika as they strolled by. "I can't believe Mack left us with someone this weepy." Or at least it was something to the tune of that. That just added to my mood. For two weeks, I waited for Cole to return. I hadn't asked him to, but I was sure he'd come by to let me know he was alright if he were to succeed. I was very busy with the bar and everything, but he was always on my mind, albeit in the back. And then, one day, completely out of the blue, Cole came marching through the door, his arm around the waist of a beautiful well-dressed woman. My heart took a leap and I beamed at the two of them, my chest light with relief. "Hi Cole," I said, barely able to contain the excitement in my voice but keeping it cool since he had who I assumed to be his wife with him. After all, she wasn't supposed to find out about the whole incident. "Long time no see. What can I get you?" "Hello," he replied, drawing out the word. I could see a hint of confusion in his eyes. "I thought this was your first time here," the lady muttered into his ear. He nodded but kept smiling politely. I frowned. Why didn't he recognize me? Furthermore, while he could have easily forgotten about what I looked like, why wouldn't he remember the bar? He'd been here time and time again during the course of the evil twin-ordeal. It took me longer than I cared to admit to put the pieces together in my head. During that time, all I did was stand and stare dumbly as the realization gradually started to set in and my stomach slowly sank. Suddenly, I felt a warm hand on my shoulder. Turning around, I found Andrik standing next to me. He eyed the couple over, but it was obvious he was focused more on the man. Cole was beginning to look rather uncomfortable, almost angry. Eventually, Andrik raised his other hand and pointed at a sign behind us on the wall. We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. "This is a joke, right?" Cole asked. "It's not. Would you please leave now?" Andrik's voice was sharp. I was starting to get nervous. To my surprise, he squeezed my shoulder upon feeling it tremble. "You know you can't just throw out anyone, right? We didn't do anything." "Not you as in the two of you, but you as in… just you. The lady may stay if she wants to." "What did I do? Do I smell?" Cole let out an incredulous laugh as he glanced around the bar, almost like he was looking for support among the other patrons. "What did you do to him?" I pressed out. It wasn't a smart thing to ask outright, but I just had to. "Is he alive?" "I don't know what you're talking about." Andrik cleared his throat. "As you can see, your presence is distressing her. Please leave now." He said this with a deadpan look on his face, his voice flat and steady. Cole's wife looked at us like we were crazy, but I could see an angry gleam in the eyes of the impostor as he turned around and made for the door, mumbling something to the lady about how nuts we were. "Wait!" I screamed, realizing that this was my last chance to warn her. "That man is not your husband!" The lady turned around, giving me an odd look, but she didn't stop. Instead, she picked up her pace a little, approaching the exit in a hurry. "That's not Cole!" I shouted, frantically trying to get the words out as. "He's dangerous! He–" I felt Andrik cover my mouth with his hand, pulling me away from the counter and grabbing one of my flailing arms with his other one. "You're gonna get it angry!" he hissed into my ear. I struggled, trying to get over to the woman, but Andrik was stronger than he looked. By the time he let go of me, Cole's wife was gone. I looked around. None of the patrons had gotten up during my screaming fit. Like they hadn't even noticed the crazy chick going off at all. Andrik had a bitter smile on his face. "Want to know the kicker? This happens like thrice a year around here." I still remember a very short letter my uncle left me that kind of relates to what happened back there. It read, "Dear Giulia, You're nobody's savior. If you try to be, you'll either get hurt yourself or you'll see someone you care about get hurt. Both suck, so keep your distance. Sincerely, Your Uncle Mack." X Part 1: The employees here sleep in the backroom. Part 3: My bouncer and I got beaten up by a little girl. Part 4: The regular who never stops crying. Part 5: Appreciate good employees.
I am 32/Canadian and had a very high paying career that had a short shelf life. During my high producing years I wanted to move out of Canada to another country where I could save as much as I could for my future because I knew my income would not last forever. "Abroad" was a weird term form me. Despite being Canadian and having lived most of my adult years in Canada I felt like everywhere was abroad for me. I was born in one of the poorest countries of Europe and lived there until I was 17 years old. The country has come a long way today but when I go back I never fit in. I definitely feel more connected with Canada than the country I was born in. I think a big reason why I focused so hard on work was to never get back to the level of poverty I grew up as a child. Think of North Korea and Venezuela in one combo. In 1997 there was a complete lock down due to civil war and my family was lucky enough to survive because we had a vegetable garden and chickens. If you left your home you could be shot/robbed or worse be killed from stepping on a mine. The city was covered in them. The other reason was that women got treated like second class citizens where I was born and my childhood was a living hell where I wasn't even allowed to walk on the street alone (even after they took out the mines), talk to members of the opposite sex or have any friends. Dating was not a concept and if they know you are "dating" you have to immediately get engaged and then married and have children or else you are a "whore". I always had a bubbly personality when I was young, I liked to act, dance, and really liked learning. I was also interested in entrepreneurship and got a full scholarship at York University to study business but to my parents a woman is not suited for business and they pushed me to study molecular biology instead. I hated my University years. I battled depression and never really saw a future for myself with biology. I ran away from home at 19 and asked my local university what help was there for someone like me that wanted to start a business. To my surprise they were very helpful and told me about grants and loans I could apply to get started. My first business was face painting and entertainment for children's birthday parties and events. I remember I got a $5000 loan and it seemed like so much money at the time. It helped me buy my first car and get started. I grew my business from just me to having 10 employees, having permanent booths in theme parks and festivals in Canada. It was hard work but I loved it. During the time I was still in university and most of my work was summeweekends so it worked out ok. I remember I was growing more and more fed up with my studies and walked out of my last exam with a smile feeling absolute freedom. I never finished my degree and I was so ok with it even if I was one exam away from graduation. I didn't care about the crazy amounts of student loans I had accumulated. All I wanted was to grow my business and make money. It gave me that thrill that sitting in a lab using a microscope never did. One day I became curious about online streaming and after having a few drinks with a friend I made an application on a popular site (at the time). The site was more like webcamming but you were allowed to do whatever you wanted on cam as long as there was no guys. I didn't think much of it because I was doing well with my other business. At the time I had a rocky relationship with an ex bf and decided maybe going online and flirting with men would make me feel better about my break up. Then saw this email about the site I had previously applied had accepted my application. I did my first stream completely clothed, having fun and chatting with people. I made $4.00 usd which was shit but I had so much fun doing it so I started researching the industry more. After a few more streams I decided this had a potential to be something big and I decided to make a business plan and focus on it entirely. I was constantly doing 10-12h on cam and loved to come up with new creative ideas to entertain people. I went from making $4.00 my first day to making just shy off a million dollars a year. The money was not the focus but being the best at what I did was. During my high earning years I knew I had to save and plan for my future. Most of the other performers would have one good month making $150,000 then disappear and not be relevant again. I don't know how I managed to last in the industry for over 8 years, but I am greatful that my hard work was combined with luck and being at the right place/right time. I moved to Mexico when I was 26 years old. My life in Mexico was great the first two years. I was dating someone that was super supportive with my work schedule. It was the honeymoon phase. We would always eat out and enjoy nice places and expensive travel. I was always frugal with everything else but vacations and experiences. Looking back my mistake was that I paid for everything and my bf at the time felt used to this cushy life that ended up expecting it. He was bad with managing money too and had a lot of debt which stupiditly I ended up paying off. During this time I had bought various income properties in central Mexico (in a retirement village) and the agreement was that since I was making more money with my online business which required long hours on cam, my ex was supposed to take care of property management. At first he was engaged then ended up not so pationate about it. I felt used and underappreciated. When I realized all this I was pregnant with our child. He told me he was unhappy living in a retirement village and wanted to move to a bigger city in Mexico. I told him we could try it out because it would offer more opportunities for our child as well. That's where things went downhill. He constantly ignored me and refused to help with chores in the house. I had a high risk pregnacy so I couldn't do much myself either. After a few months he ended up cheating and experienced a mental break down, trying to commit suicide. I was crushed. I didn't know what happened and despite my efforts to send him to get the best medical help in the country he never was the same. I really wanted to help him get back on his feet again because I thought we were a team for life. I was wrong. He ended up leaving the country one day when my son was only a few months old and has not been back in over 3 years. I have never heard back from him and I don't know if he's dead or alive. I was crushed and myself experienced a complete burn out from work/personal loss at the time. Physically I became ill too and dropped down up 42 kg. I knew I had to do something about it because I had a son to take care of. Looking back at it now it was an amazing opportunity for me to realize there was more to life than work. It helped me realize that I should have not provided everything just because I loved someone but let them provide and create on their own. If they refused I had to know they were using me as a wallet and to not get involved. RETIREMENT It's been one full year since I have been completely off work. It happened in 2020 out of all years. Before I tried to work on and off but my love for my job wasn't the same. I can say I feel much less stressed than I did years ago. My health is better and my sleep schedule is so much better than it was before. For the first time I now feel more Integrated in Mexico and I don't think I am missing out much not living in Canada. Where I live it's safe, it has a high quality of life and there's a lot of international business around. Not that I want to open a new business here but I think it's important to be surrounded by other people that have seen more of the world and are also successful. On top of that I have always felt like a hybrid of many cultures and being surrounded by people that have moved around the world means that we get to be hybrids together and they understand me better than say someone that lived in Canada/USA all their lives and never left the country. Mexico has many bad things as well but no county is perfect. Choosing the right location to live in Mexico is very important to not be affected a lot by the bad things. The pace of life is also much more calmer than in Canada and the US. This can be bad if you want to start a business here but it's a good place to be during retirement. Also people are a lot less "offended" from things and I find it's easier to make friends than it was in Canada. My general perception of Canada was that people in Canada are very helpful to strangers but much colder if you want to have a meaningful friendship. Of course there are exceptions but that was my experience. One thing I did not like about the western culture is the victim mentality that the youth of today are embracing. If they can't get something they usually blame the government for not doing enough for them. Some women blame men for "the patriarchy" and some Canadians blame foreigners because 'they took away their cheap homes and they can't afford real estate' Having lived in a real "shit hole" country where women get treated like crap I want to remind you that Canada and the US are the land of opportunities compared to most of the world. Success is not guaranteed for anyone but all the information is free in English for you to look up and use it to your advantage. You don't even have to learn a second language to access it. Being a woman or a minority gives you the same legal rights as everyone else if not more sometimes. I don't think most western feminists know what it's like to live in a muslim country. My point is: Westerners are not grateful enough for what they have. Complaining is human nature so of course it happens in Mexico but the majority know that their government won't do shit for them and they focus on what they can do as an individual. This can be bad too wich is reflected in the general sentiment Mexicans have for public property but that's another problem I won't get into. Overall i am happy where I have come in my journey. I know I haven't got it all figured out despite having a 4.5 million net worth I don't feel complete being 100% retired. I am currently building real estate in Mexico, investing in stocks and excercising to keep me busy. After things open up I will travel more but the urge to have everything figured out which I experienced immediately once I stopped working is less. Also: It's lonely at the top: I like to think of myself as an easy and approachable person, however I think having a different upbringing and dedicating and reaching high levels of financial success at a very young age, makes relating to most people not as easy. I think humans form stronger bonds when they share and solve similar problems together. That's why I lurk in this forum from time to time. It makes me realize at the end of the day I'm not alone. A lot of the questions that get asked here on a daily basis are questions that I ask myself all the time. The funny part is that no one has the answers, I don't either and the more I live the more I realize that the answers don't matter. The only realisation I have so far is: The key to being rich is living in the moment, enjoying the company of your loved ones and being greatful for what you have. Don't let your brain trick you into overthinking and stay away from the compulsion to use fatFIRE calculators all the time. Just get out for a walk instead and leave your phone at home. We could be hit by a car tomorrow and none of that shit matters as much as you think. Edit: since many have asked the country was Albania. I responded here how I ended up in Canada: https://www.reddit.com/fatFIRE/comments/lh30x8/my_expat_fatfire_journey_abroad_long/gmwn401?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3
[Apps] Just a reminder: Google Opinion Rewards exists. Free money for play store [Free]
Not sure the public opinion behind it but I just found the app Google Opinion Rewards and I've already earned 60 cents. After confirming you're not a robot, once in a while It asks one question and you get 10 cents. One of the few rewards programs available in Canada, not sure about anywhere else. Could feed your gacha addiction. As far as I know there is no recruit a friend bonus. If anyone has any reason why this isn't a good thing, I'd be glad to hear it. All hail google. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.paidtasks Edit2: its not available in every country. Sorry it doesn't help those people. There are a lot of comments that simply say "doesn't work in my country," but that doesn't help anyone. Say "doesn't work in Libya" instead, because that's informative. Again sorry this doesn't benefit you. Edit: since I made this post I've received 80 cents worth of surveys. That being said I just did one that gave me 30 cents. It told me it used my recent location data to gather surveys. It then asked me "which store have you been to recently" the only place I'd been on the list is Dollarama. They then asked me "when did you go?" With a bunch of different options, but the correct answer was a month ago. It then asked me what I did there, I said I didn't go inside, because I hadn't. I noticed the last question was 3/4 but the survey ended there and I got 30 cents. So my conclusion is: it uses your location info so don't lie about where you've been. You may be able to fib about what you did while there, choosing the answer that would prompt another question. You get 10 cents per question, 3 questions 30 cents, where all my other single question surveys have been 10 cent rewards. So the more you move around your city, including entering stores parking lots, the more surveys you'd get. But I'd do this organically because let's be real, 10cents of gas isn't going to get you very far. Would be a great way to pay for a morning coffee or tip for the Skip driver. Also not sure if you can use google money to make an amazon purchase. If so, all of you with expiring money should just go reload your amazon credit
BB -- Blackberry AWS -- Amazon Web Services IVY -- Intelligent Vehicles Yo. I don't actually know if this stands for anything QNX -- Quick-Unix perhaps? It's a Unix-like embedded microkernel RTOS (real-time operating system) EOY -- end of year PT -- price target SP -- stock price EV -- electric vehicle SoC -- System on a Chip IoT -- Internet of Things TL;DR: Blackberry ($BB) is almost daily announcing new partnerships and new clients for their software, including new deals with companies that are just now or just this year launching autonomous vehicles that run on QNX software. The big kahuna of all these deals is BB's recent partnership with Amazon to go 50/50 into BB's software IVY, a scalable cloud-connected software platform designed for intelligent vehicle data gathering and data sharing. With Amazon's Jeff Bezos stepping down, and Andy Jassy filling his shoes, who was the CEO of AWS, BB will have some very firm support behind Amazon's new CEO. BB and Amazon are having a webinar Feb. 23rd about their partnership and IVY, which should be a strong catalyst moving forward. IVY beta earnings are projected to begin impacting BB's Q3 or Q4 earnings beginning in November this year, with IVY fully being integrated around the 2023 timeframe. Through a lot of reading and analysis, I believe BB has a four-tiered business model dating back as far as 2013 when BB's CEO John Chen was hired to begin the massive BB turnaround process. Tier 1 was development of QNX and IVY, lasting from 2013 to today and onward, however, Tier 2 overlaps Tier 1. Tier 2 was customer acquisition, primarily distributing their secure software in QNX, SecuSuite, Spark, and AtHoc. They secured 37 automakers during this time, including 9 of the top 10 automakers, over 106 governments from around the world, including all of G7 governments and 18 of G20 governments, as well as 77% of Fortune 100 companies, including partnerships with Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Sony, XPENG, XPEV, NVIDIA, Intel, Qualcomm, Baidu, IBM, LG, Samsung, and others. Well if they have such an incredible market share, why are they so undervalued? The answer is that QNX was not the end-all-be-all product. It was the base that the rest would be built on. Particularly IVY, which is the real money-maker. Tier 3 is IVY beta, and Tier 4 is IVY distribution and subscription revenue streams. So why is IVY the big deal and not QNX? They are both big deals, but QNX was never designed to be the money-maker. They are charging a one-time fee per vehicle use. There is a bigger goal here, to secure their clients as their customers for the bigger product in IVY. They also need QNX is to be a secure system in order for IVY to be trustworthy and reliable. And it certainly is secure. QNX has ISO26262 certification, as well as US government clearance, NSA clearance, and CIA clearance. The US government uses QNX and Blackberry products. Just let that sink in. That should tell you something about its security. Anyways, IVY will be used in autonomous vehicle level 4 and level 5 communication (note that QNX is level 5 certified... it has a business moat just in its security level and clearance), as well as EV and gas vehicle data collecting and AI-powered data synthesis. See below for more details on IVY. Wrapping up this TL;DR, BB is going to do well this year as IVY unfolds, but will do even better in the next 2-5 years. I have a PT of 25 by EOY and a PT of 80 by 2023 EOY, and a PT of 160+ by 2025 EOY TL;DR: TL;DR: BB go up, but go slow for now because IVY revenue not here yet, but big fast later. Make big monies, BB is the future tech that Amazon, Microsoft, Google, etc will be building upon in the EV and IoT market
FAQs:
1) Why is Blackberry stock price going down? A: A few possible reasons. One, as of today the whole market is down. BB is connected to overall market swings as most companies are. Two, there may be some market manipulation by bearish financial institutions as there are a lot of calls expiring on 2/19. I would expect that BB SP to be volatile between $11 and $14 between now and then, and to move upwards after 2/19 and especially after 2/23 (Amazon + BB webinar). Three, there are bearish investors who still think BB is a phone company and don't understand the underworkings of BB's business strategy, their software, their patents, or their partners. Their revenue has been affected by coronavirus and has not been particularly phenomenal so far this year. 2) Should I invest now or later? A: First off, I'm not a financial advisor, these are just my opinions. Invest at your own risk. In my opinion, BB will see a large SP growth by EOY, anywhere from 50% to 150% growth by EOY. While revenue will likely not increase much this year, the partnership with Amazon and news regarding IVY will likely create new floors for their SP much higher than the current SP right now, at around the $12 SP 3) What's stopping competitors from building a similar product and hurting BB's business? A: There's a lot of reasons why BB has a huge moat right now. One, notice the partners that BB has with QNX. They've got all the big boys working them, aside from Apple and Tesla. Seeing as SpaceX runs on QNX, and seeing that Apple was trying to make a deal with Hyundai that did not go through, I think it is still possible that either Tesla or Apple or both companies could also make a deal with BB to use QNX as their OS system. BB worked to develop their QNX embedded microkernel OS for the last eight years or so. Anyone trying to step into the game now is far too late. Apple has the best chance of all companies, as it has its own OS and Apple knows security very well, but this still requires an entirely new system in order to work in the EV sector. Also, Apple announced recently that they would be developing their own EV, although they did not give much details beyond that statement. The likelihood that they are both working on the hardware and software side of this thing is slim given the large number of difficulties that come with certification as it relates to the cybersecurity software space. Regardless, I would suspect that either Apple or Tesla is the most likely to be competitors in this space, but neither company has successfully completed a certified OS system, particularly for the emerging sector of autonomous EVs. Tesla is currently building a Linux-based system that is having a lot of difficulty in passing certifications such as ISO26262, a struggle that has been ongoing for years now. They may achieve a product that passes these safety regulations and certifications, but the question remains whether this will be in time as the EV and autonomous market picks up speed, and whether competing companies would even be interested in using their product. In fact, any car company is unlikely to develop their own OS software because none of their competitors would be likely to use it. BB is the perfect business to license since it is not competing in the hardware sector for the EV market. This argument can also be used for Apple if they are also building an EV. 4) Why is BB's revenue so low if they have so many customers and partners? A: QNX has been licensed so far as a one-time purchase, per vehicle or IoT using their software. IVY will be a subscription-based software that also includes a one-time purchase. Thus, BB's revenue streams are somewhat unimpressive currently, but they are playing the long game. If my hypothesis is correct, it is John Chen's goal to lay low as software is developed and customer relationships are built. It's the same with the book market. It's the sequel that makes all the money, not the first book. QNX is just the first book of a series looking to hook in its customers with low costs before hitting 'em with the strong follow up in IVY. Additionally, in order to build a competitive business moat, it was to their advantage to not forewarn any competitors of their involvement and plans. Consider John Chen's work as a CEO in his last business Sybase. Chen worked as the CEO of Sybase for 10 years. For the first 7 years, the SP remained at around $10 a share. Three years later, the SP was at $100 a share. I suspect he is implementing a similar model with Blackberry. Chen joined Blackberry in 2013. BB stock actually dropped for most of the last 7 years, resting at a stock price of around $5. Now BB is at $12 a share. I would not be surprised if BB reaches $50 two years from now.
Blackberry Clients and Partners Automakers: Honda, Audi, Jeep, Mitsubishi, Ford, Hyundai, Volkswagen, Bentley, Lamboghini, Byton, Mini (cooper), Toyota, Subaru, Fiat Chrysler, Mazda, Nio, BMW, Porsche, Lexus, Kia, Land-Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Buick, Jaguar, Visteon, Skoda, Chevrolet, Nissan, Acura, Continental, General Motors, Baidu, Motional Other: Denso, Aptiv, Bosch, Panasonic, Harman, Bugatti, LG, Vodafone, Bell, Carahsoft, CACI, Telus, iSec, KPMG, Tableau, Qlik Major: Amazon, Google, Sony, XPENG, XPEV, Li Auto, NVIDIA, Canoo, Microsoft, Intel, Verizon, Qualcomm, IBM, LG, Samsung Major Investors: PRIMECAP, Hamblin Watsa, Ontario Teachers’ Pension, Vanguard, Harris Associates, ETF Managers Group, Wells Capital, Arrowstreet Capital, Kahn Brothers Advisors, Norges Bank Investment Governments: Albania, Andorra, Angola, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belarus, Belgium, Benin, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Canada, Congo, Croatia, Czech Republic, DR Congo, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Gabon, Germany, Ghana, Gibraltar, Greece, Guadeloupe, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, Latvia, Lesotho, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Macedonia, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Malta, Marthinique, Mauritania, Mauritus, Mayotte, Mexico, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Réunion, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Martin, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Turkey, USA, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Vatican City, Western Sahara, Zambia, Zimbabwe
Blackberry Current Revenues:
BlackBerry Revenues: How Does BlackBerry Make Money? -- Trefis This display the biggest bearish argument to BB. Until IVY begins producing new revenue streams, BB is likely to not exponentially increase revenue streams, but only sustain moderate YoY growth
Blackberry Analysis Regarding Infotainment and Google and Ford Deal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIrjrNYR3Lw The media recently picked out a story that left out a lot of pertinent information, making it seems that BB lost Ford as a client. This is not true. QNX is designed to be a SoC. This means that other operating systems, such as Linux or Android, can be easily added to QNX. It is in fact encouraged. The Ford and Google deal was simply announcing the Ford would be using Android as their infotainment system. I believe that BB was never intended to try and be the predominant entity for all software systems in EVs or IoTs, but the backbone that connects all together, and to protect all components in a secure system. Autonomous EVs and even regular EVs in general would not be possible without a secure system protecting the product, as is true with IoTs. This is also why things like US Fighter Jets run on... you guess it, QNX. Ford is still using QNX. It is simply also now using Android that is running on top of QNX more commentary on this: Analyzing Blackberry Bear Argument - Case No. 1: Ford Deal
Image This is an interesting one to be sure. Facebook was being evil, like the do, and were caught using a number of BB patents. They settled in February, and the day that the settlement was finalized, John Chen (BB CEO) tweeted reminding everyone that BB is used on the ISS https://twitter.com/JohnChen/status/1358853064153784321?s=20 Well, the connection and speculation here is that Blackberry is going to the moon, and that the settlement is rather significant. Someone else also dug out some information in Facebook's most recent 10-K, specifically a portion for a 'non-cancelable contractual commitment' of an amount of $7500 million dollars. That's 7.5 billion btw. We don't know how big the settlement is, but it is worth noting that BB's entire market cap is 7.5B. I highly doubt that a settlement would reach such lofty numbers, but it could be possible that FB settled for some initial amount of $1B or so, as well as $1B in reoccurring payments over several years. We won't know until March 15th actually, so stay tuned.
Blackberry New Partnerships
Within the last few weeks, Blackberry has announced a stronger partnership with Baidu (China's Google), as well as their involvement with Baidu choosing to use QNX for their autonomous vehicles that will be hitting the road, as early as this year and next. BB has also announced their involvement with Motional, a joint venture between Hyundai and Aptiv, which will use QNX for their autonomous vehicles. Motional will be partnering with Lyft to use autonomous vehicles to begin serving customers and will be deploying their vehicles in 2023. It was also announced that QNX will be working with AOSP (Android Open Source Project), as well as announcing yesterday that QNX Hypervisor 2.2 is now released, which is what allows Android and Linux to run on top of QNX. A sum-up of all the recent news on $BB
Rumor: Blackberry Buyout? Here's why that's not happening:
Just read this post. It's quite revealing: Great Day for BB despite stick dipping. TL;DR: Amazon could have easily bought BB. Why didn't they? Well, all the big players are interested in this EV and IoT emerging sector. This is the new wave of technology that will dominate the market. First we had the dot.com boom, then the cell-phone and smart-phone market, and now we have the autonomous EV and IoT market. If Amazon were to buy BB, they would have to submit a tender offer. This would be a red flag to all the big players that Amazon were trying to buy up the best security out there. It would be a bidding war that could result in a double-digit multi-billion dollar buyout. It was much more to their advantage to create a secret alliance with BB and establish a 50/50 partnership, whose contract includes exclusivity for their use of IVY. Ouch! That's gotta hurt. This is where the importance of QNX lies. BB will be able to pull the rug out from any company that chooses to use something other than IVY. No IVY, no QNX, no EV. It will be a package deal where IVY is the big money maker. All other companies will have to build from the ground up or be forced to license QNX and make their money off of other sectors, such as the infotainment sector, as Google has already begun to do with the Ford deal. When this deal happened, the other big boys wet their pants realizing they needed to get into this space, and fast. Microsoft partnered with Cruise/GM. Apple tried to partner with Hyundai, who was so flattered, they may have initially said yes or indicated so, before realizing that they were already partnered with BB, so it was a no-go. Not sure if that is fact or fiction, but it is an interesting proposal.
Blackberry IVY + AWS Partnership:
Alright, so what's the deal with IVY? Why is it going to be so profitable? Why is IVY the real money-maker, while QNX has been used as the customer-acquisition software tool? Check out this picture: Image For one, IVY is designed for real-time communication between EVs or other IoTs. Autonomous driving level 5 requires vehicles to communicate with one another. This is where IVY comes in. IVY connects the different software components of an EV (which presumably are running on QNX), as well as harvesting data on those systems. The data used can be distributed for a wide-variety of uses, including, but not limited to, automakers and suppliers, app developers, consumer services, smart cities, EV charging providers, insurance companies, and vehicle maintenance providers. All of these different sectors will be willing to pay subscriptions for these data services, as well as the automakers and IoT makers who will also be willing to pay subscriptions for IVY. For instance, IVY can help share information between vehicles that will allow for a car detecting ice roads in one area so that other cars using IVY can take a different route. This results in less crashes, which helps the automakers. Insurance companies can use data from all these different data points as well, allowing them an inside-view of their clients. The list of what is possible here is inexhaustible. As for price points, the subscription models for multiple outside companies wanting to use the data will be create huge revenue streams for BB. With Amazon as a 50/50 partner, and with their resources and strategic management, BB will be poised to be the foundation in security and data sharing for the entire EV, and somewhat of the IoT market (the IoT market has more competitors for sure) Analysis on IVY Analysis on PTs
Revenue, revenue, revenue...
Blackberry is poised to be an industry leader in EV, government, and IoT security and data sharing with products such as QNX, IVY, Spark, and their other software products. Stock price will likely stay somewhat stunted until IVY revenue begins picking up. It is possible that more announcements and marketing related to IVY will make this growth more rapid. In my opinion, either way BB over the next 5 years will 10x. The question is whether you want to get in now at $12 / share or two years from now at $40 a share or something similar, assuming that either way this stock is going to push for that 100B market cap (it's currently at 7B). There will be bearish analysts that will continue to say that Blackberry is a worthless company until those IVY revenue streams begin to come in. It is also possible that a realistic competitor may emerge within the next three years, such as Tesla or Apple. But if Apple is seeking to create its own EV product, then both companies will have a hard time finding any way to license their software to any other company. It remains possible that Apple and/or Tesla may strikes deals with BB as well in order to be able to produce autonomous vehicles and get a bite of that market share
Really, no competitors?
Well it's called a business moat for a reason. As we have recently seen, QNX is working with AOSP, and so clearly, they are not to be worried about. Tesla is not a true competitor as their OS product is not certified yet, and has demonstrated difficulty in doing so, and additionally, other automakers will not want to benefit their competitors by using their product. A third-party non-auto-maker will be much more desirable. Other companies such as VxWorks, have a lot of to prove both in security and certifications, as well as producing an OS product that is compatible with an emerging autonomous level 5 EV market. QNX's embedded microkernel RTOS is very much unique in this regard. This type of system allows for real-time processing and power distribution, while protecting the system from attacks. In an embedded microkernel system, if one part of the system is attacked, the whole system will not shut down, in layman's terms. This is essential for the security of any high-risk product that is built upon an underlying software that controls that different components of the system.
Conclusion:
All eyes are turned towards Blackberry right now. People want to know what this deal with Amazon will look like, how it will work, what they will focus on, (will Amazon also use this system for a fleet of delivery drones? hmmm), what the revenue streams will look like, what are their projections, what markets and sectors are they targeting, what are their future goals, what will Amazon be doing on their end, etc, etc. The Amazon + BB webinar may answer some of those questions, or maybe they won't. Time will tell (Feb. 23rd, specifically -- here's a link to sign up and watch: Next-Gen Vehicle Architectures Unlock Unprecedented Opportunities for Automakers). Also look out for that FB settlement numbers on March 15th, and Q4 earnings March 31st. I don't expect Q4 earnings to be particularly interesting unless they include the FB settlement numbers. Could those numbers instead be put into Q1 earnings for 2021? Possibly. Initially IVY beta is expected to begin being released late this year. I will also be looking forward to see how Apple and Tesla respond in the coming months. Ultimately, BB is a long-term play, but is poised to dominate this emerging industry with the partnerships and security focused software they have secretly been building. Now if only the could do something about their logo, some rebranding would be nice... This is not financial advice, just my own opinions. I am not a financial advisor nor a professional. I own 14k shares in Blackberry, as well as options (10x 8/17/21 20c BB). Do your own DD and fact check me as well
You've probably been hearing a lot about Bitcoin recently and are wondering what's the big deal? Most of your questions should be answered by the resources below but if you have additional questions feel free to ask them in the comments. It all started with the release of Satoshi Nakamoto's whitepaper however that will probably go over the head of most readers so we recommend the following articles/books/videos as a good starting point for understanding how bitcoin works and a little about its long term potential:
Limited Supply - There will only ever be 21,000,000 bitcoin created and they are issued in a predictable fashion per the inflation schedule. Once they are all issued Bitcoin will be truly deflationary. The halving countdown tells you how much time until the next drop in block rewards.
Open source - Bitcoin code is fully auditable. You can read and contribute to the source code yourself.
Accountable - The public ledger is transparent, all transactions are seen by everyone.
Decentralized - Bitcoin is globally distributed across thousands of nodes with no single point of failure and as such can't be shut down similar to how Bittorrent works. You can even run a node on a Raspberry Pi.
Censorship resistant - No one can prevent you from interacting with the bitcoin network and no one can censor, alter or block transactions that they disagree with, see Operation Chokepoint.
Push system - There are no chargebacks in bitcoin because only the person who owns the address where the bitcoin resides has the authority to move them.
Low fee scaling - Most wallets calculate on chain fees automatically but you can view fee estimates and mempool activity if you want to set your fee manually. On chain fees may rise occasionally due to network demand, however instant micropayments that do not require confirmations are happening via the Lightning Network, a second layer scaling solution currently rolling out on the Bitcoin mainnet.
Borderless - No country can stop it from going in/out, even in areas currently unserved by traditional banking as the ledger is globally distributed.
Trustless - Bitcoin solved the Byzantine's Generals Problem which means nobody needs to trust anybody for it to work.
Secure - Blocks and transactions are cryptographically secured (using hashes and signatures) and can’t be brute forced or confiscated with proper key management such as hardware wallets.
Programmable - Individual units of bitcoin can be programmed to transfer based on certain criteria being met
Nearly instant - From a few seconds on the lightning network to a few minutes on-chain depending on need for confirmations. Transactions are irreversible by normal users after one confirmation and irreversible by anyone (including miners) after 6 confirmations.
Portable - Bitcoin are digital so they are easier to move than cash or gold. They can be transported by simply carrying a seed (a string of 12 to 24 words) on a device or by memorizing it for wallet recovery (while cool, memorizing is generally not recommended due to potential for forgetting the seed and the potential for insecure key generation by inexperienced users. Hardware wallets are the preferred method for most users for their ease of use and additional security).
Scalable - While the protocol is still being optimized for increased transaction capacity, blockchains do not scale very well, so most transaction volume is expected to occur on Layer 2 networks built on top of Bitcoin.
Divisible - Each bitcoin can be divided down to 8 decimals, which means you don't have to worry about buying an entire bitcoin.
Bitcoin.org and BuyBitcoinWorldwide.com are helpful sites for beginners. You can buy or sell any amount of bitcoin (even just a few dollars worth) and there are several easy methods to purchase bitcoin with cash, credit card or bank transfer. Some of the more popular resources are below, also check out the bitcoinity exchange resources for a larger list of options for purchases.
You can also purchase in cash with local ATMs. If you would like your paycheck automatically converted to bitcoin use Bitwage. Note: Bitcoin are valued at whatever market price people are willing to pay for them in balancing act of supply vs demand. Unlike traditional markets, bitcoin markets operate 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.
Securing your bitcoin
With bitcoin you can "Be your own bank" and personally secure your bitcoin OR you can use third party companies aka "Bitcoin banks" which will hold the bitcoin for you.
If you prefer to "Be your own bank" and have direct control over your coins without having to use a trusted third party, then you will need to create your own wallet and keep it secure. If you want easy and secure storage without having to learn computer security best practices, then a hardware wallet such as the Trezor, Ledger or ColdCard is recommended.
If you cannot afford a hardware wallet there are many software wallet options to choose from depending on your use case. Mobile wallets like BlueWallet are generally more secure than desktop wallets. Beware of fake mobile wallets and check reviews from reputable Bitcoin websites. Avoid paper wallets or brain wallets.
If you prefer to let third party "Bitcoin banks" manage your coins, try Gemini or Unchained Capital but be aware you may not be in control of your private keys in which case you would have to ask permission to access your funds and be exposed to third party risk. There is a saying in the community, "Not your keys, not your coins" meaning if you don't store your coins in a wallet that you control the keys to then you do not really own your bitcoin as you have to ask permission from the third party in order to move them.
Note: For increased security, use Two Factor Authentication (2FA) everywhere it is offered, including email! 2FA requires a second confirmation code or a physical security key to access your account making it much harder for thieves to gain access. Google Authenticator and Authy are the two most popular 2FA services, download links are below. Make sure you create backups of your 2FA codes. Avoid using your cell number for 2FA. Hackers have been using a technique called "SIM swapping" to impersonate users and steal bitcoin off exchanges.
Physical security keys (FIDO U2F) offer stronger security than Google Auth / Authy and other TOTP-based apps, because the secret code never leaves the device and it uses bi-directional authentication so it prevents phishing. If you lose the device though, you could lose access to your account, so always use 2 or more security keys with a given account so you have backups. See Yubikey or Titan to purchase security keys. Both Coinbase and Gemini support physical security keys.
Watch out for scams
As mentioned above, Bitcoin is decentralized, which by definition means there is no official website or Twitter handle or spokesperson or CEO. However, all money attracts thieves. This combination unfortunately results in scammers running official sounding names or pretending to be an authority on YouTube or social media. Many scammers throughout the years have claimed to be the inventor of Bitcoin. Websites like bitcoin(dot)com and the r / btc subreddit are active scams. Almost all altcoins (shitcoins) are marketed heavily with big promises but are really just designed to separate you from your bitcoin. So be careful: any resource, including all linked in this document, may in the future turn evil. As they say in our community, "Don't trust, verify".
Avoid using ad-based search engines like Google or Yahoo: ads are shown based on how much the advertiser bids, and scammers can easily outbid legitimate providers for ad space, since immoral ways of earning money are far more lucrative than moral ways. Use DuckDuckGo instead, which has no ads, and never tracks you as well.
Ignore private messages offering services.
Never enter your seed words in a website of any kind. Hardware wallets will recover by displaying possible seed words on their own interface, never on a website.
Always check addresses on your hardware wallet before sending or receiving. Some malware has been known to replace addresses in your web browser or that you copy-and-paste.
Avoid clicking on links like that look like links, such as https://www.google.com/, without first hovering over it and actually checking where they go to. Just because a link is labelled with an HTTPS address does not mean it actually sends you to that address. It is trivial for someone to comment a link on Reddit that looks like it will send you to one website when it actually sends you to another, and you might not notice the difference until a scammer has gotten all your money, or you have downloaded and installed software that steals your money.
Common Bitcoin Myths
Often the same concerns arise about Bitcoin from newcomers. Questions such as:
Is Bitcoin a Ponzi scheme?
Will governments ban Bitcoin?
Will quantum computers break Bitcoin?
All of these questions have been answered many times by a variety of people. Here are some resources where you can see if your concern has been answered:
Check out spendabit or bitcoin directory for millions of merchant options. Also you can spend bitcoin anywhere visa is accepted with bitcoin debit cards such as the CashApp card or Fold card. Some other useful site are listed below.
Gift cards for thousands of retailers worldwide including Amazon, Target, Walmart, Starbucks, Whole Foods, CVS, Lowes, Home Depot, iTunes, Best Buy, Sears, Kohls, eBay, GameStop, etc.
There are several benefits to accepting bitcoin as a payment option if you are a merchant;
1-3% savings over credit cards or PayPal.
No chargebacks (final settlement in 10 minutes as opposed to 3+ months).
Accept business from a global customer base.
Increased privacy.
Convert 100% of the sale to the currency of your choice for deposit to your account, or choose to keep a percentage of the sale in bitcoin if you wish to begin accumulating it.
If you are interested in accepting bitcoin as a payment method, there are several options available;
Mining bitcoin can be a fun learning experience, but be aware that you will most likely operate at a loss. Newcomers are often advised to stay away from mining unless they are only interested in it as a hobby similar to folding at home. If you want to learn more about mining you can read the mining FAQ. Still have mining questions? The crew at /BitcoinMining would be happy to help you out. If you want to contribute to the bitcoin network by hosting the blockchain and propagating transactions you can run a full node. You can view the global node distribution for a visual representation of the node network.
Earning bitcoin
Just like any other form of money, you can also earn bitcoin by being paid to do a job.
You can also earn bitcoin by participating as a market maker on JoinMarket by allowing users to perform CoinJoin transactions with your bitcoin for a small fee (requires you to already have some bitcoin).
Bitcoin-Related Projects
The following is a short list of ongoing projects that might be worth taking a look at if you are interested in current development in the bitcoin space.
One Bitcoin is quite large (hundreds of £/$/€) so people often deal in smaller units. The most common subunits are listed below:
Unit
Symbol
Value
Info
bitcoin
BTC
1 bitcoin
one bitcoin is equal to 100 million satoshis
millibitcoin
mBTC
1,000 per bitcoin
used as default unit in recent Electrum wallet releases
bit
bit
1,000,000 per bitcoin
colloquial "slang" term for microbitcoin (μBTC)
satoshi
sat
100,000,000 per bitcoin
smallest unit in bitcoin, named after the inventor
For example, assuming an arbitrary exchange rate of $10000 for one Bitcoin, a $10 meal would equal:
0.001 BTC
1 mBTC
1,000 bits
100k sats
For more information check out the Bitcoin units wiki. Still have questions? Feel free to ask in the comments below or stick around for our weekly Mentor Monday thread. If you decide to post a question in /Bitcoin, please use the search bar to see if it has been answered before, and remember to follow the community rules outlined on the sidebar to receive a better response. The mods are busy helping manage our community so please do not message them unless you notice problems with the functionality of the subreddit. Note: This is a community created FAQ. If you notice anything missing from the FAQ or that requires clarification you can edit it here and it will be included in the next revision pending approval. Welcome to the Bitcoin community and the new decentralized economy!
GME - How shorts manipulated you, and how you can be better
Hello again folks. I’m working on another DD to add to my GME EndGame series (part 1, part 2), but I wanted to take an aside to share my speculations on the obscene amount of manipulation happening this week by the shorts, and try to give all of you advice on how you can be more successful on GME. TL:DR; GME has tremendous potential and the only reason it’s not trading at $80+ is because of active shorting. Be aware about how your positions may be helping the shorts without you knowing.
How shorts manipulated GME this week
I’m going to preface this by saying this is speculation based on events transpired and what I know about short tactics. Consider this a narrative of how a shorter could have orchestrated all of this. I will share data where I have it. For an understanding of some of those tactics, read this great post by u/mirkan__2. Imagine you’re one of the big shorts on GME. You’ve been shorting this thing since 2017, 2018, 2019 and watched its stock price drop from 30 -> 15 -> 4 to a low of $3 in 2020. If you’re Bank of America, your analysts are telling you (and others) this thing is going to $1. But then things get out of hand, very quickly, with GME climbing from $3 -> $20 in 9 months and then in ONE WEEK doubling to $40. You were not prepared for this. It’s a disaster. What do you do? You leverage every tactic you can to drive the price down. 1) Attack retail investing capabilities:
Bank of America owns Merrill Lynch. Merrill Lynch has a retail brokerage. Since you’re short GME, you have your risk department over at Merrill Edge increase the margin requirements on GME strongly and suddenly on all retail buyers.
This causes a chain reaction. Brokerages generally mimic the margin changes on other brokerages, because they don’t want to be the ones where all the “risky” traders go to. So other brokerages start increasing their requirements. Pretty soon, Schwab, Fidelity, Ameritrade, IBKR have all increased their margin requirements to the point that many buyers cannot buy more shares, or if they had bought on margin, need to liquidate or provide more capital.
Meanwhile, the big guys - banks and hedge funds that are short - use prime brokerages, and since I don’t have access to one I can’t confirm, but very much doubt had any margin changes to GME.
2) Manipulative shorting:
On Friday (1/15) you take advantage of the fact that most call buyers on GME are not going to take assignment, so as they sell their calls which are now worth huge sums of money, Market-makers (MMs) are going to sell the shares they’re using to hedge the calls. So you short the stock as hard as you can, driving it down as low as 14% at one point, but it creates too strong of a sell-off triggering a short-sale restriction.
Great, at this point, you think you’ve killed some of the momentum going into the 3-day weekend. Hopefully investors will realize more of their mistake and sell off their foolish investment in the next Blockbuster. But then things go awry. Retail buyers are not shaken. In fact they’re enraged, and the GME movement grows more popular than ever, becoming the most mentioned ticker and even getting a stickied thread each day. The US markets are closed on Monday. Doesn’t matter. Europe takes the mantle, driving the price up from 35 at close on Friday in the US to 40, then 44. Mexico picks up the baton, where it hits 1000 pesos, or $50/share on Monday at 11:30 a.m. before coming back down a bit. https://preview.redd.it/3y8c8fhixmc61.png?width=921&format=png&auto=webp&s=9e07fbb6fbd0fb39a15a0429d3096760ccf0556a You’re about to get squeezed and you need to do something fast. You can’t short the price down Tuesday in US trading because of the short sale restriction, and the momentum behind GME is palpable. So now you get more aggressive. 3) Orchestrated media attack & shorting:
Here’s what you have to work with. There are at least1.2 million shares available to short in just IBKR, and more in prime brokerages thanks to all the retail buyers buying shares in Robinhood. “Robinhood Securities earns income from lending margin securities to counterparties.” At a 54% borrow rate, that’s quite a nice return for RH for holding your shares.
You call up a famous shorter known for impacting equity prices - Andrew Left of Citron. Offer him tons of money to put out a hit piece on Tuesday after markets open. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t have shit prepared and you need him to do this tomorrow. He’s just going to threaten an attack to kill the momentum.
Tuesday market opens. GME rockets up 25% to $45/share within the first few minutes. Then comes the orchestrated attack.
Minutes before Citron’s tweet, you buy thousands of OTM puts.
Citron’s not revealing anything until tomorrow, when short sale restrictions are done. I.e. you better not buy today!
Price target of $20 matching exactly the lowest strike price of the puts purchased just minutes prior.
“I understand short interest better than you” - i.e. “the shorts are paying me and I know who they are, and why they’re shorting”
“Poker game” - he’s calling you a sucker, while at the same time tweeting a poker bluff**.** He doesn’t actually have anything ready or substantial, but the shorts paid him off to threaten the market.
Andrew Left fired his shot. Now comes the coordinated shorting.
In about an hour, all 1.2 million shares in Interactive Brokers are used up.
Probably, prior to this, shorts used the invisible shares available from brokerages like Robinhood.
Wait, shorts can’t short on restricted days, right? Wrong.
They can short on the ask.
When there’s fear in the market, organic sellers lower their ask to exit their positions.
Shorts high-frequency algos move their ask to match the lowest organic ask.
Organic seller really needs to get rid of these shares! Citron is coming! Sees he’s now not the lowest ask, so he moves it down.
Guess what? The algos match his ask and short at the lower price now.
This cycle repeats as long as organic sellers reduce their asks to sell.
While all this is happening, market makers are shorting/selling shares in response to the puts placed prior to the tweet, helping push down the price.
Congratulations. In a matter of less than an hour, GME has now dropped from $45 to $37/share - an 18% drop and anabsolutely incredible reversal of momentum. Citron didn’t even have to do shit. The next day they canceled their livestream claiming they forgot about the fucking inauguration.
How to be smart
As you can see, there are a number of dirty tricks here. It’s sophisticated, coordinated, and the odds are stacked against the retail investor. There are some things you can do to trade smarter.
OPEX. Imagine if every trader out there took profits of their calls at expiration. In that scenario, MMs sell the shares they used the hedge the calls, leading to a downward drift in price. If instead people rolled forward winning calls, for example, MMs would not necessarily sell the hedge (depends on delta). Selling calls before expiry if you just want to take profits sometimes means you can avoid a drop on OPEX.
Robinhood lends your shares and doesn't pay you for it. Some other brokers let you choose to lend your shares. I know I can choose to lend shares or not in IBKR. It’s up to you to lend or not, but don’t let your broker lend for you and earn all that free lending money.
Don’t sell on dips. You’re only helping the shorts. If you need to sell to take profits, sell when it’s heading up. Sell high, not low retards.
Save dry powder to buy on dips. Dips manufactured by shorts are buying opportunities. Take advantage of folks with paper hands to capture shares at low points. GME has incredible daily volatility. Set a low limit buy and just wait for the order to fill. Have patience when buying.
Don’t buy calls on rips. With everyone expecting a squeeze at any moment option premiums that are already high rocket to insane levels in minutes. When Citron canceled their livestream GME started to recover, call premiums skyrocketed. You’re absolutely fucked if you buy calls on rips, even if you’re right. Look at this call premium price history for today and imagine just how fucked you are if you buy calls on rips:
Don’t advertise when you’re going to buy. Just buy dips. There were so many folks saying “wait for 11:30 to buy!”. Well, look what happened! Just when you thought there’d be a dip, and you were all ready to buy, there was this magical, temporary rapid price spike. Congratulations, advertised to every predatory trader out there when you all were going to buy. Double-win for them: If you fomo’d in at 41 you’re probably gonna paper hands your way out when the shorts push it back down.
Don’t buy more than you’re willing to lose. You need to hold through the dips, and be ok with the extreme volatility. IF you put too much into this all at once, you’re going to get scared when the price goes against you.
Consider exercising DEEP ITM calls. I love u/DeepFuckingValue but he could be making more from his portfolio. He has $2.6M in cash from prior GME winnings but also 1000 April 12 calls. The april 12 calls are trading at intrinsic value. Exercising those calls right now would use up $1.2M of capital and add 100K shares to his account, but 1) it would not change the PnL of the portfolio, 2) would increase the liquidity (you lose on spreads when you try to sell deep itm calls), and 3) would allow him to choose whether or not to lend the shares. Right now, MMs have hedged his calls with 100K shares, but they're lending them to shorts and making free money. In the case of DFV, that's about $6000 per day in free money given to market makers for the privilege of lending his shares to shorts. If you have the cash, and the options trading at intrinsic, consider exercising. Whether you lend is up to you, but don't give MMs free money.
HOLD. There is so much upside in GME, that it doesn’t matter what price you buy now if you have patience. There are so many potential catalysts coming and if all of this dirty behavior is any evidence shorts are scared and looking for cheap buys to get out. Don’t give up your shares for cheap. Here’s a quick list of potential catalysts that could happen at any time and any of which would spell more pain for shorts:
Share recall for a vote on major issue
Cohen becomes CEO
Alan, Jim (chewy directors added to board) purchase shares (they are not limited in how many they can buy)
Cohen could buy his remaining 7%
New higher $ investors pile in
In my part 2 I talked about how vc investors were going to start piling in and lo and behold a couple days later one VC explained why he was buying gme with a potential price target of $800/share
This guy who is invested in GME and claims to have 9 figure wealth (might also be this guy) convinces billionaire friends to buy into gme now for both the sheet asymmetric nature and to fight back against citron
Debt upgrade
GME’s 2021 bond is done is March, the removal of which has many restrictive covenants
Getting to profitability and reducing debt may trigger a debt upgrade by Moody’s and unlock more institutional ownership
All of you need to have faith. Even after all these shady tactics, GME is still up 9% from close on Friday.
[Balck Berry] A Morningstar Anal-ysts' report from the Morningstar Advisor workstation for Apes looking for more BB background.
Read (if you can), before you downvote. TL;DR at the bottom if you drool, move your lips, or need to sound out words while you read.... "BlackBerry Shares Showing Signs of Irrational Exuberance; Maintain $6.40 FVE; Shares Overvalued" William Kerwin Analyst Analyst Note | by William Kerwin | Updated Jan 25, 2021 No-moat BlackBerry’s shares have more than doubled this month, but we have seen no material fundamental changes in the business. While small pieces of news concerning the firm’s licensing business have come out, these have been part of normal business operations, and we don’t expect them to be material to the firm’s cash flows. We think the recent price appreciation has been a result of a change in market sentiment rather than improved firm fundamentals. We maintain our $6.40 fair value estimate for BlackBerry and view shares as significantly overvalued. BlackBerry’s recent price movements have been concurrent with two pieces of news in January: a sale of 90 patents to Huawei and a patent dispute settlement with Facebook, both of which we think are immaterial to the stock. The patent sale was a small portion of BlackBerry’s 38,000 patents, related to its discontinued legacy handset business. While terms of the Facebook settlement have yet to come out publicly, we estimate it will have a negligible impact on the firm’s financials. BlackBerry earns a robust revenue stream from its patent portfolio—$349 million in revenue in fiscal 2020 (34% of sales)—due in large part to aggressively defending its patents in court. BlackBerry did report material news in December, when it announced a multiyear partnership with Amazon Web Services to co-develop BlackBerry Ivy, a connected cloud software platform for vehicles. The stock’s rise could also be a delayed reaction to this partnership. However, shares already rose sharply upon the announcement, and there hasn’t been more news since. We didn’t see this news as an immediate game changer (at least not as far as 100%-plus stock price appreciation) and we did not raise our fair value estimate based on this partnership announcement. Finally, management has said that there are no material, undisclosed developments it can attribute to the recent activity. Business Strategy and Outlook | by William Kerwin Updated Nov 02, 2020 BlackBerry is a software provider selling primarily into enterprise applications of the Internet of Things. Its flagship product is the Spark suite launched in 2020, which combines unified endpoint management with endpoint protection. The firm is also a leading embedded software provider, focused on the automotive industry. Its QNX software powers infotainment systems, where it leads the market, as well as electronic control units and advanced driver-assistance systems. We think BlackBerry has positioned itself in rapidly growing markets that benefit from secular trends, which should fuel top-line growth. BlackBerry’s forte is security, with an explicit goal of providing end-to-end secure enterprise communication--just about the only constant between its current business model and the now-retired handset model that made it a household name. The firm performs best in regulated industries such as government, financial services, and healthcare, where security and privacy are more mission-critical. Since John Chen took over as CEO in 2014, he has successfully pivoted BlackBerry to a software model, and the company experienced its first year of revenue growth in nine years in fiscal 2020. The Canadian company’s pivot was fueled by acquisitions, namely the $425 million deal for Good Technology in 2015 that catapulted BlackBerry to the number-two market share in unified endpoint management, and the $1.4 billion Cylance acquisition in 2018 that gave BlackBerry a foothold in the endpoint protection market. While we don’t think BlackBerry has a moat, as some of its larger competitors in the endpoint management and security spaces do, we think the marriage of endpoint management with Cylance’s proactive threat detection and response will forge a stickier product in Spark. In the short term, we think BlackBerry will focus on its go-to-market strategy as a means to generate organic growth for endpoint software, and seek out further opportunities in autonomous vehicles with its QNX software, as the space presents greater safety/security needs on the part of OEMs, as well as greater content per vehicle for QNX. Economic Moat | by William Kerwin Updated Nov 02, 2020 We do not believe BlackBerry has an economic moat. Its endpoint management, endpoint security, and embedded systems software solutions compete in highly fragmented markets with relatively low switching costs. While these markets offer moats to larger competitors, we don’t believe BlackBerry’s solutions boast adequately competitive stickiness, and we view its negative historical returns on invested capital as evidence to our opinion. Thus, we do not have confidence it will earn returns in excess of its cost of capital over the next 10 years. BlackBerry’s software and services segment comprises its flagship Spark suite and its embedded operating system, QNX. Spark combines unified endpoint management, or UEM, software with endpoint protection--what BlackBerry calls unified endpoint security. UEM provides enterprises with a central interface to monitor and control network access from all endpoints, whether it be employees checking work email on their phones or editing secure documents on a company laptop. BlackBerry’s UEM capabilities originated from the software the company provided enterprises to manage the prevalent BlackBerry handheld devices used by employees, most notably in the mid-2000s. Although BlackBerry devices faded from relevance, the core of the company’s software remained. BlackBerry solidified its presence in the UEM space in 2015 with its $425 million acquisition of Good Technology and held the number-three market share in 2018 with 11.2%, per IDC. BlackBerry also provides endpoint protection through the Spark suite, gained through its acquisition of Cylance for $1.4 billion in 2018. While UEM provides a firm with the ability to monitor and control access across its network, endpoint protection is about external threat prevention, detection, and response across those endpoints. While it is our view that switching costs occur frequently in enterprise software, given the time, cost, and effort involved in adopting a new solution and running two concurrent solutions simultaneously during the transition, we don’t think the Spark suite bears moatworthy switching costs. UEM’s selling point of a centralized solution for all devices presents low switching costs relative to other software that have longer implementation times and intertwine with more companywide operating procedures. UEM implementation is restricted primarily to a customer’s IT department, while the greater employee base simply needs to download a new app or become accustomed to two-factor authentication. Several of BlackBerry’s largest competitors in endpoint management have moats, but we think these result from comprehensive portfolios of endpoint solutions and that the fragmented $3 billion UEM market is not enough on its own to bestow a moat on BlackBerry, despite an impressive market share. BlackBerry’s Cylance acquisition gives it more ammo to compete with larger, more comprehensive incumbents, but it will face an uphill battle winning business from the likes of Microsoft or Symantec. We think Spark (with integrated endpoint protection) is a stickier product than BlackBerry’s stand-alone UEM software was, but at every competitor these had already been integrated. Furthermore, the stand-alone endpoint security market is even more fragmented than the endpoint management market, featuring experienced, entrenched giants like Microsoft, Symantec, and CrowdStrike. Competing with unique and best-of-breed services like CrowdStrike and the unmatchable breadth of Microsoft, BlackBerry is likely to struggle to keep old clients and win new ones, even with Cylance’s machine learning and AI detection abilities. Nevertheless, the UEM market is rapidly growing (with estimates ranging from 23% to 36% CAGR through 2024) and BlackBerry remains a leading player. While we anticipate healthy growth from BlackBerry’s enterprise software business, we think a relatively nascent, quickly growing market will attract many new entrants. In a fragmented and rapidly evolving marketplace, we have greater confidence in larger, moat-endowed competitors like Microsoft and VMware to gain an outsize share of new business in the face of new competition, due to their ability to offer established and trusted endpoint protection software alongside endpoint management. In the same segment, BlackBerry also sells its proprietary embedded software, QNX. Embedded software is the code that allows specific machines to do their jobs, and BlackBerry’s QNX software is sold primarily into the automotive market, as well as medical devices and industrial systems. BlackBerry partners with nearly every major automotive OEM and Tier 1 supplier for instrument clusters, driver-assistance systems, and infotainment, where it boasts market share a hair under 50%. We see some moatworthy characteristics of the QNX automotive business but don’t think the switching costs are steep enough to award a moat. We liken QNX to moaty auto-parts suppliers in our coverage, with five- to seven-year model lifecycles ensuring a long contractual revenue stream, as BlackBerry incurs about 70% of contract value from car production volume throughout a model’s life. However, compared with the auto suppliers, most of QNX’s functions in the vehicle (primarily infotainment) are not mission-critical, though a proliferation of ADAS and autonomous vehicles may change this. Thus, BlackBerry must compete for every design win, even if it had sold into the prior model version. In infotainment specifically, as Apple CarPlay and Android Auto rise in popularity, automakers may find less reason to pay up for QNX in a new model over a free Linux alternative just to put the Apple or Android interface on top of it. Finally, BlackBerry has a robust licensing segment where it monetizes its wealth of intellectual property. We think this business has moaty characteristics, given its contractual nature and the long average-weighted life of its patent portfolio. However, we believe the threat of value destruction here is too strong to give this category a narrow moat rating. BlackBerry doesn’t disclose the length or terminal dates of these contracts, and we don’t think the BlackBerry name is strong enough to elicit high retention rates for these licensing agreements. The business can also be mercurial, highlighted by the last BlackBerry-licensed smartphones by TCL ending sales in 2020. Fair Value and Profit Drivers | by William Kerwin Updated Nov 02, 2020 Our fair value estimate of $6.40 per share implies a 2021 enterprise value/sales ratio of 3 times and a free cash flow yield of 5%. We forecast compound annual revenue growth of 7% through fiscal 2030. We expect rapid growth for the firm’s Spark solution as it provides a stickier option to customers looking for comprehensive endpoint capabilities. We also expect strong growth for QNX as content gains with AVs of all levels offset market share losses to Android Automotive. We think as BlackBerry becomes more seasoned as a software company, its gross margins will approach 80%. We expect operating margins to expand significantly over our 10-year explicit forecast, due in part to near-term synergies attained from a positive Cylance integration. Longer term, we expect revenue to rise at a faster pace than marketing spending, but for R&D expenses to stay elevated as the firm continually reinvests in innovation. We anticipate that BlackBerry will reach GAAP profitability by fiscal 2024 and reach operating margins in the 14% range by fiscal 2030. Risk and Uncertainty | by William Kerwin Updated Nov 02, 2020 Given its tumultuous past and relative lack of operating history as a software company, we assign BlackBerry a very high fair value uncertainty rating. Since 2014, the firm has relied on M&A to pivot its business toward software. It encountered nine straight years of revenue decline, ending in 2020. BlackBerry’s ability to generate meaningful organic growth going forward will be paramount to its success. BlackBerry’s future will also depend on its ability to integrate and expand upon prior acquisitions, specifically Cylance. As an endpoint protection platform, Cylance could bolster every other BlackBerry product by layering on advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities. However, we have yet to see management drive organic growth out of this addition in its early days. BlackBerry competes in highly fragmented and competitive markets, against some of the largest companies out there. It may be difficult for BlackBerry to maintain or steal market share from companies such as Microsoft, IBM, and VMware with 10 or more times the revenue and R&D budget that it has. BlackBerry encounters the opposite problem with its QNX software, where it must compete with freely available Android and Linux operating systems. In these markets, it will need to continually innovate ahead of the competition to maintain pricing power, and thus market share, over these alternatives. BlackBerry faces risk from being a relatively small and unproven new entrant into its key markets. Customers that are highly risk averse might opt to go with a more established competitor for an end-to-end solution, especially when money is tight. While in periods of economic growth, its name recognition might help to attract customers, in downturns, customers might steer clear of a name they associate with a sharp drop-off from a leadership position in the smartphone market in the early 2010s. Capital Allocation | by William Kerwin Updated Nov 02, 2020 We assign BlackBerry a Standard stewardship rating. BlackBerry doesn’t pay a dividend or conduct share repurchases, choosing instead to allocate any excess capital to further inorganic growth. CEO John Chen came into his role in 2014 in the middle of the company’s fall from the top of the smartphone world and led the firm’s pivot into software. As the firm’s handset sales experienced steep declines, he executed key acquisitions to help gain footholds in what are now BlackBerry’s primary markets. The $425 million acquisition of Good Technology in 2015 helped make BlackBerry’s existing mobile device management software platform-agnostic and catapulted the firm to a top-three share in the unified endpoint management market. In the years following, Chen tacked on a secure communication platform, Secusmart, and a secure crisis notification service, AtHoc. Most recently and significantly, BlackBerry acquired Cylance, planting one foot squarely into the endpoint protection market. We think the acquisitions under Chen’s tenure have expanded the firm’s product portfolio into high-growth markets and bode well for the future. While the firm’s revenue has been declining since 2011, its software and services revenue has been growing nicely, due primarily to the aforementioned acquisitions. We think Chen identified good M&A targets, but it is now time for him to prove he can generate organic growth out of them under the BlackBerry umbrella. Being known as a bit of a turnaround aficionado, Chen’s last charge was as chief executive of Sybase, a software and database company that he brought back into the black and sold at a 50% premium to SAP for $5.8 billion in 2010. We remain skeptical of BlackBerry’s luster as an M&A target, but at the very least the return to profitability appears to be underway. Close Full Analysis View Report Archive TL;DR. Probably overvalued at the moment. But, they are very uncertain about their own valuation of the company. If BB fails, no one would be surprised. But, if they can pull through there is serious $$$$ to be made. So be patient fucktards. I don't know when, but if things work out, you'll be deep in the Green. -Fatty Long 1,000 Shares
On January 12th Blackberry presented at the JPMorgan's 19th Annual Tech/Auto Forum Conference - this was the defining day that convinced smart money to buy in. Transcript and video attached. 🚀🚀🚀
Seeing how 80% of my portfolio consists of #BB now, I took the chance to actually get to know their products better (QNX; IVY; CYBER SUITE etc). Mandatory: 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 **On January 12th, Blackberry execs (Steve Rai CFO & John Wall - Co-Head, BlackBerry Technology Solutions) presented at the JPMorgan's 19th Annual Tech/Auto Forum Conference. On January 13th, at market open, we saw the huge first buying spike, pushing BB from 7.44$ to +9$.** Here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_rYmUOcsvQ Here is the full transcript: BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB) JPMorgan’s 19th Annual Tech/Auto Forum Conference Call January 12, 2021 5:45 PM ET Company Participants Steve Rai - CFO John Wall - Co-Head, BlackBerry Technology Solutions Conference Call Participants Samik Chatterjee - JPMorgan Samik Chatterjee Hi, good afternoon. I'm Samik Chatterjee, the analyst at JPMorgan here. For the next company at the tech forum, we have the pleasure of hosting BlackBerry. BlackBerry has transformed from a smartphone manufacturer to a leading security-focused enterprise software and services provider. The BlackBerry’s portfolio competes in a number of interesting markets, including cyber security, automotive software and critical event management. Today, we will be focusing more on BlackBerry's automotive software, which is QNX. It is my pleasure to introduce Steve Rai, BlackBerry's Chief Financial Officer; and John Wall, BlackBerry's Co-Head of BlackBerry Technology Solutions. And thank you both, Steve and John for attending and participating in this conference. Look forward to an interesting discussion. I will probably just start you off here, Steve, in a sense,* we- before we dive into Q&A for the benefit of investors, reengaging with the BlackBerry story, who probably know BlackBerry from a smartphone days more, can we just start with a high-level overview of the business today? Steve Rai Sure.* Thank you, and pleased to be here today. So, while we don't build phones anymore, we absolutely continue to leverage the strong software and security heritage of the company. Our trusted software platform, which we call Spark, can connect, secure and manage every endpoint in the IoT landscape. So, it leverages next-gen threat protection, intelligent security, and provides a single pane of glass to manage the environment. Further, through AI and machine learning, it continues to get smarter and provides excellent return on investment. So, this area represents a $38 billion and growing addressable market. Beyond securing enterprises, our solutions also enable critical infrastructure such as securing utilities, automotive safety through QNX, which as John will speak to, and securing people through our AtHoc critical event management solution. We've got deep credentials which have been hardened in the regulated space. At nearly all of the G20 governments and top 10 global banks as well as the top 9 automotive OEMs, we've got them as customers. Our solutions are equally applicable and provide significant value to enterprises of all sizes. So, I believe all this and the strong financial position of the company, of course, sets us up very well to serve the markets that we’re in*. And it plays right into the macro trends that we're seeing, including an ever-increasing mobile and work-from-anywhere workforce, rapid IoT proliferation, and an ever-increasing threat landscape, which, of course, the unprecedented cyberattacks of 2020 underscore, and the evolution of vehicles and smart city infrastructure that John Wall will speak to. Question-and-Answer Session Q - Samik Chatterjee So, before I kind of move on to some of the other markets, let's kind of hit on QNX and the inbuilt software offering here. For those who are less familiar with QNX, John, maybe if you can kind of explain what it does, that would be helpful? John Wall Absolutely, I'd love to. So, QNX has two, what I would call, foundational products. One is the real-time operating system called Neutrino, and the other is our hypervisor that provides virtualization of CPUs. Both are microkernel-based. These are deeply embedded products that are particularly suited to safety critical applications. We've been able to reach the highest level of certifications for both those foundational products in the automotive field, medical and industrial. We've achieved ISO 26262 ASIL D and we've achieved 61508 ASIL C and -- ASIL 3, sorry, which is the highest level of safety. And that means that our products are designed for mission-critical. In automotive, in particular, that means our products are designed for things that control steering, braking, anything that controls the vehicle. So, examples of this within automotive is obviously ADAS, which is active safety, digital cockpit, which is a new trend where we are seeing the consolidation of infotainment systems and other in-cabin functions such as digital cockpits, get consolidated to one hardware module and using our virtualization to separate safety and non-safety systems, the infotainment being non-safety. But also in other markets such as MRI scanners for medical, medical robotics, nuclear power plants, oil and gas. So, if you've ever seen a wind turbine on your travels across various parts of the world, more than likely QNX is running in those systems to control the pitch of the blade, which is very important for keeping the system stable. So, those are just a few examples. Samik Chatterjee Got it. John, you did mention kind of the safety aspect becoming one of the key enablers here. Maybe if you can broadly hit on what are the overall trends in autos and kind of where and how are those impacting QNX's addressable market? John Wall Absolutely. So, I mean, I think everybody is aware of the macro trends. We have connectivity. Cars are getting more connected. We have electrification and we have automation, so autonomous drive or levels towards autonomous drive. So, what we're seeing within a vehicle is software is starting to play a bigger and bigger role. There are some studies that say that by 2030, 50% of the vehicle's BOM will be electronics, and of that, 30% would be software. So, what we're seeing as a trend is the car today is made up of a lot of what we call ECUs, and these are electronic control units. And these today are typically single function. So, you can think about it in terms of door locks is an ECU, my transmission controller is an ECU, my digital instrument cluster is an ECU, and so on and so on. So, what we're starting to see within a car is a consolidation of these ECUs into what we call domain controllers. And domain controllers will handle multiple functions on one module. And these domain controllers are typically high-performance compute platforms. So, when you think of these, you think of Qualcomm, Samsung, NVIDIA, things that would run in your computer or things that would run in your smartphone. And this is a sweet spot for QNX, since the QNX products run on high-performance compute platforms, not on the lower end 8-bit and 16-bit single function ECUs. Now, as more of these systems migrate to these domain controllers, there's an element of safety that's required because these things are either controlling chassis, they're controlling functions within the vehicle. Outside of the infotainment, most of these modules have a safety function. So, this again is a sweet spot for QNX. We saw this trend developing four or five years ago, maybe five* or six years ago. We saw that infotainment was moving more and more to Android, but we also saw that the car was moving towards this grouping of domain controllers. And we knew there would be an opportunity to get more in the vehicle, more software sockets within the vehicle. So, we really started focusing our efforts on safety and security knowing that as the car evolves, we have more opportunities within the vehicle to hit many more modules as opposed to just infotainment, for instance. Samik Chatterjee Got it. You recently announced BlackBerry IVY, a co-development and co-marketing agreement with AWS. So, how is this different to what QNX is currently doing? John Wall Actually, this is quite different from what QNX has been doing traditionally. So, we announced IVY, which is the intelligent vehicle everywhere. So, IVY is a cloud-connected and cross platform that is multi-OS, multi-cloud, in-car software that allows automakers to access a vehicle sensor data in compliance with safety and security requirements to process that data with updatable code to create new vehicle insights and then share those insights with developers through a consistent and simple in-car API mechanism. So, essentially, what we've done here is we've looked at how do we make vehicles look common from an API perspective? How do we access vehicle data in a way that is consistent from car brand to car brand? This is a very tall order, because vehicles are still pretty bespoke as far as their electrical architectures. No two cars from different OEMs look exactly the same. They use different sensors. They have different architectural layouts. So, the idea with IVY is to create a middleware, I would say, translator that goes into the vehicle. At the bottom end of IVY, we are talking directly to sensors within the vehicle. But then, we use either machine learning or other processing to normalize that data into what we call synthetic sensors. And as an example that I'd like to you look at is if you think of a smart city and you think of a smart city that wants to know the conditions of their roads during the winter, a synthetic sensor within a vehicle could be a combination of wheel, speed sensor, antilock brake sensor, temperature sensor and potential camera input. And with those four sensors, you could normalize the data into a synthetic sensor that would allow the smart city to know, do I have an icing condition? Do I have cars slipping in a certain part of my route? Now, imagine the power of this, if the way to access that data was consistent from carmaker to carmaker. So, the real power behind IVY is to make sure that we grow an ecosystem that allows scale and allows app developers to create common applications, smart cities to access common data across different car brands. And so, the idea here is to ensure that the carmakers have the best ability to monetize their data or to save money by being able to do things like analytics of how their cars are behaving on the road. The idea is to grow an ecosystem that will become a de facto standard in the industry. Samik Chatterjee What is the level of commitment that it slightly* brings to this, particularly -- I mean, obviously, I'm guessing investors will be looking at what’s the level of commitment of AWS to this? John Wall Right. So, it's a 50-50 joint development. And something I didn't stress enough in the last question, just to be clear, this is OS and cloud agnostic. No dependency on AWS cloud and no dependency on QNX. This is truly a generic piece of middleware to create this ecosystem. So, obviously, we're doing development on QNX. We expect QNX to be the high runner within the vehicle because of our dominant position in the car. I mean, this is part of the reason that AWS is very interested in working with us. We have a very good pedigree. We're in over 175 million cars. We've been doing this. This is our bread and butter as working within the vehicle. We have exceptional record of delivery. We've never held up a start-up production, and we have very, very strong relationships with the top automakers. Now, obviously, AWS is a leading cloud provider. They're an unrivaled provider of ML tools. So, they have a lot of the data expertise to do analysis of the data to create these synthetic sensors. And first and foremost, they're a massive company that has the ability to drive an app ecosystem. From a commitment perspective, it's -- as I mentioned earlier, it's a 50-50 development. This type of a relationship with Amazon is very rare. They do this with customers. They don't typically do this with partners. I think, we have a very, very strong alignment on the direction of IVY with the exact same goals, and that's to drive this ecosystem and to provide an app ecosystem within the vehicle and off the vehicle that is common across OEMs and brands. And I think that is really the thread that binds us. Samik Chatterjee If I kind of think back almost like three, four years ago, I do kind of remember some start-up companies, private companies that were trying to harmonize the data across coming from different vehicles. So, are companies already doing this? Why would IVY be different on this front? John Wall Yes. That's a great question, and there are lots of companies doing this. This is -- we haven't invented anything new here. Carmakers are very interested in monetizing their data. They know there's a lot of value in their data, especially as the car continues to evolve towards autonomous drive and active safety, lots of sensors within the vehicle, one of the most complex IoT endpoints. So, they know there's a lot of value in their data. I think, the challenge has been, each carmaker is creating a bespoke solution, and there's really no scale to it. And since there is no scale or very little scale, it creates I think a challenge to really get application developers out there ideating on what the next big thing could be. I think, you'd like to be able to see the ability to leverage the ecosystem from the phone. Lots of people have great ideas out there. And I think the more people that have the ability to access this ecosystem, the more great ideas the carmakers will get. I think, the other challenge with some of the bigger players in this area has been ownership of the data. So, from -- right from the beginning, BlackBerry and Amazon have made it very clear. We have no desire to own the data and we have no desire to control the data. That's solely in the hands of the OEM. And that's really not an area that we're looking to get involved. The real purpose of this collaboration is to create that de facto ecosystem that will really get the ecosystem out there, developing ideas and applications that are going to be cool for the car. Samik Chatterjee So, I have like almost 15 questions here, and since I have 15 minutes remaining, let me start tackling some of them. So, let me start with the ones that relate to IVY. A couple of similar ones. What do you think the TAM is that IVY will open up for carmakers? And on similar lines, there is a question which is -- give me one -- yes, when do you intend to provide tangible color around the commercial opportunity that IVY represents? So, I'll let you guys tackle those two together. John Wall Steve, do you want to take that? Steve Rai Yes, I'll start. So, the first vehicles to have IVY are expected to come out in 2023. So naturally, leading up to that time, we expect to be engaged with the OEMs and potentially with Tier 1, Tier 2 suppliers working on this and generating professional services revenues along the way. We're targeting a subscription or usage-based model, in other words, building a recurring revenue stream. And so, that's sort of the time frame I think to address that part of the theme. Samik Chatterjee Two follow-up questions on IVY and more related to automakers. So, again, I'll just combine them for everyone's benefit here. Is BlackBerry QNX or IVY going to be in the new vehicles that NVIDIA and NIO will be working on together? The second question on similar lines is IVY something Tesla will consider? John Wall Yes. Those are great questions. Obviously, I think, everybody -- I think, most people know we have a very strong relationship with NVIDIA as we announced a few years ago that QNX is the foundational OS of their DRIVE OS offering. I don't know that we can make any comments at the moment about specific OEMs as we made the announcement on December 1st. What I can say is the reaction by OEMs to the announcement has been overwhelming. We've already had a workshop with one OEM prior to Christmas. So, there is a lot of excitement about the ability to create this ecosystem. When people think about the ecosystem in the past, they've thought about, well, the carmakers are going to have to get together, they're going to have to create a kind of a unified architecture for the vehicles to be able to create this ecosystem. Try to think of it kind of in terms of iOS or Android -- not iOS or Android, but something like that, but that's appropriate to the automobile. This is kind of really taking -- this is really looking to take a shortcut and really create that app ecosystem before the car makers have had the ability to necessarily unify their architectures. To the point of Tesla, Tesla could definitely be a customer of this. Samik Chatterjee Okay. Is it possible to implement back into the captive market of 175 million QNX current users? So, I'm guessing they are -- it's asking about IVY. So, is it -- yes, so is it possible to implement IVY back into the captive market of QNX users? John Wall Absolutely. I mean that’s -- in a lot of cases, that's the intent. There are very few carmakers that we are not working with, especially today when we look at our move towards more of safety software within more modules within the vehicle, especially when it comes to ADAS, autonomous drive, chassis control, digital cockpit. We're very dominant in the digital cockpit market. So, I believe that, that's obviously going to be the case, but I also think it's going to open up new customers. And I mean, that's a very strong reason why we made this OS independent and cloud agnostic is we wanted to address our current customers, but we also wanted to address carmakers that are not our customers that are running different operating systems or have different architectures or have different cloud solutions. We wanted this to go to our existing customers and to open up new customers. Samik Chatterjee Got it. A ton of new questions on QNX, but before I get to that, one question that came in is the patents for sale, which kind of coincides with a news release, I think I saw saying that BlackBerry’s selling to 90 patents to Huawei. And I'll just give you an opportunity to answer that question as well as comment in terms of anything that's been announced recently. Steve Rai So, if that question is referring to what has been in the press in terms of some of the broader rumors about the portfolio, I'm not going to comment on those rumors. Regarding Huawei, there was a very small number of patents that are no longer relevant to the business. So, small sale, not part of our recurring transaction. And certainly, it was permitted under the applicable rules. So that's it. Samik Chatterjee So, moving to QNX, let me take this one. Could you outline the content per vehicle opportunity for QNX on an EV and separately on AV? And if you don't want to give dollar per car, could you suggest the number of QNX RTOS, I apologize, I don't know the acronym and hypervisor installs for EV and AV versus internal combustion engine vehicles. So, essentially, I think, in a nutshell content for vehicle for QNX on EV and AV separately? John Wall Yes. I don't know that I really look at them all that separately. One has a battery manager, one has an engine controller. I think -- so I'll try to answer it more generally speaking, and then I will make a comment to EVs. So, generally speaking, the ability for QNX to be used in more places within the vehicle is what drove our decision to focus on safety. Traditionally, if you look back at where QNX was playing in automotive 10 years ago, the opportunity was typically a telematics box, an OnStar or an infotainment unit. And at the time, we were very dominant in infotainment and in telematics. If you -- so you kind of add two potential sockets there that we were fighting for, and for the most reason, those were the most -- those were the two high-performance compute platforms with telematics box and the infotainment box. I think as we see this consolidation of ECU to domain controllers, the opportunity has gone up dramatically. You have domain controllers that are handling gateway. So, you have a gateway functionality within the vehicle, you can do that almost like a router, that's going to manage safety systems and non-safety systems within the vehicle, the different buses. You have chassis controllers, you have ADAS controllers, you autonomous drive controllers. You have the digital cockpit, which is probably the first consolidation that's been happening within the vehicle, where we're taking cabin functions such as digital instrument cluster and infotainment and merging that onto one high-performance compute platform, using our hypervisor. So, I think, without actually throwing out numbers, as far as the dollar amount, from an opportunity within the vehicle, there is definitely going from 2 or 3 opportunities to 5 or 6 or 7 opportunities within the vehicle. To us with IVY is just one more, a different function. Now, having said that, from an EV perspective, I think we put a status during earnings before Christmas that I believe we're in 19 of 25 of the top EV producers and that we have a 61% market share of working with EV customers. And one of the reasons that EV is interesting is in a lot of cases, it's clean sheet. They're starting with new architectures, and they're able to move to these new domain controller type architectures more quickly. Samik Chatterjee Is Automotive Grade Linux a strong competitive threat? Who is the most significant competitive threat in terms of the auto ecosystem? And how is QNX superior to these over time? John Wall Right. So, I would say that we have two groupings of competitors. We have the traditional under-the-hood safety-based operating systems. And those are Green Hills and Wind River. Green Hills is very well-known in aerospace and defense, and so is Wind River. I think, we've been quite successful against those two. And then, on the other side of the spectrum coming more from consumer side and coming more from high-performance compute platform, you have Linux in all forms, whether it's AGL or Ubuntu or something else. It doesn't really matter. Now, the advantage that QNX has over Linux is that those Linux distributions are not safety certified. Safety certification is a lot of work. It's very hard to achieve. It's especially hard to achieve when you look at a product like Linux that -- part of the beauty of Linux as it moves very fast, and it's contributed to by the community. But that's also -- it's Achilles’ heel when it comes to safety because safety requires due diligence around safety cases, design, knowing the providence of where the software came from, a lot of testing, a lot of impact analysis. So I mean, our view is we take all the competition seriously. And we're just trying to continue to push our product forward to be better performance and a higher level of safety against all our competitors. And we believe that will help keep us in the lead. Samik Chatterjee In the couple of minutes we have remaining, let's take a couple of questions on IVY here. First question, and I’ll again kind of club them together. How will the IVY app store ecosystem be monetized? And then, a second question, can you talk about the dollar investment and the time investment, how are you splitting that as it relates to development of IVY? John Wall I'll answer the second piece first. As I mentioned earlier, it's a 50-50 investment by both, Amazon and BlackBerry. It's a significant investment. But, we're not providing any numbers. But, there is a significant investment in doing this. As far as monetizing from the OEMs and the app store and how that's going to look, we're just starting to have those conversations with the OEMs. I don't know that we have a clear picture on this. Based on the discussions we've had with the OEMS, we know there's a lot of value there. And the idea of providing a more comprehensive and more standardized SDK and API across car brands is only going to make that more valuable. But, we haven't gotten into all the nuts and bolts of what this is going to look like, except that we know that the OEM is going to control the data, and it's going to control the access to the data. *Samik Chatterjee * Okay. Last one, let me squeeze this one in. Where do you see the biggest catalyst for your loyal shareholders? *Steve Rai * Well, I think, the trends that I spoke to in my opening comments are really what position -- all of the Company's technology, the way that it's come together and the drivers that we have play in very directly to these trends, and the trends being proliferation of IoT, security, all of the concepts that John described in the auto sector as well as the general embedded space. And those are things that the Company is just ideally suited for in terms of the expertise and the solutions that we have. Samik Chatterjee Great. That's all we have time for. Steve and John, thank you both for taking the time to attend the conference. And it was a pleasure hosting you and great discussion. Thank you. Steve Rai Thank you, Samik. John Wall Thank you very much. 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀
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