qfx

Over the last six months, Bitcoin has shed 37% of its luster, while Solana has performed a rather more dramatic plunge, losing 61%. A bargain hunter, naturally, rubs his hands at such discounts. But discerning which offers the greater potential requires a degree of calculation, and perhaps, a touch of cynicism. The question isn’t simply which is cheaper, but which is likely to hold its value when the music stops – or, in this case, when the servers inevitably hiccup.

Following this judicious divestment, the aforementioned Nuveen fund now constitutes a mere 0.17% of RiverNorth’s reported assets. A trifle, one might say, a rounding error in the grand ledger of their holdings. Yet, even the smallest coin can reveal the character of the collector. Consider their remaining treasures:

Now, there are a number of hopefuls in this field, dabbling in the arcane arts of superposition and entanglement. But two, for reasons that are currently baffling even the most seasoned observers of the Guild of Alchemists and Venture Capitalists¹, have caught my eye: IonQ (IONQ +0.09%) and D-Wave Quantum (QBTS 1.46%). They’re small, admittedly. More akin to promising apprentices than fully-fledged masters. But if they manage to pull it off – if they actually manage to build something that doesn’t just emit impressive sparks and vaguely threatening hums – the returns could be… substantial. Enough to fund a rather impressive collection of garden gnomes, at the very least.

The fourth quarter bore witness to a revenue increase of eight percent, reaching $123.5 million. Yet, a disquieting detail lurks within this figure: $5.8 million is attributable not to organic growth, but to the addition of a single operating week. A lengthening of the chain, as it were, rather than a strengthening. The system-wide comparable sales, a metric of revenue from establishments open for at least fifteen months, registered a modest 2.1 percent increase. A trickle, scarcely enough to quench the thirst of ambition.