Greetings Contrarian,

This is The Next Big Rush, your daily drop of mining/energy investing news. Where we come together and choose our favourite Friday drinks.

Here are some to sip on:

🍹 Gold Boss Pushes For Digital Gold

🍹PDAC vs VRIC curse?

🍹Aussie Junior Hits Bonanza Grades

⚜️ Gold Boss Pushes For Digital Gold

Randy Smallwood, CEO of non other than streaming and royalty company Wheaton Precious Metals (TSX: WPM) has revealed in a fireside chat at the Red Cloud Pre-PDAC event today in Toronto, that the World Gold Council is working on transforming the way gold is traded.

Instead of pushing for a defacto gold standard with major economies, the Council and it’s 30 some members are meeting with trading companies and international banks in order to push for an automatic settlement for gold trading as well as hosting it on the blockchain, so that every gram would be verifiable and traceable.

Our best paraphrase is “The banks are the guys who make the most money with the current system, with 5-day settlements and such, but the regulators are pressuring them for more transparency, especially after what happened in the nickel market recently”.

The project, entitled Gold247 (get it?) is currently being discussed and may be approved as early as this year (fingers crossed).

We’re looking forward to it - specially as trading in grams instead of ounces could open up doors for more retail participation.

Thumbs up!

☔︎ PDAC Curse vs VRIC Curse

After a very busy MIF and VRIC all but a few weeks ago, we’re nosing around and visiting both Red Cloud Pre-PDAC and MIF in Toronto as we prepare for the big one in two days.

The amount of companies presenting is large at both events, but we can’t help but wonder if we had an early peak to retail interest and are now in the PDAC curse stage of the year.

For those of you lucky to not know what we’re talking about, there’s an urban legend that indicates a period of doom and gloom immediately after PDAC, which is by far the largest mining conference in the world, with the actual event marking the top of the market for that particular year.

We see many familiar faces. Too many. Right now, it feels like an industry event with not many investors.

NO bubbles here, if sentiment is any indication.

The quality of the companies presenting is actually quite good, so we’ll take it as a great buying signal (not financial advice, yada yada yada).

🤑 Aussie Junior Hits Bonanza Grades

Rox Resources Limited (ASX: RXL) is an Australian listed company with advanced gold assets in Western Australia: the Youanmi Gold Project and the Mt Fisher Gold project. Together with its joint venture partner Venus Metals Corporation (ASX: VMC), it’s reporting initial drilling results from both RC and diamond drilling programs currently underway at the Youanmi Gold Project.

Highlight:

RXRC458: 28m @ 34.81g/t Au from 204m,

including; 18m @ 51.96g/t from 207m,

including; 10m@ 79.55g/t from 211m,

including; 3m @ 138.07g/t from 218m.

The stock jumped from 14 cents to 23 on the news. Market cap is slightly over 50m.

The Editor

DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.