By Edward Czajka, Wines and Spirits Editor
The Rivian Beetle electric vehicle will start trading on the stock market this morning.
At $52.7 billion, it’s one of the largest initial public offerings in history, and will attract attention all around the world.
When the stock starts trading, it’ll be called RVN in Las Vegas. It’s a very unique stock listing that requires some imagination to execute.
RCNH is a sort of crypto exchange, with its headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona. It’s the HQ of RVN’s consumer trading division and doesn’t trade anything directly. The company, or actually the system, is used to move money on consumer electronic currencies.
RVN says it’s like Bitcoin for the mainstream. The company is big in Bitcoin because it’s known as the top crypto firm outside of Bitcoin. It also services a large clientele. There are 100,000 people that use their system. RVN reaches all over the world with a commercial office in Florida, 31 offices in Arizona, California, Minnesota, and New Mexico, and various points of sale in seven states.
Still, crypto-currencies are viewed more skeptically by all from the financial industry. Crypto-currencies are often confused with cryptocurrencies, but are in the same technology and financial ecosystem, but have a different name. The only thing they have in common is bitcoin.
As for the name, RVN is just a code word for an anonymous front end to an email-based trading exchange. There’s no fee to join the system, but to trade, you must give up your information to RVRN. Once you give up your information, you receive an account code from RVRN that you’re free to use. Once you use the code you enter your amount of money into the system and send it to the money market.
Because of the technical difficulties involved with setting up an anonymous trading exchange, RVN has shunned investing too many of their coin reserves. Through the first quarter of the year, they only own 12.7 percent of the institutional market’s estimated bitcoin market worth.
Based on recent market trends, RVN should be valued around $40 billion. In 2012, there were a number of small privately owned electric car makers that had made the move to the stock market. Then Tesla went public and there were a number of small companies before and after, some of which are still publicly traded.
Should you buy RVN now? There’s a number of reasons not to, starting with the fact that it’s a fictional stock. And the market cap and share price aren’t a reflection of what the company is worth. That’s also true for Tesla.
The stock market is considered an inalienable right, so if you believe the stock will grow, you should jump on. But right now, RVN is overvalued by a wide margin, and will likely lose most of its value by the end of the year, or even at the end of this year.
Based on the current price of $52.7 billion, RVN will likely be one of the worst performing stocks in 2021.
However, RVN’s potential is immense. According to a 2017 UN Climate Report, global lithium consumption could quadruple by 2040, due to growth in electric cars. A Tesla or one of its competitors could go into production before 2024. The technology required to build electric vehicles is already well-established. RVN should benefit greatly from the growing number of electric cars on the road.
Electric cars aren’t just getting better because of a love of clean air or concern about climate change, but because they’re efficient, and expensive. An EV can travel significantly farther than a gas-guzzling sedan, and the added mileage reduces fuel consumption and thus lowers costs.
With the rising tide of EV sales, it’s a better environment for Rivian to market its car.