Everything You Need to Know

About Bitcoin and Blockchain

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 Table of Contents
Table of Contents ................................................................................................................................. 2
Welcome to Stansberry Pacific ........................................................................................................... 3
Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 4
Bitcoin and the blockchain ................................................................................................................... 5
The “smart money” is headed for cryptos .......................................................................................... 7
Bitcoin versus gold .............................................................................................................................10
Is a cryptocurrency like a stock? This is what the SEC says….........................................................13
Three things to know about buying bitcoin.......................................................................................16
How to buy bitcoin ..............................................................................................................................19

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 Welcome to Stansberry Pacific
Welcome to Stansberry Pacific Research. We’re taking the mystery out of finance and investing
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Our aim is to help people just like you who are tired of the market noise – and who are ready to
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Kim Iskyan
Publisher, Stansberry Pacific Research

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 Introduction
Bitcoin is money. It might be new and digital, but it’s money nonetheless.

But what is money? At its heart, money is simply a form of confidence around a particular
medium of exchange.

As confidence in bitcoin continues to expand, and its network effects continue to take hold, day
by day, it is becoming the new global form of digital currency.

It might take a little getting used to, but that’s what this report is all about – helping you get
used to the idea of what bitcoin is and how it works.

The other critical element money needs is a promise of scarcity. If the government issuing a
currency will just print more, then the currency becomes worth less… and ultimately worthless.
It’s not far-fetched. Ask folks who live in Venezuela today, or Argentina a few years ago, or
Zimbabwe… currencies fail all the time.

Bitcoin’s scarcity lies in its code. Nobody can print more. There will only ever be a pre-
determined amount created. Do you trust open-sourced, verifiable code? Or your government?

But bitcoin is just the beginning. In this report, I’ll tell you what bitcoin is… share why everyone
should own some right now… show you how to buy it… and talk about what the future holds for
bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

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 Bitcoin and the blockchain
Bitcoin and blockchain are difficult concepts to grasp. Few people outside of cryptographers
and computer programming guys immediately “get” the underlying technology, especially when
lots of technical jargon is thrown around.

For starters, bitcoin with a lowercase “b” refers to the bitcoin cryptocurrency, which is digital
money that is created and held electronically.

Bitcoin with an uppercase “B” refers to the network (or blockchain) technology. You see, at the
core of bitcoin is a kind of super database called the blockchain. The blockchain is public and
accessible to anyone, just like the Internet.

The blockchain contains every transaction in the history of bitcoin, and is constantly growing.
When you use bitcoins to buy something, a global network of computers checks the blockchain
database, verifying that you own the bitcoins. It’s like thousands of computerised notaries
automatically checking, authenticating and guaranteeing every transaction.

This is different from using a credit or debit card. When you buy something with a credit card, a
financial middleman, like a bank, verifies every transaction. This takes time, and they charge you
a fee for the “service”.

In a bitcoin transaction, the verification and transfer are performed instantly by the blockchain.
There is no middleman. A lot of people think that as Bitcoin-like technology matures, it will be
used to process everything from stock trades to voting. These more efficient, less costly
transactions could end up saving individuals and corporations billions of dollars – while making
them far more secure.

Cryptocurrencies are also blockchain-based digital assets created, increasingly, as a means of

ownership of a blockchain-based business.

Some of the most exciting early-stage investment opportunities in the months and years to
come will come in the form of cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin is the “on-ramp” to buying these cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin is currently the “reserve” currency of all cryptocurrencies. So it makes sense to

understand bitcoin first.

Let me share a recent example.

You might have heard about ethereum. It’s a virtual currency network that’s been in the press. A
wave of top blue-chip I.T. and financial companies (including J.P. Morgan and Microsoft)
formed an alliance to use ethereum for blockchain-related opportunities in 2017. That pushed
the price up thousands of percent. Today, nearly 400 companies are in the alliance.

But if you want to buy ethereum, you have to buy bitcoin first. That’s why you should take the
time to figure out bitcoin. It’s the on-ramp to other cryptocurrencies.

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 The “smart money” is headed for cryptos

With the recent crypto correction, it may seem like people are staying away from the
space.

But the “smart money” is continuing to show interest…

And that means we’re about to see massive sums of money flow into the sector.

Let me explain…

Why the smart money has mostly stayed away from cryptos – so far

In the world of investing, “smart money” refers to professional investors who have more
and better information than the general investing public.

Smart money tends to be the first to invest in “the next hot thing”… and the first to flee
markets in anticipation of adverse conditions.

But with cryptocurrencies, the smart money has come late to the game.

You see, while there’s obviously been a lot of interest in cryptocurrencies as a new
financial asset class from big institutions (it’s hard to ignore the massive booms and
busts we’ve seen in bitcoin and other cryptos), there are a lot of hurdles they must
overcome to put their money into cryptocurrencies.

A sovereign wealth fund or endowment manager that wants to buy cryptocurrencies

needs to jump through a lot of hoops. There’s all sorts of compliance required, legal
opinions, not to mention expanding the scope of your investment mandate (which
defines what assets you can invest in) – which is no easy task.

And there haven’t been many “bridges” between traditional asset managers and this
new, less well-understood arena of cryptocurrencies.

Let’s say you’re the manager of a sovereign wealth fund, and you’re interested in making
a small allocation to cryptocurrencies, how do you go about it? Do you build an internal
team and do it yourself? Unlikely.

Instead, you’d be looking for people with strong backgrounds in asset management,
who have transitioned over to crypto, and who know how to responsibly invest other
people’s money (i.e., institutional level security, compliance and reporting, etc.).

There are more than 700 cryptocurrency funds out there. Most of them are boutique or
niche funds. Notables include Pantera Bitcoin Fund, a San Francisco-based hedge fund
and Polychain Capital, with more than US$1 billion in assets under management. But
these funds are usually backed mainly by big Silicon Valley venture capital names like

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Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, not traditional institutional asset managers
like pension funds, for example.

But even though there are hundreds of funds investing in cryptocurrencies, the
institutional level of participation is still very small by any measure… but it’s increasing.

Cryptocurrencies are finally going institutional

In recent months, we’ve seen several developments that will open up cryptos to
the smart money…

For example, the owner of the largest stock exchange in the world, the New York
Stock Exchange, created a start-up called Bakkt that will soon launch a crypto
exchange. The US$2.4 trillion asset manager Fidelity Investments is launching a
crypto “custody” platform (that is a place to safely store bitcoin and ethereum
and eventually other cryptos).

This gives a lot of institutional credibility to bitcoin as an asset class. And that
really gives the green light to some of these bigger institutions who have been on
the sidelines looking for some kind of validation of bitcoin.

Also, Coinbase, one of the largest crypto fiat exchanges, launched Coinbase
Custody, which is a custodian service for institutional investors, in 2018. Now,
Gemini already has this. Coinbase is adding it. And clearly, this is targeted for
institutions. Custody is, of course, one of the major issues that an institution
needs to overcome in order to be able to buy bitcoin and enter the space. So
having more custodian options for these institutions is a big plus.

We’re also seeing surprisingly benign news from regulators

Recently, Chairmen of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and

Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Jay Clayton and
Christopher Giancarlo, addressed the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking,
Housing and Urban Affairs regarding the oversight roles for their regulatory
bodies over the crypto markets.

Their testimony was surprisingly benign.

The general message to the committee was that they have things under control
and that they will work to preserve innovation while continuing to use the Howey
test as a measure of whether a crypto asset falls under their purview (plenty will).

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And Giancarlo said we owe it to this new generation to respect their enthusiasm
for virtual currencies with a thoughtful and balanced response, not a dismissive
one.

So overall, this is very positive in the space. Regulation is always going to

happen, especially with the sums of money that are involved. The SEC is tasked
with protecting mom and pop investors. And when you've got huge amounts of
capital and a lot of them, a lot of these crypto projects sailing very, very close to
the wind, shall we put it, this is only to be expected.

But again, the testimony was positive for the sector.

What does this mean?

The reality is, the crypto asset market is here to stay. So you can either get on
board, or you cannot have anything to do with it. And I think the smart money is
realising that this is a space that they need to be involved in.
This means there’s every likelihood that over the next year or so, we will see much
greater sums of money flow into cryptocurrencies, and bitcoin is likely to be the biggest
beneficiary. Remember, bitcoin is the global crypto reserve currency. It’s the first crypto
asset that tens of millions of people who enter the space after you will be buying.

And you have the opportunity to “front-run” a wall of institutional capital that will likely
pour into cryptocurrencies as the asset class becomes increasingly mainstream, and
increasingly difficult for asset managers to ignore.

Everyone should buy a little bitcoin

Everyone should be accumulating a little bitcoin. A few hundred dollars, a couple of

thousand… whatever you can afford to allocate in the super-speculative portion of your
portfolio. But don’t allocate any meaningful portion of your portfolio to bitcoin.

I don’t think you should buy bitcoin because you think the price will go up.

You should buy some bitcoin today to familiarise yourself with the process of buying,
trading and storing cryptocurrencies. Blockchain and cryptocurrencies will never
replace gold, but they are here to stay.

This technology will only grow in scale and opportunity. And being on the outside
(and not understanding it) will limit your ability to profit from it.

And the best thing about bitcoin from an investor perspective is that it still requires
a bit of effort to buy it. You need to open an account and go through some Know-

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Your-Customer (KYC) processes. This means you still have time to get in before
others.

Remember, this rollercoaster ride is just getting started. So there’s no reason not to
be buying now.

Bitcoin versus gold

Gold bugs are rarely, if ever, bearish on gold. To them, it’s the only real currency in a world of
money-printing central banks endlessly devaluing their fiat (that is, paper) currencies. There are
few people who believe so fervently as gold bugs.

But bitcoin fanatics come pretty close. These folks believe that this decentralised digital
currency is the ultimate means of easily transferring value without the need for a centralised
entity, intermediary, or central bank. Bitcoin is a libertarian dream.

Now, given that gold bugs and bitcoin fanatics share a common desire – a completely
independent store of value – and a common enemy (central banks), you’d think they might be
the best of friends. But they’re not.

In fact, they’re more like dogs and cats – or chalk and cheese. They don’t mix well, at all.

As I said, bitcoin is frequently compared to gold. They’re the only two widely-distributed,
decentralised methods of exchanging value as currency. There is no central authority issuance
like there is with U.S. dollars or any other fiat currency.

Neither bitcoin nor gold can just be “printed” at the push of a button by an anxious central
banker. You have to either earn your gold by mining it – which is what you do to mine bitcoin,
but with computers instead of picks and shovels – or you can pay cash for it.

But for the gold bugs, there’s no substitute for being able to see, feel and carry their gold.

Bitcoin? That just exists somewhere on the internet as far as they are concerned.

Most people can’t easily comprehend bitcoin and cryptocurrencies

The biggest hurdle between the current state of bitcoin and mass adoption is that it’s not easy
to fully explain in less than 30 seconds to the average guy on the street.

Yes, you can just say it’s a “digital currency”, and that’s a start. But explaining the fundamentals
of blockchain, and the distributed ledger systems upon which it’s built is not straightforward.

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It usually takes time and effort for people to really understand just how much of a breakthrough
bitcoin really is when it comes to a being a trustless mechanism for exchanging value.

Gold is the very opposite of new technology

It’s human nature – and, from an investment perspective, smart – to be sceptical of large world-
transformational promises built on a new technology… especially one you don’t understand fully
yet.

On the other hand, a gold coin is a gold coin. It’s shiny, heavy, tangible and it exudes value and
permanence.

Gold doesn’t have a point of failure in the way bitcoin does. If the worst happens – by that I
mean the kind of scenarios that doomsday preppers harp on about – a lack of internet
connectivity removes my ability to do much with my bitcoin.

A gold coin can still sit in my pocket, even while I might be fending off mobs, zombies, nuclear
winter, etc.

But the world is changing – away from gold.

Consider this. Gold might have been a bedrock form of currency for thousands of years – but so
were the pen and paper, for communication.

And let’s be honest, the gold bug demographic is typically more towards the senior end of the
spectrum. So, will the physical tangibility of gold become less important over time for
generations who gradually shift more and more of their entire lives into the digital world?

So, gold versus bitcoin?

If you were to ask me which I think is more likely to be around a hundred years from now, it’s
gold… every time. Nothing has usurped it for millennia as a globally-accepted medium of
exchange or store of value, and I don’t think bitcoin will do so either.

Gold can’t be altered. Gold is gold. Once I own it, that’s it. I don’t need to rely on a functioning
internet. I don’t need a computer. It’s pure tangible value.

Bitcoin, however, runs on a protocol that can be changed. Without going too much into it, bitcoin
could look completely different in the future.

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But I own bitcoin the same way I own gold. Locked up, out of sight, and out of mind. The gold
will always be there… as for bitcoin, I can’t say that with 100 percent certainty.

But if you ask me which one is likelier to be up 1,000 percent three years from now, the answer
is bitcoin. It’s still has enormous potential and room to grow.

Gold has stood the test of time as a medium of storing value. For that reason, it deserves a
place in your portfolio. Bitcoin’s time, on the other hand, is just beginning. Blockchain is the
future, and when you have an opportunity to buy the future and tuck it away, you should take it.

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 Is a cryptocurrency like a stock? This is what the SEC says…

When it comes to regulation, what exactly is a cryptocurrency?

Is it a currency? Is it a piece of software? Is it more like an equity? And if it is an equity, does

that mean it should be regulated like any other security?

In July 2017, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) finally weighed in…

How regulators like the SEC define and treat cryptocurrencies is important because it affects
both the value of cryptocurrencies, and how likely it is that blockchain technology will thrive in a
particular jurisdiction.

For example, if a country’s regulatory body decides that cryptocurrencies should be banned,
then this will drag down prices (depending on the size of the country) and blockchain
technology companies will avoid setting up shop or investing there – they won’t feel welcome.

The SEC has been notably slow-moving on the subject of cryptocurrencies. Other regulatory
bodies and governments, primarily in Asia, have been extremely proactive in outlining how they
will treat and regulate bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as an asset class.

Now, it looks like the SEC is on the ball.

Investigating the DAO

In July 2017, the SEC issued the results of an investigative report into the details surrounding a
cryptocurrency initial coin offering (ICO) called the “DAO” in the first half of 2016.

As we mentioned earlier, an ICO is when a new cryptocurrency token is offered for sale to the
public, similar to an initial public offering (IPO) in the stock market.

The DAO intended to be a fully decentralised cryptocurrency venture capital fund. It would raise
money (in the form of a cryptocurrency called ether), issuing DAO tokens in return. It would then
allocate those raised ether funds to various business ventures by way of voting amongst the
DAO token holders.

The DAO raised US$150 million worth of ether from some 11,000 investors. But then disaster
struck. Despite assertions that the DAO’s code had been analysed by “one of the world’s leading
security audit companies” and that “no stone was left unturned during those five whole days of
security analysis”, DAO was hacked. US$50 million of ether was stolen.

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The SEC’s investigative report wasn’t about trying to identify the culprit behind the attack.
Instead, it was focused on whether or not DAO tokens constituted a security (that is, a stock)
and should therefore be regulated under existing securities laws.

The straightforward answer is maybe. The fact is, every cryptocurrency token has its own
attributes.

As the SEC report put it:

“U.S. federal securities law may apply to various activities, including distributed
ledger technology, depending on the particular facts and circumstances, without
regard to the form of the organization or technology used to effectuate a particular
[cryptocurrency] offer or sale.”

In other words, it just depends. But on what?

To answer that, we turn to the “Howey Test”, which was created by the Supreme Court as a
means of determining whether certain transactions qualify as “investment contracts”.

[The test refers to a precedent from a case the SEC levied against Florida companies W. J.
Howey Co. and Howey-in-the-Hills Service, Inc. that sought to determine whether or not a
particular land-related deal constituted an “investment contract” under the Securities Act of
1933.]

If certain transactions meet the criteria, then they are deemed “securities” and subject to a raft
of regulatory requirements.

Without going through all the checks, I’ll just include some of the pertinent ones that the SEC
included in its report.

1. DAO investors invested money…

“Money” doesn’t necessarily mean cash. Whilst investors used ether to buy DAO tokens,
the ether itself constitutes an “exchange of value”.

2. …with a reasonable expectation of profit…

The DAO was a for-profit entity that sought to fund projects, targeting a return on its
investment. These positive returns constitute “profit” in that it would have increased the
value of the DAO tokens.

3. …derived from the managerial efforts of others.

Given the marketing and active engagement with the community from the DAO founders,

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 investors in the DAO had a reasonable expectation that these individuals would provide
management and oversight of the entity.

So, investing money (cryptocurrencies included) in a token with an expectation of profit

(dividend or simple value increase) derived from the managerial efforts of other people points to
a cryptocurrency being a security, and that it’s required to be regulated as such.

What happens now?

The report was a warning. The SEC stated that charges would not be brought against anybody
involved with the DAO. But it served to “caution the industry and market participants”.

Then, in November 2018, the SEC fined two crypto projects (Airfox and Paragon). It said both
qualified as securities, and it forced the cryptos to return capital to their investors and register
as securities.

The news was a wake-up call for many other projects and investors. As someone who’s
personally been involved in the cryptocurrency token distribution process, the “Howey Test” is
now a key component of any legal diligence on a cryptocurrency.

What’s clear is some cryptocurrencies are flying a little too close to the sun, especially those
that specify dividend-style payouts for token holders. The SEC is very clear that just because
something is “virtual”, it doesn’t exempt it from being a security.

And as cryptocurrencies inevitably start falling under SEC jurisdiction, investors (particularly U.S.
investors) will need to ensure that whatever they are buying is compliant with U.S. securities
laws.

So you shouldn’t invest in cyrptocurrencies on the assumption that they aren’t (or won’t ever) be
deemed securities. And when you evaluate different blockchain companies that issue their own
cryptocurrencies, check the characteristics against those “Howey Test” criteria.

SEC regulation was always expected to occur sooner or later. And the projects that take that
seriously will perform better in the long-run than those that trying to skirt the rules.

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 Three things to know about buying bitcoin

Now that I’ve shown you WHY you should own a little bitcoin today, here are three things
you need to keep in mind before you buy…

Start small

Speaking from personal experience, I highly recommend that folks looking to buy some
bitcoin start with an extremely small amount… no more than a bitcoin worth, which
today is the equivalent of a few thousand U.S. dollars. (You can use less money and
buy a fraction of a bitcoin, if you prefer). The process of buying, moving and storing
bitcoin is not like traditional online banking or investing. If you send bitcoin to the
wrong location, for example, you can’t just call up your bank and cancel your
transaction.

Here's a good lesson for you… Recently, a colleague told me how he decided to move
around some bitcoin from his trading exchange account to a new separate wallet he’d
just set up. (A wallet is where you store your bitcoin. An exchange is simply where you
trade bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies).

At the time, one bitcoin was worth around US$2,100. So the total value of the transfer
was a little under US$8,500.

He put in the transfer request, confirmed the transaction by clicking on a confirmation

link sent to him in an email by the exchange, and then he waited…

And waited…

Usually, a simple bitcoin transaction takes a few minutes, maybe more. It’s not
instantaneous (one of the biggest misconceptions about bitcoin is that transactions
happen at once). But after an hour there was no sign of the bitcoin in the new wallet he
had just documented setting up.

He re-checked his account at the exchange. Sure enough, the four bitcoin had been
removed from his balance… but in the transaction ledger, it simply read “awaiting
approval”.

He got on the flight and thought nothing of it. It wouldn’t take long for this “approval” to
go through.

But when he checked on Monday morning back in the office, nothing had changed. The
exchange was still showing “awaiting approval”. Whose approval? It was not clear.

The exchange he was using in this instance is called Poloniex. Operated out of the
U.S., it’s the largest cryptocurrency exchange.

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So, he raised a support ticket (reported the problem to the exchange) asking what was
going on. (Note: there’s no phone number for support, no email, no instant chat box.
You can only raise a ticket with your problem and leave it with the exchange support
staff.)

Days passed. And then a week. Still nothing. Nobody responded to his support ticket.
There was absolutely nothing he could do. The transaction simply said “awaiting
approval”. In the meantime, the bitcoin was completely frozen.

He had a little more cryptocurrency in his account which he could trade, but he didn’t
want to try to transfer that in case the dreaded “awaiting approval” issue cropped up
again.

In the end, it took TEN DAYS for the transaction to ultimately be canceled, and
the bitcoin returned to his exchange account.

It’s a great reminder that with cryptocurrencies, you don’t enjoy the kind of “investor
protections” you might be accustomed to with banks and brokerages.

In this case, there was nobody to call and nobody to complain to. Nothing. My colleague
just had to wait.

But fortunately, by the time those four bitcoin were finally transferred out of his
exchange account (successfully) into cold storage, they were worth another
US$2,800.

In short, it’s critical to familiarise yourself with the mechanics of buying and moving
bitcoin around first with a relatively small sum, before moving on to larger dollar
amounts.

Write everything down

It’s ironic that whilst bitcoin is a highly modern technology, you must make sure you
keep “offline” records of all your bitcoin information. That means a pen and paper, or at
least using a Microsoft Word document and printing it out as a back-up.

You see, storing and sending/receiving bitcoin involves setting up a digital wallet. This
is where you “keep” your bitcoin.

Your wallet has a public key (which might look a bit like this:
1GwV7fPX97hmavc6iNrUZUog) which is where the bitcoin gets sent to. This is like an
account name.

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Your wallet also has a private key. This will either be an alpha-numeric sequence that
looks like the public key above, or a long sequence of random words generated by the
wallet. This is the “password” you use to access your wallet.

Either way, secure wallets do not have an “I forgot my password” option.

If you lose or forget your private key, you lose access to your wallet. And you lose your
investment. Period.

I write everything down, and I print out screen grabs (that is, printouts of what is shown
on the screen).

Don’t leave money at the exchange

In order to convert your cash into bitcoin, you need to open an account with an
exchange.

This process will typically take a few days as the exchange will need to conduct KYC
(know your customer) diligence on you. This means they’ll do a standard identity
verification so the exchange knows who you are, and that you’re not a wanted criminal.

Once you’ve opened the account, you’ll be able to fund it with a bank transfer – or by
credit card in some cases – before you buy bitcoin.

But don’t leave your bitcoin at the exchange. If your bitcoin is at an exchange then you
don’t own it – they do. And if the exchange where you bought bitcoin (and left it there)
gets hacked, then you can lose your money. This has happened in a couple of high-
profile cases.

For example, in 2014 bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, which at the time was handling up to 70
percent of all bitcoin volume, filed for bankruptcy, saying that 750,000 of customer
bitcoin was missing. That’s US$2.9 billion-worth at today’s prices.

That’s why I keep nearly all of my bitcoin offline, in what’s called a “cold storage” wallet.
This is a piece of hardware where you store the bitcoin. I keep just a little “fun money” at
the exchange for trading.

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 How to buy bitcoin

There are two things you need to start trading virtual currency:

1. An on-ramp

2. A wallet

An “on-ramp” is simply a website where you can convert fiat currency (i.e. U.S. dollars)
into bitcoin.

Coinbase is one I’ve used. You create an account, go through a simple verification
process, deposit some dollars, and buy some bitcoin.

The “wallet” is where you store your bitcoin.

Whilst a platform like Coinbase allows you to trade (along with other exchanges
like Binance, my favoured exchange), I don’t like storing much bitcoin in an exchange.

I’d rather keep it in my bitcoin wallet. Exchanges can (and do) get hacked. My wallet of
choice is Bitcoin Core.

Once you have an on-ramp and a wallet, you can get started trading bitcoin. Again, I
recommend everyone go through the process of buying a few hundred bucks of bitcoin,
transferring it to a wallet, and maybe transferring it to an exchange to buy another
cryptocurrency (say ethereum). It is an excellent way to put yourself way ahead of the
pack.

The process

Here are the basic steps broken down into 3 categories below.

1. First, you need to open an exchange account and buy bitcoin.

2. Second, you need to set up a wallet where you can store your bitcoin.

3. Finally, you need to move your bitcoin from the exchange to your wallet.

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You can learn more about buying bitcoin in our free report, A Beginners Guide to Bitcoin.
Just go here to get it for free.

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© 2018 Stansberry Pacific Research All Rights Reserved. All content made available to you through
our services are subject to and protected by copyright, and other intellectual property laws of
Singapore and international treaties.
Legal disclaimer: The insight, recommendations and analysis presented here are based on corporate
filings, current events, interviews, corporate press releases, and what we've learned as financial
journalists. They are presented for the purposes of general information only. These may contain
errors and we make no promises as to the accuracy or usefulness of the information we present. You
should not make any investment decision based solely on what you read here.

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