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That article is from 2011.
Another article in 2010 (http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2010/06/14/focus4.html) stated:
Bolt Threads Inc. did capture VC interest and is targeting 2016 as their commercialization date, so they obviously have something, but I have not seen anything that shows what it is that they do have. Usually by now, you could find some sort of patent in progress, but I have not seen anything, so it is hard to tell what they do have.
One thing I did find is that they have a trademark in progress called BOLTSPUN™ and have registered the domain BOLTSPUN.COM, so that is what they will likely be calling their silk.
The only thing that I found that they cited was that their silk is stronger than steel. If this is in reference to common structural steel, it has a yield strength of 250 Mpa. This means that it likely rivals the properties of Monster Silk® which was cited in the NIAS article of having a Max Stress of around 300 Mpa. That would still not in the Gpa range that KBLB’s Dragon Silk™ and Spiber Inc.’s QMONOS™ fibers seem to be in which is likely why they are aiming for the mundane silk market. I would not be surprised if they come out with a stronger fiber in the future, though. They do seem to have a lot of talent working with them.
If they have succeeded in lowering the cost of creating these fibers to less than the cost to harvest them from silkworms, then they just might eclipse KBLB, at least until Dragon Silk™ comes out, but I would wait until they cite actual figures on cost and properties before I state that they will be the leader of the next generation of textiles.
It was not .44, it was $4.00.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/4012223/KBLB-Analyst-Report-July-2008
Thats fine. After all, it is only my speculation, but it is speculation based on actions that he performed at another company of his own creation shortly thereafter:
https://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2015/lr23208.htm
He did defend himself on that one and pleaded guilty.
Joe Noel stated several times in his report written in 2008 that the technology is worth several hundred million and, when refined and accepted in the Technical Textile market, would be worth $1-5 billion. Of course, knowing his character, he likely only stated all that to artificially inflate his shares, but it was said as of 7 years ago.
Hi Bob,
I don't think that it would be in Kim's interest to let the company go under, so I don't think that he would easily let that happen. I would still not dismiss it as a possibility, though.
Ben can be a good source of information to help clarify some statements made in articles and PRs, but you have to keep in mind that his entire job is to convince you to invest in KBLB, so he is going to say what he is legally allowed to in order to do that.
I am waiting on word from Vietnam, so I am not planning on selling out just yet. This dwindling share price just does not give me a warm fuzzy.
I believe that Kim had assumed that the Dragon Silk news would help boost the share price until the green light for Vietnam, similar to the way that Monster Silk® and Big Red did, but it did practically nothing. I don’t think anything less than the green light for Vietnam or actual sales will do anything at this point.
This is now the lowest price that I have ever seen this stock since I have started buying into it and it just seems like it keeps going lower. At this rate, assuming he takes the full $200k each month, Kim is going to go through all of the new CSC shares before the end of 2016. I believe that at that point, assuming KBLB is in Vietnam by then, Kim is going to start having to take on some actual loans or support from VCs to maintain his company. If it comes down to him losing a little control, taking some financial responsibility unto himself, or having his company go completely under, I would hope that he would choose not to kill the company. That would be the least desirable from any angle. A buy out could also be possible, but at share prices like this, it would likely not be at a price advantageous for us shareholders.
Even if Kim can somehow recover his stock price with the announcement of a move to Vietnam, it is still going to be a long road before KBLB will have actual sales to the point that they will no longer be diluting. The first year or so will likely just be moving in and strictly expanding the silkworm population at the new site. I would not expect any real income until late 2016 or early 2017.
I would hope by mid to late 2017, Kim will be ready for Big Red or Spiderpillar or even Dragon Silk to start the move to commercialization. By then, Spiber Inc., Bolt Threads Inc., and possibly even Entogenetics Inc. will be starting their initial commercialization, so that may also affect things, possibly for the better. Ideally, there would be some sort of textile arms race by major clothing manufacturers trying to outdo each other with exclusive agreements with each established company.
Of course, that is all optimistic speculation that I am choosing to think about to try to keep my mind off of all of the red in my retirement account. I still think that it is entirely possible for Kim to pull this off, but it is almost entirely hinged on the Vietnam deal working out. If it falls through, I fear for the future of the company.
SEC Obtains Final Judgment Against CEO in San Francisco-Based Penny Stock Company Pump and Dump Scheme
https://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2015/lr23208.htm
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that on February 25, 2015, the Honorable Vincent G. Chhabria, United States District Court Judge for the Northern District of California, entered a Final Judgment as to Defendant Joseph A. Noel, of Martinez, California.
The Commission's complaint, filed on November 17, 2014, alleged that Noel defrauded investors by issuing false and misleading press releases portraying his purported marketing and infomercial company YesDTC Holdings, Inc. as a successful venture in order to drive the stock price up. Noel then covertly sold millions of shares into the public market at the inflated price and reaped more than $300,000 in illicit profits. To conceal his sales, Noel sold the shares through a company he created in his teenage daughter's name without disclosing as required that he was actually selling the shares.
The final judgment against Noel, entered by consent, permanently enjoins him from committing future violations of Sections 5(a), 5(c), and 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Sections 10(b) and 16(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rules 10b-5 and 16a-3 thereunder. In addition, the final judgment orders Noel to pay disgorgement of $315,000, with prejudgment interest of $45,000, and bars Noel from serving as an officer or director of a public company and from participating in any penny stock offerings.
Noel also pled guilty to criminal charges related to the same conduct alleged in the Commission's complaint. See USA v. Joseph Noel, Criminal Action No. 14-00264 VC (N.D. California).
You can make an account for free, but i went ahead and got a screenshot of his current page: http://imgur.com/F9Q4uY5
The pictures are real. They just contain more information than meets the eye that clears up these questions, though beings up others.
When you take a picture with a digital camera, it leaves a kind of fingerprint on the image as part of the Exchangeable image file format or Exif data. This Exif data is embedded with information about the camera such as date and time, type of camera, settings used to take the picture, and sometimes even GPS info if taken with a smartphone or a GPS capable camera. This data can be deleted. This is likely what will happen from now on since the knowledge of this has reached these message boards and everyone will likely now be examining the images for this.
The picture of Kim was taken in 2010 and is actually part of the series of pictures that show him working in the lab that is posted on the website already. The image of his face was cropped from one of these pictures that was not publicly posted before. A reconstructed image of the original thumbnail that the face shot was cropped from shows Kim standing between Dr. Malcolm Fraser and his wife. Here is the thumbnail I was able to get: http://imgur.com/ivtW5dX
The time/date for the 2014 image of the silkworms was taken directly from Exif data on the image. It may be correct or not, it is simply based on the date & time that was manually input into the camera when it was initially set up.
The Techtextil North America date was something i thought was strange myself a while back, especially since i could not find KBLB on the list of exhibitors. I contacted Ben who stated that he believed Kim went as a guest. I googled Techtextil May and found that it was in May in 2014 in Georgia. I found an article on that 2014 show that used the same image that the Spider Sense article used (http://www.innovationintextiles.com/techtextil-north-america-and-texprocess-americas-2014-set-record-attendance/).
No radioactive spiders involved in this.
The Techtextil North America show was in May in 2014.The picture they used in the Spider Sense was from the show in 2014.
Yeah, but look at the time it was taken. Odd time to be taking pictures and for it to be light outside. One explination is that the time/date was never set. The other explination is that the time zone is different from where the camera was set...
Kim is a lawyer and his wife is also one specializes in Chinese/Hong Kong/Taiwanese manufacturing ventures. They would know the laws there well enough to take full advantage of them. If the point was to not draw public attention of local anti-GMO activists to prevent them from lobbying for more laws or restrictions, then that is a decent strategy, imo.
Either way, it is just a theory. An alternate, equally likely theory in my mind is that this Stan Abiassi guy simply put up fake info on his Linkedin page to be discovered in order to manipulate the stock price. There was a lot of selling going on yesterday on what i thought was good news, so that could have been him.
I see your point and agree that padding the resume with stretched truths is common, but the fact that his Linkedin page was suddenly changed immediately after the revelation speaks volumes.
Why would they keep something like this a secret, though? Why not make this public?
If I had to guess the reason, it is because of the fact that they are raising GMO silkworms there. Taiwan, due to its unique relationship with China, cannot sign the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, thus is not governed by those restrictions. Though they do have laws put in place by Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine (BAPHIQ), I am not sure that they have any that cover transgenic silkworms specifically.
It is possible that Kim was able to get these transgenic silkworms into Taiwan through a loophole in the Taiwanese law and kept it secret so that the issue would not be raised there locally and the loophole be closed.
EDIT: I found in a report HERE:
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing about the shirt. It looks about as fashonable as a burlap sack.
Apparently, Randy Lewis is geeting some use out of his goats. There is already a couple (extremely expensive) textiles for sale on the market:
http://store.srulirecht.com/products/an-emperors-new-tangling-is-sr438
http://store.srulirecht.com/products/coppe-web-is-sr447
Yeah, I got his full Linkedin page saved.
Here is the screenshot: http://imgur.com/euBBqmD
I think it had more to do with him hiring on Jon Rice. The timeline for that matches up perfectly.
Yeah, that would make sense. I was just looking for an alternate explination.
I agree, that is something that should be there...
Maybe it is not a KBLB factory after all?
It does seperate it with a dash as if it were a seperate thing:
I asked Ben about this. He said it refers to the second half of this year (2015).
Thanks for the link!
At first I thought that this might be related to Spiber Inc. in some way, but looking into it, i don't think so anymore. Riken is a separate entity altogether. It looks like there will be more or is already players in the spider silk field than first thought.
Here is an English link to the enzyme research team page where you can see a list of some of Keiji Numata's publications: http://www.riken.jp/en/research/labs/csrs/biomass_eng/enzyme/
Looking into it a little deeper, it looks like the may have found a solution or work around to the issue that First Mike brought up in His stickied post #91957.
I admit that it goes way over my head, but here is a link to an easier to understand article with a link to the scientific article at the bottom: http://www.riken.jp/en/research/rikenresearch/highlights/7385/
I will have to look into this a little more when I get more time.
Yeah, it is k8nd of a rough traslation. I guess "not" would have been a better word.
Japanese is a very contextual language. Points #14 through 18 i believe are in the context of what they believe they might be able to achieve.
I think the applications are meant to be idealistic goals, not something that they have already achieved.
Thanks for the video! I had not seen this one before.
Much of it seems to be written as a monologue or inner thoughts of Kazuhide Sekiyama, the CEO. Here is a rough translation of what it says in Japanese:
1. "What is the world's strongest bug?"
2. I was inspired while drinking with friends.
3. Since that time, I became obsessed with Spider Silk.
4. <Spiber>
5. Fact:01 Spider silk is the toughest fiber in the world.
6. “Strong” and “Soft”, both combined make the ultimate material.
7. Fact:02 The most advanced technologies for protein fiber spinning.
8. Our technologies will mass produce the new standard for fibers.
9. Fact:03 The properties of fibers are controllable.
10. Both strength and elasticity properties can be controlled.
11. The ultraviolet penetration rate can be controlled.
12. The 21st century is the BIO era.
13. Through the use of BIG DATA, the possibilities are infinite.
14. Even when hit by a car, a pedestrian would never be severely injured.
15. The bio-compatible materials support next generation medical technology.
16. A space suit that will better protect the human body.
17. To gently protect is the fiber of dreams.
18. Spider silk will change the world.
19. Do you think it's impossible?
20. We don't think so.
21. <Spiber>
I believe the companies that you refer to are Spin'tec Engineering GmbH and Oxford Boimaterials Ltd. which has a few offshoot companies spawend from them.
Both of these companies are not using actual transgenic silkworms (as far as I know), but work to phisically modify the standard silkworm and control its spinning processes to spin stronger silk. I had mentioned them to Ben last year as a possible partner with KBLB which he said he would pass on to Kim, but I don't know if anything has been done with the info. Depending on how they work with the silk, it might be too resource and intensive and costly if it involves handling each individual silkworm with precision.
KBLB is not the only company doing it. There are at least 4 other entities doing it.
Entogenetics Inc. was the company referenced in the article.
Araknitek Inc., Randy Lewis's company, also works with them, though he has been having issues.
In addition, the Japanese National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences (NIAS) has also been working with these transgenic silkworms and is looking to get set up in India.
Finally, the Okamoto Corporation, a Japanese designer sock producer, has also been working with transgenic silkworms for their products, though I have not heard much from them other than an article that TRUTH posted late last year.
None of these companies are working together as far as I know.
I really don’t know why they decided to discontinue their spider silk development.
I could speculate that perhaps the technology just wasn't quite there yet or they wanted a fiber that was more consistent than nature could offer or even that the budget for special projects was slashed due to the recession.
Honestly, I have not found very much info on their reasons or motivations, so all I have are wild guesses.
Tell the truth, much of the science does go over my head. I just look for the numbers that I can compare to other numbers to see how the fibers compare to each other and maybe make some personal predictions based on the little knowledge that i do have.
I figred that it would take a lot of money and material to get the proteins needed to spin them, but did not think it would be THAT much. I guess it makes sense now why Spiber Inc. needs almost 100,000 sqft of floor space just for pilot production.
Thanks for the clarification!
Thank you for that article! I hadn't seen it before.
It seems to reference a nature article which I found HERE with a more detailed description HERE.
Though, i believe that the reason that Spiber Inc. did not use the tech is more in that they developed their own method of spinning the fibers that they will not have to share royalties with.