Market Makers are not holding the price down. They make their money when shares of stock are exchanged. They want to keep the volume of exchanges up so they can make more money.
Fiberrev09 is trying to pump up the share price by encouraging others to buy shares. He may be underwater on his share price and trying to pump it up to avoid losses on his shares. Or he may believe the share price should be higher and he's looking for an excuse as to why it's stuck around 8.5 to 9 cents.
If KBLB manages to ship out some silk, the share price will most likely go up. At this moment, I think the chance that will happen are pretty good. Of course, I've been there before. Even still, KBLB has been exhibiting a level of maturity about producing and selling silk that none of us have seen before. For many years, Thompson seemed more interested in developing new silks than in ensuring commercial production would succeed. Hiring Dr. Kumar is one of the best moves Thompson has made. KBLB is still working on new strains of silk, but if they ever manage to ship something out, investors will get excited.
From everything we have learned (which isn't nearly enough), KBLB will NOT be selling spider silk. Spider silk is made from the protein spidroin. It's a single strand without any substantial coating. Silkworm silk is made from a different protein, fibroin. Reeled silkworm fiber contains two strands of fibroin held together with sericin. Silkworm fibers are considered delicate and can be ruined in a washing machine, even though fibroin is a fairly tough fiber. Silkworm silk has a tensile strength of 0.5 GPa, the same as nylon. Polyester has a tensile strength of about 1 GPa. Why then is silk considered a delicate fabric, and why can it be damaged in a washing machine? I consulted ChatGPT, per arachnodude's suggestion, and it pointed out several different factors that mean a silk garment tossed into a washing machine may be damaged when the load is finished. There are several factors, but I'll mention the fact that fiber strength is reduced when silkworm silk is wet and silk fibers can be easily damaged by folding, bending, and shear forces that occur as clothes are washed.
Even though KBLB has improved the toughness of its fibers to perhaps 2 GPa, Bam-1 Alpha will be producing fibroin proteins encased in sericin. Fibers can be treated to improve their resistance to folding, bending, and shear forces. The traditional solution is to use PFAS chemicals (aka, Forever Chemicals) that we really should not be producing and using anymore.
KBLB has never addressed the issue of how washable Bam-1 Alpha silks are. If, like all other silkworm silks, they are hand wash only or machine wash on delicate cycle only, that restricts their popularity with the public. I'm not even sure KBLB knows. Ultimately, the more Bam-1 Alpha silks can be washed in a regular load with cotton, nylon, and polyester fabrics, the market will be larger than if special treatment is needed.. For these reasons, market projections about the demand for Bam-1 Alpha are impossible to generate with any degree of confidence. Anyone telling you the Bam-1 Alpha market will be $1 trillion (or whatever figure) by 2030 (or whatever year) simply doesn't know what they are saying.
Thanksgiving week is about the time the latest batch of silkworms will cocoon. Given the short week, I expect it will be December before we learn much about the latest efforts to produce silk.
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