Traders Cafe with Zak Mir: Argo Blockchain, Ilika, Microsaic, Orosur Mining, Quantum Blockchain, Ridgecrest, Tirupati Graphite, Xeros Technology

Specialist graphite producer and graphene and advanced materials developer Tirupati Graphite (TGR) said that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Hanwa Co. Ltd to expand markets for its suite of flake and speciality graphite products in the Far East. Tirupati said that following ongoing engagement, the company and Hanwa have identified various prospective buyers in the Territory. The MoU is expected to lead to deeper engagements with industrial end users and enhance the development of markets for the Company's graphite products in the Territory including flake graphite from Madagascar and specialty graphite from its upcoming downstream specialty graphite project in India.

Mass spectrometry instruments developer Microsaic (MSYS) announced that a strategic change of business model early in 2021 has resulted in recovery of growth in revenues, increasing to £0.499m in H1 2021, significantly above H1 2020 and that of H1 2019, a pre-pandemic benchmark. The company announced unaudited revenues of £0.499m 594% increase over H1 2020 (£0.072m) and 52% over H1 2019 (£0.328m). A first half highlight was a March commercial agreement with DeepVerge (DVRG), through which Microsaic products and services are being deployed internationally in applications such as water monitoring of chemicals and pathogens, and in support of DeepVerge's rapidly growing Labskin division. This month the company demonstrated real-time monitoring of on-line production of biotherapeutic drugs using Process Analytical Technology within a Microsaic micro-engineered MS solution.

Crypto currency miner Argo Blockchain (ARB) updated for June during which the company mined 167 Bitcoin compared to 166 BTC in May. This brings the total amount of BTC mined year-to-date to 883 BTC. The company said the global hash rate has dropped from over 150m TH/s to just 90m TH/s in the space of a month and mining difficulty adjusted to reflect this reduction. Argo said it has capitalised on these changes, continuing to deliver strong revenue at an impressive margin. Argo also said it was exploring the potential of a secondary listing on NASDAQ.

We found out why shares of AIM shell Ridgecrest (RDGC) have been a firm market in recent days, as it announced a proposed reverse takeover of Blue Air and suspension of trading in the Company's shares. Under a non-binding heads of agreement with Mr Cristian Rada, Ridgecrest would acquire Airline Invest SA and its wholly owned subsidiaries, Blue Air Aviation SA. Blue Air is a Romanian low-cost airline headquartered in Bucharest.

Xeros Technology (XSG), a developer and licensor of platform technologies, said it has signed agreements with two domestic washing machine manufacturers to test and trial its microfibre filtration technology, XFiltra™. The first agreement, with a major global household appliance manufacturer will incorporate XFiltra into their domestic washing machine platform for extensive testing ahead of field trials. The second agreement, with a European-based manufacturer, will incorporate XFiltra into a domestic washing machine platform for consumer-facing field trials.

Orosur Mining (OMI) served up a busy Colombia Update. This included assays from nine additional holes, and multiple high-grade gold intersections with associated silver and zinc- including 59.55m @ 9.61g/t Au and 61.75m @ 2.05g/t Au. The company said the current drilling program is nearing completion as planned, with further assays expected in due course. It added that regional field work is progressing well, and major geophysical surveys are planned.

Solid state battery group Ilika (IKA) announces its full-year results for the year ended 30 April 2021. Ilika said it has continued to develop and commercialise its thin-film Stereax® miniature solid-state batteries for powering medical devices and industrial wireless sensors in hostile environments, as well as progressing its development of large-format Goliath cells for electric vehicles and cordless appliances. Progress the company has made includes substantial progress towards completion of manufacturing facility for Stereax batteries to support 70x increase in production capacity. Looking forward, the company said the Goliath pilot line has been worked hard over the last year to define the manufacturing processes and methods that are repeatable and commercially viable at scale.

Quantum Blockchain Technologies (QBT), a Quantum Computing development and investment company, said it will use the Leap™ quantum cloud service from D-Wave Systems Inc., to develop cryptography algorithms for crypto currency mining. QBT will now be able to access D-Wave's quantum-classical hybrid solvers, which leverage both quantum solutions and best-in-class classical algorithms to run large-scale business-critical problems. QBT aims to transform classic computing cryptography algorithms, such as the one used for Bitcoin mining.