I can’t try, I would need to place a sell order, which I don’t want at this point. Due to the fees I would loose money now. As mentioned, it is a mid to long term investment. Also…I think if you hold it less than a year as a human being, you would need to pay tax “haltefrist/Spekulationsfrist” in Germany.
The best thing is - if for 10 years the underlying’s value stays flat, you lose more than half of your money because of the fees. 
The evil twin brother of compounding. 
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Personally I would avoid this
Below a link to an opinion that popped up about rare earth. Disclaimer: I do not know the author of this opinion and I cannot vouch for its accuracy, I am just sharing what showed up in google in case it helps you think of questions to ask. I also do not have enough information to say whether the same relates to the site you shared and whether or not it is a scam. Maybe it is totally different. Do your own research
In general I would advise to be careful whenever buzzwords like “Blockchain” and “crowdfunding” are used
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Just to note - There’s also a spread of a good 14% 
I don’t want to criticize you, maybe it turns out to be a great investment but if I’d be in your position I’d ask myself: Am I really that much smarter than the market?
You’re betting on these metals outperforming a 14% spread + all kinds of fees + average stock market returns.
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I will try to remember this discussion and post a status after the first year. I started in July I believe. Currently I have 25k invested and won’t do more until I reach the point where I’m close to even. I will also post if it becomes a nightmare of course, I don’t have any problem to admit mistakes.
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Thanks, I will read that. As mentioned I did a lot of research and not everything I read was positive about the investment itself. But the company is serious in my opinion.
Also I trust the person where this is coming from. He is a friend since decades, he is doing these things professionally with his company and I never had any loss with the investments I did because of his “advices”. Of course there can always be a first time, and the topic is new to him as well because it just wasn’t possible like this in the past, but it is enough for me to trust him.
The nice part of it is that it doesn’t have to be an intentional scam. Exorbitant fees on an obscure product, superhyped technology, investors blind to all legal warnings, … : PROFIT for the shovel sellers.
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Exactly. So if you really want to invest in rare earth/metals, why not buy the shovel sellers themselves, that’s the stocks of the companies that extract the metals?
I know it’s different from investing directly in commodities, but it seems cheaper and less risky.
The 5% agio I had always on my investments, weather it was wood, container…here it is also 5%. The additional 2,5% is actually where I have the problem with. I forgot for what it was for, setup costs or whatever.
Let’s just hope that I was right and don’t loose money
It’s a bit funny, because the whole point of a blockchain is to be decentralized, so you should be able to trade without involving a costly third party. Do you have to sell at market or can you do a market order?
(I still don’t get the advantage of a blockchain, it’s just a database audit here that you need, but it doesn’t check any buzzword )
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I have that on my watchlist, too. The company where I bought from will do something similar soon, waiting for more information on that.
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My two cents: if they’re not regulated by the BaFin as a financial institution and if they can’t produce audit reports made by a reputable audit company that verifies their books and actually checks the existance and ownership at the physical custody location, all you know for sure is that you sent them money …
Noble BC doesn’t say anything about being regulated and audited, at least not on their website.
Finomet, their partner company, claims to be “beaufsichtigt” bei BaFin and external audits (“z. B. vom Zollamt, Versicherungen und externen Prüfgesellschaften”), but no further detail.
Even reputable companies like Trafigura sometimes fall prey to scams around the storage of materials: Trafigura und der Nickel-Betrug: Wie konnte das passieren? (nzz.ch)
Good luck!
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It is a standard playbook. Probably nothing is illegal in CH.
I have been cold contacted variously about investments in:
- solar panel farms and windfarms
- timber and forest plantations
- crowdfunding (=fancy word for shared ownership scheme) investments in real estate or hotels
- wine & whisky
- storage
- property developments
- metals and minerals
- crypto
- hot stock tips
- emissions credits
In all of them I would provide all the capital and all the financial risk, and get some of the rewards. The intermediary would take the rest of the rewards with virtually no risk.
In summary make sure you understand where the incentives are and who has skin in the game.
The intermediary seems professional: The intermediary has an interest in your investment going well. If things go well you both get rich and they generate more business. If things go tits up they can walk away having collected commissions without any consequences bigger than having to find another job and cover up a stain on their CV
Guarantees: will be offered by a Limited Liability Company or similar. The LLC can wound up or bankrupt without recourse to the owners. The director can often walk away and create another LLC and start all over again
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Correct, in this case a blockchain doesn’t really make sense in my opinion. It probably wouldn’t even make sense if you could trade these shares on a decentralised exchange as I could imagine that such an investment comes with KYC requirements? It also doesn’t protect you from a “scam” where the physical equivalent to your coins/nfts/whatever doesn’t exist.
But an interesting question for @goodhope what do you think are the advantages of a blockchain for this usecase?
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Blockchain is useful to scam people as they can point to it for ‘security’ as well as check a few buzzwords.
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From (only) a quick glance and my gut feeling:
Company seems legitimate - no outright signs of a scam.
I guess they do want to provide such an investment service - and charge 
for it.
…if you are tax resident there - are you?
Both companies are run by (more or less) the same people.
If this isn’t a straight up scam, it’s at least a grift designed to separate gullible people from their money…
E.g. there is absolutely ZERO point in this being on a blockchain, except for having another buzzword to impress people.
Also there are cheaper and regulated ETFs to do this investment: E.g. IE0002PG6CA6
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Hi, I do have a German tax number but live in Switzerland. Because of the spread, I don’t want to test it currently. Once one of the metals is even, I would place a small sale order. They are saying I need to hold it for 1 year to avoid the taxes, but I don’t know if this is the case for people in Switzerland.
Yes, I know that both companies are basically the same. I’m not a blockchain pro, so I can’t really answer the other questions.
Maybe I’m wrong and it is not a good investment. Apart from some research it is basically based on trust as experience from the past. As mentioned, my friend is doing this professionally with his company, I know him for a very long time and never regret any investment during this time. It might not be as good as I hope but I don’t think it is a scam.
If you sell at a loss, there shouldn’t be any taxes, right?
I think so, but still a loss
You want to say that I should sell something to test it?