Archive for 2024

MercadoLibre: The ‘Amazon of Latin America’

Courtesy of Fortune, an article on MercadoLibre, Latin America’s tech titan that was inspired by eBay and later launched a lucrative payments business akin to PayPal. It’s now worth roughly the equivalent of the two U.S. tech giants combined: When Marcos Galperin started online marketplace MercadoLibre in a parking garage, he wasn’t trying to evoke the origin […]

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How a Battery Metals Supply Glut is Deepening China’s Dominance

Courtesy of The Wire China, a look at how crashing metals prices are making it hard for Western miners to justify new investments in the minerals needed for clean energy: An avalanche of cheap minerals originating from Chinese producers is thwarting Western governments’ hopes of fighting back against China’s dominance over the electric vehicle supply […]

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Paving The Way: DRC’s ‘Contract of the Century’ with China

Courtesy of The Africa Report, an article on the DRC’s $7B agreement with China for infrastructure: Félix Tshisekedi couldn’t have wished for anything better to launch his second term as president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). On 19 January, on the eve of his inauguration, an agreement was reached between his government and […]

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Bitcoin Mining Was Booming in Kazakhstan. Then It Was Gone.

Via MIT Technology Review, an article on how bitcoin miners initially flocked to Kazakhstan to take advantage of cheap energy and loose regulation. Now most of them have moved on, leaving little behind but moldering equipment and social tension. To reach Kazakhstan’s largest bitcoin mine, you need to travel deep into the country’s rust belt, […]

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Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline: What it Means for West Africa

Courtesy of Energy, Capital, and Power, a report on the Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline and what it means for nations such as Nigeria, Algeria, and Niger: The aim of the Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline – set to run from Nigeria’s resource-rich fields in the Warri region through Niger and to the town of Hassi R’Mel in Algeria […]

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Fastest Growing Countries for Software Development: Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Pakistan

Via Rest of World, a look at new data showing a rising tide of coders in Bangladesh and Nigeria: GitHub has released new data tracking developer accounts by country. Year over year, the data shows Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Pakistan had the fastest-growing developer population. For developers around the world, a busy GitHub profile is one […]

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ABOUT
WILDCATS AND BLACK SHEEP
Wildcats & Black Sheep is a personal interest blog dedicated to the identification and evaluation of maverick investment opportunities arising in frontier - and, what some may consider to be, “rogue” or “black sheep” - markets around the world.

Focusing primarily on The New Seven Sisters - the largely state owned petroleum companies from the emerging world that have become key players in the oil & gas industry as identified by Carola Hoyos, Chief Energy Correspondent for The Financial Times - but spanning other nascent opportunities around the globe that may hold potential in the years ahead, Wildcats & Black Sheep is a place for the adventurous to contemplate & evaluate the emerging markets of tomorrow.