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IonQ, D-Wave and Rigetti look like traps after spiking on US government equity stakes. The $2B attached to nine quantum companies is roughly $100M each, a rounding error that doesn't change whether the businesses work. D-Wave's last quarter brought in $2.86M of revenue and Rigetti $4.4M, about 600x revenue. Much of the pop was a short squeeze, not revaluation, and the group later fell 7-9% on no news. Unlike Intel, which the government bought cheap, these are bought on a story. x.comÂ
Quantum computing has become a real revenue market, and since nobody knows who wins yet, exposure across the whole stack makes sense. The industry just had its first $100M revenue year: IonQ reached $130M, up 202% year over year, and D-Wave grew 3,670% in 12 months, with the market projected at $20B by 2030. Microsoft, Amazon and NVIDIA are all quietly building quantum infrastructure alongside pure plays like Rigetti. x.comÂ
IonQ, Rigetti Computing and D-Wave Quantum have no business model, so their cash flows can't be predicted. They are awful companies whose appeal rests on speculation, and that should die out when the market turns. x.com x.com x.comÂ
The Shortlist targets companies it tags as pump-and-dumps, industry bubbles, constrained-float cases, potential fraud or overleveraged. Its Oct. 23 realistic-value estimates imply large downside, including 79% for ReAlloy, 53% for Critical Metals, 60% for Infleqtion and 62% for Quantinuum. x.comÂ
IonQ, Rigetti Computing and D-Wave Quantum have new government deals, which should drive a strong rally today after an initial pullback at the open. x.comÂ
IonQ's $2 billion offering adds dilution risk without a quantum breakthrough. Chapman and Ballance's predicted 'ChatGPT moment' windows have elapsed; a circulated transcript has Monroe saying commercialization is 'probably not in 5 years.' The offering includes 50 million shares or equivalents and seven-year warrants for another 100 million. An up-to-$1.3 billion all-stock cybersecurity acquisition accompanies de Masi's claim that Q-Day is coming faster than predicted. x.comÂ
IonQ is priced as a story, not a company: with annual revenue under $50 million, its valuation bets on the most optimistic version of quantum computing a decade from now. The market now rewards narrative over earnings and punishes a single missed quarter. That can last a long time when liquidity is ample and risk appetite high, as dot-com stocks in 1999 and SPACs in 2021 showed, so a drop is not imminent. Buyers chasing it are buying how long sentiment lasts, not company value. x.comÂ
IonQ, Rigetti and Infleqtion are the next stocks Trump is effectively calling, now that he says the US aims to have a quantum computer for scientific discovery by 2028. His earlier signals preceded big gains in Intel, Dell and Micron. x.comÂ
Quantum computing looks more like a scam the closer one looks, with IonQ and Rigetti sustained by delusion that keeps the funding flywheel spinning. IonQ's CEO claimed last year its quantum compute would overtake Nvidia's by 2027. Rigetti's CEO essentially said meaningful revenue is not coming soon, after selling his shares. Google's Sundar Pichai shows little interest in its quantum program, and OpenAI and Anthropic keep quantum researchers mainly as a just-in-case. x.com x.com x.comÂ
D-Wave Quantum's $5.2 billion valuation, or 325 times revenue, leaves substantial downside against just $1.50 per share in cash. The stock still has an estimated 80% downside. x.comÂ
Quantum computing is a race whose winners get pricing power over the hardest problems; Google's CEO says quantum is where AI was five years ago. IonQ leads with Q2 revenue of $80.1 million, up 287%. D-Wave alone is in commercial production; Rigetti grew revenue 173%. IBM targets fault tolerance in 2029, Alphabet's Willow began the cycle, Xanadu is photonic, Infleqtion has federal backing, Quantum Computing Inc. is speculative, Arqit sells post-quantum security; an ETF holds the field. x.com … Show more
IonQ is hurting shareholders with a $2B raise to fund an acquisition that makes its business worse. Raising the money was a choice, not a necessity. The offering includes 20.5M common shares at $40 each and pre-funded warrants to purchase 29.5M shares at $40 per warrant, plus seven-year warrants for another 100M shares at $69.46. x.com x.comÂ
