InterCeptor

$IONQ This is my problem with IonQ. If you can read this and not feel like your trust has been shattered, you’re either not paying attention or you have the memory of a goldfish. I’m not going to pretend this didn’t happen. Earnings call after earnings call, they’ve sold the same dream — that a flood of QPU sales was just around the corner. Yet here we are, and the only system they’ve actually delivered went to QuantumBasel in November 2024. One especially egregious example of the hype cycle was Quantum World Congress 2023, a prime showcase of how they’ve consistently overpromised and underdelivered, leading everyone to think that more sales were imminent. The pattern is clear: promise after promise, and none of it materializes. Here I have chosen to analyze Q4 2021 and Q1 2022 IonQ earnings calls, but you can find it in subsequent ones also. Always promsing tons of demand and immanent interest from customers. "What is new is that we have seen a great deal of interest from several customers where they have expressed interest in getting a full system, and so that is new from what we had said before." — Q4 2021 This is a perfect example of IonQ constantly dangling the “imminent demand” carrot in front of investors. They always see "great interest," but there’s never meaningful follow-through. Fast forward several years, and all they’ve managed is one system delivery. "As we are getting ready to sell full systems over the next couple of years, we believe there is potential for a significant upside for the next 24-month period. Our team is filling out nicely with top talent joining both at the executive and individual contributor level. We're focusing special attention on scaling our sales force." — Q4 2021 "we are already seeing substantial interest in system sales stemming from private companies and governments alike." — Q4 2022 This is the same recycled narrative from every EC. There’s always "potential upside" in the next two years. Spoiler: the two years came and went — no flood of system sales, no exponential growth, one single install in Basel. "This year, we are starting to stand up our production engineering and manufacturing departments. This group will be responsible for building all commercial quantum computers going forward, including, for the first time, selling systems outright to customers, which we anticipate could start shipping as early as 2023." — Q4 2021 "So we set an aggressive goal on kind of putting the team together. So they're busily working on sales now. And I would expect that the sales effort will, you know, continue to grow. There's lots of greenfield in terms of opportunity, both, you know, domestically and also internationally." — Q4 2022 2023 came and went. What actually shipped? One system to Basel at the end of 2024 and two government contracts for future delivery (not currently delivered). The entire manufacturing ramp was framed as if it was gearing up for some robust demand pipeline — yet there was no pipeline. They positioned themselves as ready to scale, but there was no customer base to scale for. They hyped up demand that didn’t exist. "Recall that, as Peter noted, we are investing heavily in R&D, and given anticipated demand, of building more systems than previously projected this year." — Q4 2022 This one’s priceless. They were hyping "anticipated demand" that didn’t exist. They made it sound like they were scaling up for a wave of customers that never came. "We do not need a breakthrough in manufacturing, in material science, physics. No breakthroughs are required. We're largely an engineering organization, where we're taking what the two Co-Founders have done at the university or laboratories and productizing it. So the short answer is, I don't think there's anything – there's nothing that's standing in our way. There is no magic that we have to figure out going forward to getting to a much larger quantum computer." — Q4 2021 This is my favorite. No breakthroughs required, nothing standing in their way — and yet, here we are, with essentially nothing to show on the financial bottom line for all the supposed "smooth sailing," while many experts in the field say that quantum computers are not ready for prime time. If there were no scientific hurdles and no technical blockers, why is there still no meaningful customer adoption? Why is "Quantum AI" still just an R&D project? Why has every promise about system sales to companies been vapor? IN the Q4 2022 call an analyst asked: "First of all, is there real demand here for private companies buying a quantum computer in the near term? And would those customers be using it just for themselves or potentially sharing it with the small group because it seems like a eight-figure kind of a purchase might be a little bit heavy for most organizations, at least initially here. Or is this something that's mostly a government kind of a sale here, at least in the near term?" — Q4 2022 Even the analysts were starting to ask the right questions — is there even real demand for private system sales? IonQ’s own answer misrepresented the reality: "You can put it on your credit card. So more seriously, I would say right now what we're seeing is a lot of demand and interest there. Many times it's for an area or a group or an organization that's looking to get it for kind of a group of end users. Sometimes with, you know, sometimes with, let's just say, it could be in a university setting or in an international or national setting, a government. So it's kind of in those contexts." — Q4 2022 This quote is the perfect encapsulation of the disconnect we have seen from IonQ. "We have demonstrated the value of our systems numerous times with customers who are working to understand how to apply quantum computing to their everyday business problems in industries ranging from energy and mobility to machine learning and financial services." — Q4 2022 This is the "trust us" slide in every investor deck with dozens of partners that are presented as potential customers. They always "demonstrate value," but somehow that never translates into big revenue for quantum computer sales. If they’ve really unlocked so much value, where are the deals? "We are seeing strong momentum both in external demand and internal technical advances." — Q4 2021 All of the supposed momentum somehow leads to the same flat reality — almost no customers taking delivery of QPUs, just wishcasting.

THIS IS IT. I’m officially 95% out of the market. S&P 500 price now: 6,983 I’ve been in this game for more than 20 years. Here’s why I decided to get out: First of all, didn’t sell my long term BTC stack I’ve been holding since 2013-2015, my metals and real estate. Does that mean the market will crash tomorrow? NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT. I’m not a day trader. But there’s a good chance we’re very close to a market top and could drop 15–20% from here. The smartest founders in history are all rushing to the exit at the same time. – SpaceX – OpenAI – Databricks – Anthropic They’re aggressively targeting 2026 IPOs with a combined $4T valuation. They aren’t selling because they need cash. They’re selling because they’ve identified the top. We’ve seen this exact setup twice before. The 2000 Dotcom crash and the 2021 SPAC mania. Insiders use the window to distribute shares at unsupportable valuations (100x revenue). The math ain’t mathing. Big Tech are burning a shit ton of money trying to chase the AI narrative. – $400B in AI Capex – Only ~$20B in revenue return To justify this spend, they need $2 Trillion in new revenue by 2030. That isn't an investment. That’s a bubble. And look who else is leaving. Warren Buffett is sitting on a $300B+ pile of cash. He’s been aggressively selling into this rally. He doesn’t want to buy the dip. He wants to survive the crash. Then there’s the 2026 debt wall. Zombie companies survived on 0% interest rates, but now the bill is due. They have to refinance BILLIONS this year at significantly higher rates. Most won't survive it. Let’s see how this plays out. Keep in mind: I called the last 3 major market top and bottom publicly. When I start buying again, I’ll say it here for everyone to see. Many people will regret not following me sooner.