You see that chart below? That’s the stock price for Long Island Iced Tea Corp. Sure, studies show that times of economic hardship and political turmoil track with an increased desire to get sloshed, but the drinks this company makes are non-alcoholic. LTEA shot up over 200 percent today because it changed its name—to Long Blockchain.
Hard as it may be to comprehend, the same investors who speculate wildly on digital securities with no backing, no guarantee of being redeemable, and often no understanding of the finance, cryptography, or regulations underpinning their wistful house of cards bought in on a sugar water company... because it had the word “blockchain” in it—you know, that term five people understand completely and the rest of the world either associates with “cool future-y stuff” or “scary future-y stuff.”
The company says it is now focused on “on developing and investing in globally scalable blockchain technology solutions,” but, as reported by Bloomberg, it has exactly zero partnerships in the works with crypto firms, and its new domain longblockchain.com notes that:
The Company is already in the preliminary stages of evaluating specific opportunities involving blockchain technology [...] However, the Company does not have an agreement with any of these entities for a transaction and there is no assurance that a definitive agreement with these, or any other entity, will be entered into or ultimately consummated.
You know what—it’s a good grift. And it’s worked for companies that have no involvement in decentralized tech before. At a certain point, you’re just leaving money on the table. Under Armor failed catastrophically this year. Let’s call it BlockArmor now. Snapchat isn’t long for this world either, unless we can spin up SnapCash. And gosh, Blue Apron has been having a bad time, huh? BitApron will be more than happy to soak up fresh investment from idiots who don’t know or care what these buzzwords mean.
We look forward to this year’s biggest market losers rebranding as crypto fintech blockchain firms after the new year.
Update 1/9/18 5:46pm ET: The plan to pivot a beverage company to a blockchain tech company did not go so well. Who could have seen this coming.
Ars Technica reports that Long Blockchain’s lofty plans to raise several million dollars through a stock offering as well as purchase 1,000 bitcoin mining rigs (all announced on Friday) has been cancelled (today, less than two business days later.) Let no one doubt this was a very serious business plan that serious people proposed in all sincerity.