All you hear about in financial circles is Bitcoin. Is it a bubble? Should I invest? While those are complicated questions that need careful answers, there is one rather large piece of evidence that maybe the market doesn’t quite grasp the technologies involved: The fact that an iced tea company tripled its stock price by changing its name to “Long Blockchain.”
No, really. As Bloomberg reports, the tea company isn’t alone, just the most visible:
The re-named firm joins the ranks of recently christened crypto companies — a list that includes former makers of juice, sports bras and sofas — whose share prices have all rocketed after their respective announcements. Some are likening the mania to the dot-com boom, and ultimate bust, two decades ago.
They’ve previously covered some, how do we put this politely, unlikely changes in corporate direction towards cryptocurrency. Long Blockchain is still going to make iced tea, mind you, but it promises it will seek investment and explore the many opportunities that blockchains may be able to offer. Considering it’s racking up losses selling iced tea to a country that will drink anything with sugar and caffeine in it, this may not be the worst idea, really.
Still, if you’re a Bitcoin investor, this is probably something you’ll want to take note of. This really is quite indicative of a bubble; even some cursory investigation into Long Blockchain could have told you that this probably isn’t your best investment. It’s fairly clear that just throwing something vaguely cryptocurrency-ish into your name draws investors. Generally, when unrelated businesses start trying to horn in on a industry it’s usually a sign that industry is about to fall apart. Think of all the companies that bought a website and declared themselves internet businesses around 1999. So, yeah, if you’re buying Bitcoin? You may want to ask yourself why.
(via Bloomberg)