Long Blockchain: when the name makes the difference

7 years ago - Published in Finance, Fintech Land, Technical Analysis

The Long Island Ice Tea Corporation is exactly what it sounds like: a company that sells people bottled iced tea and lemonade. But today the company announced a significant change of strategy that would start with changing its name to "Long Blockchain Corporation."

The company was "shifting its primary corporate focus towards the exploration of and investment in opportunities that leverage the benefits of blockchain technology," the company said in a Thursday morning press release. "Emerging blockchain technologies are creating a fundamental paradigm shift across the global marketplace," the company said.

The stock market loved the announcement. The shares jumped 300 percent after the company said it would rebrand itself Long Blockchain Corp, the latest obscure U.S. firm to tap into the frenzy surrounding crypto currencies.
The company said it "intends to request Nasdaq to change its trading symbol in connection with the name change" and has already reserved the web domain "www.longblockchain.com." The new website states the company is only in "preliminary stages" of evaluating and discussing potential partnerships, investments or acquisitions of businesses involving blockchain technology. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission declined to comment.

The company said it would still continue to operate its beverage business, under which it sells Long Island iced tea and Long Island lemonade, as it reported in its press release.

The new blockchain efforts are only in their "preliminary stages," the press release says, and will likely involve investing or forming partnerships with other companies. One potential partner is providing "blockchain infrastructure for the financial services industry." Another is building a "new smart contract platform for building decentralized applications."

The move is reminiscent of the late 1990s, when companies could see their stock prices soar if they added ".com" to their names. Amazingly, this is already the second case of a company that sells beverages to see a pop in value because of speculation surrounding bitcoin.

"It's a testament to greed," said Sal Arnuk, co-founder of Themis Trading. "For speculators today, the game is bitcoin. A few years ago it was marijuana stocks." "There's going to be more. Get your snark ready."