Iced tea company proves investors are bonkers for blockchain

THE bitcoin-related frenzy has taken hold of some really unlikely companies. As one market observer put it, “you literally can't make this up.”

EVERY now and then there’s an idea or a new kind of technology that captivates investors and the mere mention of it sparks frenzied speculation.

At the moment, that thing is blockchain technology.

If you’re a company, just say you’re jumping on the blockchain bandwagon and people will start throwing money at you apparently.

The latest example: Long Island Iced Tea Corp. which, rather bizarrely, changed its name to Long Blockchain Corp. overnight.

Surprisingly, this is not a joke. The unprofitable company has made a sudden change in direction.

And how did the world respond? The company’s shares soared as much as 500 per cent in pre-market trading before settling back to a still monster gain of 275 per cent.

Long Island Iced Tea Corp to rebrand as "Long Blockchain Corp", stock up 280% in 6 minutes since issuing press release to change name. Unreal. $LTEA

— Dennis Dick (@TripleDTrader) December 21, 2017

You literally can't make this up. Long Island Iced Tea Corp. (Symbol: LTEA) just changed their name to Long Blockchain Corp. The stock is up over +250% permarket, lol!

— Joseph Fahmy (@jfahmy) December 21, 2017

Yep, this is totally normal.

Blockchain — which underpins bitcoin — acts as a decentralised and distributed digital ledger used to record transactions across many computers and is completely secured using sophisticated cryptography. It is viewed by many as a revolutionary technology that is tipped to change a number on industries.

But this is getting ridiculous.

“It’s the latest in a near-daily phenomenon sweeping the stock market, where obscure microcap companies reorient to focus on some aspect of the mania sparked by bitcoin’s almost 1500 per cent rally this year,” wrote Bloomberg.

Until Thursday, Long Island Iced Tea Corp. focused on making non-alcoholic iced teas and lemonades, something it still plans to do. But now it wants to explore opportunities in the hottest thing going around.

As proof of its intent, the company said it plans to ask the Nasdaq exchange to change its ticker and has reserved the domain www.longblockchain.com.

“I am incredibly proud of what we have accomplished in the beverage industry and we are committed to growing our business both on a national and international scale,” the company’s chief executive Philip Thomas said in a statement overnight.

The details about what the company actually plans to do are scarce. According to its website, the drinks maker is in the “preliminary stages of evaluating specific opportunities” in the blockchain space. As some have pointed out, much of the trading would’ve been driven buy bots which scan social media and market information for certain keywords and buy up stocks.

For many, the current frenzy is reminiscent of the dotcom bubble in which investors clamoured to buy anything which presented itself as an internet stock.

“It’s so reminiscent of what happened in the late 1990s,” financial author Scott Nations told Bloomberg.

These “sorts of companies that go up the course of five or 10 times in one day just because they say that they’re a blockchain company now,” he said. “To me, that just confirms that we’re in a bubble.”

I hope none of my followers bought the stock for the iced tea company that added blockchain to its name.

— Laura Shin (@laurashin) December 21, 2017

$LTEA a company renames from Long Island Iced Tea Corp to Long Island Blockchain corp, and the stock goes boom, 400% up. Proves the stock market isn't rational whatsoever. It's all about being lucky

— Prashanth (@worstcomplexity) December 21, 2017

#StupidStock Move of the Day! Long Island Iced Tea Corp. is changing its name to Long Blockchain Corp. and $LTEA is up more than 200%!

ARE

YOU

BLEEPING

KIDDING

ME?

— Paul R. La Monica (@LaMonicaBuzz) December 21, 2017