It’s the new “pivot to video,” apparently; Reuters is reporting that the 129-year-old Eastman Kodak company is tossing itself into the cryptocurrency game, following in the footsteps of such financial luminaries as Long Blockchain Corp (formerly Long Island Iced Tea), Riot Blockchain (previously a biotech firm), and, of course, DogeCoin (still, apparently, going strong.)
The photo processing and film company’s new crypto-offering, KODAKCoin, does, at least, have a slightly more practical purpose than just allowing people to pay for pizzas with virtual tokens branded with a smiling Shiba Inu. (As if there were a higher purpose in life.) It’s designed to work with the company’s new KODAKOne initiative, which has been set up to allow photographers to license their photos to each other, getting paid in the (presumably) unhackable currency. We’re not entirely sure why that’s better than just paying someone in regular human cash, but, then, that’s a question that comes up every time some new corporation dives whole-hog into this latest financial trend.
Speaking of: KODAKCoin isn’t the only way Kodak dipped its toes into the field of late. The company also licensed its name to the Kodak KashMiner, a device that you rent from a company, keep running for two years, and then give back half of the currency it mined out of whatever it is these things “mine” stuff from. (Our guess: cotton candy and long, boring lectures from overly invested men on Twitter.) Admittedly, at least one “bitcoin economist” has labeled the device a scam, although he might just be trying to stop us from cashing in the free money from this beautiful, magical machine.
In other news, Kodak’s stock price more than tripled this week, because even if none of us have any idea what most of this stuff means, it sure is exciting in theory!