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Ice Tea Company Rebrands as 'Long Blockchain' and Stock Price Triples (arstechnica.com)

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." From a report: 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. Trading opened Thursday morning more than 200 percent higher than Wednesday night's closing price. The company isn't getting out of the iced tea business. "The Company will continue to operate Long Island Brand Beverages, LLC as a wholly-owned subsidiary," the company writes 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."

29 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. Fools and Money. by Zorro · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Soon to be separated.

    1. Re:Fools and Money. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It makes sense, really. Anyone that is willing to invest money in crypto is probably willing to throw it away on this stock too.

    2. Re:Fools and Money. by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Soon to be separated.

      It's all a gamble at this point. They're fools if they think a company will continue to grow just because they have blockchain in their name. They're not fools if they think other fools will think that and get in early to take the money from the fools.

      If they're investing to feed off the other fools, they're gamblers, not necessarily fools.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    3. Re:Fools and Money. by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 5, Funny

      Because of this obvious opportunity, for the next several months I will be referred to as "Bruce Blockchain Blockchain Blockchain Millionare Billionare Perens"

  2. New investment opportunity by nwaack · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hi all, I'm starting a new company called Super-awesome-blockchain-bitcoin-make-you-money-LLC. I'm still in the "preliminary stages" of setting up said company but it's gonna be awesome. You can send all your money to me at my P.O. Box. ~SMH

    1. Re:New investment opportunity by Jose · · Score: 3, Funny

      I'm at the post office, and they are saying that they need a zip code for PO Box ~SMH.

      please provide the *full* address so we can make the monies!

      --
      The basic sleazeware produced in a drunken fury by a bunch of UCBerkeley grad students was still the core of BIND. --PV
    2. Re:New investment opportunity by rogoshen1 · · Score: 2

      i'll one-up you. i've legally changed my name to "blockchain supermcawesome". i'm getting job offers left and right via linkedin.

    3. Re:New investment opportunity by nnet · · Score: 2

      no thats just me making you think you're valuable. I'm pumping up your stock in prep for a dump.

  3. Artificial Intelligence Poetry by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Emerging blockchain technologies are creating a fundamental paradigm shift across the global marketplace,"

    The jargon is strong with this one.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
    1. Re:Artificial Intelligence Poetry by FFOMelchior · · Score: 5, Funny

      I don't know. Could use more synergy.

    2. Re:Artificial Intelligence Poetry by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Funny

      Also, he left out, "data-driven" and "cloud".

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    3. Re:Artificial Intelligence Poetry by cmdr_klarg · · Score: 4, Funny

      "Emerging blockchain technologies are creating a fundamental paradigm shift across the global marketplace,"

      The jargon is strong with this one.

      BINGO!!!!

      --
      THE SOFTWARE, IT NO WORKY!!!
    4. Re:Artificial Intelligence Poetry by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      Yeah that spread throughout my company last year. Silos was all the rage.
      Fog computing I heard during a Cisco presentation, basically network edge pre-work on data before it gets to the cloud. I threw up a little in my mouth when I heard that one.
      "Moving the dial" is new to me, I heard that one barely a month ago

  4. Blockchain will revolutionize Ice Tea by JoeyRox · · Score: 5, Funny

    A QR code on the container will tell you the source of every tea bag used to create your drink, and also tell you who was tea bagged buying the company's stock.

    1. Re:Blockchain will revolutionize Ice Tea by hey! · · Score: 2

      Frankly I would be astonished if a majority of the people promoting or knowingly investing in "block chain technology" has any idea how it works.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  5. Ah, the "Serial Entepreneur"... by ErichTheRed · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Anyone who's done any work for typical small-to-medium businesses owned and dominated by one person could see this coming a mile away. When I was starting out I worked for a couple of MSPs that were quite obviously pet projects for the owner. People like this will chase after anything that looks like they can squeeze a few bucks out before the bubble pops. It's just a personality trait -- they're hard-wired to chase money and will bounce from thing to thing picking up the crumbs, and seem naturally attracted to scammy business models.

    A perfect example where I live is solar panels. There are dozens of fly-by-night companies who've set up shop alongside the big boys like Harvest Power and SolarCity. Every single one is just trying to sell sell sell enough people on overpriced equipment and service until the tax credits get repealed. When that happens, oops, business goes bankrupt and they move on. Federal tax credit on solar is 30% on equipment and installation, so every single one of these companies is marking the price of systems up by at least a few percent beyond that, and are directly taking advantage of the fact that most people are too dumb to understand how their taxes are computed. They just see "OMG huge tax credit" and sign up...and people like this Long Blockchain guy get to live large another day.

  6. Yeah, it's 1999 again by SlaveToTheGrind · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Just substitute "blockchain" for "dot com."

  7. Quoting Mencken by hey! · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby"

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  8. Crook... by adosch · · Score: 2

    ...ed.

    Ah who am I kidding? I have a slight moral compass and quite lazy when it comes to making a quick tech buck in entrepreneurial buzzword gold still after all these years. Hope it works out for them.............

    Wonder if their ice tea is any good?

  9. Not so new by Deadstick · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There used to be a railroad in the eastern US called the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, "air line" being a railroad term for "as the crow flies". Its stock price had a tendency to follow airline stocks.

  10. No big deal, really by demon+driver · · Score: 4, Funny

    After all, it was just a very small transition from 'beverage' to 'leverage'.

  11. Reminds me of Snap Interactive isn't Snap Inc. by Zontar_Thing_From_Ve · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Recently I read that only 15% of Americans actually own stocks. It would appear that maybe some of those 15% don't really know what they are doing. Earlier this year before Snap Inc. (parent company of Snapchat and other programs) did its IPO, an unrelated company named Snap Interactive suddenly started having a lot more interest in its stock because people thought it was the parent company of Snapchat. Snap Interactive didn't even do anything to deceive anybody. People just wrong assumed they owned Snapchat. What's sad is that they could do just a small amount of research via searches on Google, Bing, etc. and determine that Snap Interactive wasn't the owner of Snapchat, but heck, it's just easier to buy stock on speculation rather than check stuff so let's do that.

    1. Re:Reminds me of Snap Interactive isn't Snap Inc. by DarkOx · · Score: 5, Informative

      15% own stocks DIRECTLY. Much much larger percentages of the public have mutual fund holdings, often in IRAs or 401ks.

      That 15% number is talking point for people with a political agenda, and has little relationship with reality.

      Note I am not saying the 401K and IRA schemes are models of good public policy just that its not true only 15% of Americans 'own' stocks.

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
  12. Link in story is broken by LordKronos · · Score: 2

    I clicked the link in the story intending to read the article, but somehow ended up on Ars Technica instead of The Onion. Come on, slashdot...get some actual editors already and make sure your damn links work.

  13. Angel Investor Wanted! by slacktide · · Score: 3, Informative

    You won't want to miss getting in on the ground floor of the Dirty South House of Chicken, Waffles, and Blockchain.

  14. blocked chain? use a plunger! by petes_PoV · · Score: 2

    Trading opened Thursday morning more than 200 percent higher

    Unfortunately all the trades were done in BTC!

    --
    politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
  15. Re:Clearly by glitch! · · Score: 2

    A company that can make tea is best situated to make use of blockchain technology.

    Clearly they are ahead of the beverage serving computer in HGTTG. "Share and enjoy!"

    --
    A dingo ate my sig...
  16. Re:does anybody remember "heyidiot.com" by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 2

    It was a joke web site Larry Ellison put out during the dotcom boom. They had a new company called "heyidiot.com" who's only product was their stock, which could only go up forever.

    They later renamed that to "oracle.com".

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  17. Same old story by istartedi · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is. and the result of this announcement, described in this paragraph:

    [the prospectus stated] that the required capital was half a million, in five thousand shares of 100 pounds each, deposit 2 pounds per share. Each subscriber, paying his [or her] desposit, was entitled to 100 pounds per annum per share. How this immense profit was to be obtained, [the proposer] did not condescend to inform [the buyers] at that time, but promised that in a month full particulars should be duly announced, and a call made for the remaining 98 pounds of the subscription. Next morning, at nine o'clock, this great man opened an office in Cornhill. Crowds of people beset his door, and when he shut up at three o'cock, he found that no less than one thousand shares had been subscribed for, and the deposits paid. He was thus, in five hours, the winner of 2000 pounds. He was philosophical enough to be contented with his venture, and set off the same evening for the Continent. He was never heard of again. (Mackay 55-56)

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?