Kodak's stock spiked as much as 300% on its announcement to launch KODAKCoin, “a photocentric cryptocurrency” for better image rights management
Kodak's latest moment has it joining the cryptocurrency frenzy. — Shares in Eastman Kodak Co. jumped as much as 77 percent …
Context & Ripple Effects
Post-bankruptcy Kodak has been monetizing its name rather than making products: it licensed a Bullitt-designed Android phone at CES in 2015 and, per earlier coverage, has been mining its legacy R&D assets while plotting a future beyond film.
This week it went further, announcing two blockchain plays at once — KODAKCoin, a token for image rights management with an ICO planned for Wednesday, and the KashMiner bitcoin-mining rig shown at CES. The market paid attention: a company worth about $135M before the blockchain announcements saw its stock spike as much as 300%, echoing the playbook of consumer apps like Kik, which launched its own Ethereum-based Kin token months earlier.
First-order effects
- Eastman Kodak's market value briefly multiplied on the announcement alone, meaning the token news moved the equity more than any imaging product in years.
- Photographers are being sold KODAKCoin as a rights-management tool, though a co-creator already complains the frenzy around the stock has drowned out that use case ahead of Wednesday's ICO.
Second-order effects
- Other struggling consumer brands now have a template: license the name to a crypto venture and let token speculation do the work of a turnaround, following Kik's Kin as proof an app or brand can float its own currency.
- The KashMiner rig, already called a scam by critics, drags Kodak's brand credibility into the deal — every future Kodak-branded licensing product gets priced against this episode.
Third-order effects
- The pattern points toward brand-backed tokens as a distress signal rather than a business line — and the later dissolution of the company behind the Kodak-branded KashMiner mining rig shows how these ventures end when the speculation fades.
- If brand-name ICOs keep surfacing, regulators face pressure to treat a famous trademark on a token sale as a red flag requiring disclosure, since retail buyers are clearly pricing the brand, not the technology.
The trend: Distressed consumer brands are renting out their trademarks to cryptocurrency ventures, letting token speculation substitute for product strategy until the ventures dissolve.