Content adapted from this Zerohedge.com article : Source
Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,
We've all heard the term "Kodak Moment."
It's a popularized phrase to describe a picture-perfect moment – one that should be forever captured on Kodak film.
Like Kleenex tissue, Kodak was once so large and popular, the company worked its way into basic lexicon.
Kodak was founded in 1880 by a man named George Eastman. He started producing dry plates (a new type of photographic plate that reduced the cost of photography) in Rochester, New York.
Eventually the company adopted the razor and blades strategy of selling inexpensive cameras and making big margins on the consumables – paper, film and chemicals.
It's hard to believe now, but Kodak was the innovator of its day. By 1976, the company accounted for 90% of film and 85% of camera sales in America. It was known as "The Great Yellow Father."
Until the 1990's, it was considered one of the five most valuable brands in the world (today, those brands are Apple, Google, Microsoft, Coca-Cola and Amazon).
And Kodak was actually the first company to introduce the digital camera, back in 1975.
A 24-year old employee named Steve Sasson was tasked exploring practical uses for Kodak's newly-invented charged coupled device (C.C.D.) – a sensor that took an incoming, two-dimensional light pattern and converted it into an electrical sensor.
Though the job sounds high-tech, especially for 1970's standards, it wasn't a glamorous gig.
Sasson's invention took 50 milliseconds to capture an image and 23 seconds to record it to a tape. He would take the cassette tape out and hand it to his assistant, who would put it in the playback unit… 30 seconds later, you got a 100 pixel by 100 pixel black and white image.
Sasson promised Kodak's executives the processing time would decrease as technology improved (remember… this was 1975).
But Kodak killed the product, fearing it would cannibalize its film business. Not to mention, the company didn't believe anyone would ever want a digital camera…
"They were convinced that no one would ever want to look at their pictures on a television set," Sasson told the New York Times. "Print had been with us for over 100 years, no one was complaining about prints, they were very inexpensive, and so why would anyone want to look at their picture on a television set?"
We know how the story played out…
Digital photography killed the film business. Kodak entered the digital camera business, but those became a low-margin commodity (which were soon replaced by smart phones).
Kodak went from peak revenues of $16 billion in 1996 to bankrupt in January 2012.
The company emerged from bankruptcy in 2013 as Eastman Kodak – a company focusing on business technology and printing solutions.
And yesterday, Eastman Kodak (KODK) returned as a Wall Street darling.
Shares of the 130-year old company soared 120% after it announced it's adopting blockchain technology and creating its own digital currency – the KodakCoin. It's up another 75% as I write this.
The platform, called KodakOne, says it's a "new economy" for photographers to license their work and get paid.
Kodak isn't the only publicly traded company to mention blockchain or crypto and see its shares soar…
Last month, Long Island Iced Tea Corp. – a beverage company – changed its name to Long Blockchain Corp. and saw its shares nearly triple in a day. The company was facing a potential Nasdaq delisting unless its market value rose above $35 million for 10 business days in a row (the blockchain stunt achieved that goal).
Then, last week the company said it was buying 1,000 bitcoin mining machines and offering as many as 1.6 million shares to raise capital… while continuing to make its juices, lemonades and teas.
Yesterday Long Blockchain Corp. announced it was halting its plans to raise capital, though it will still evaluate "multiple specific opportunities" in blockchain.
Also last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) halted trading in Hong-Kong based UBI Blockchain Internet (formerly known as JA Energy)… the company's stock price soared from $9 on December 11 to $87 on December 18 – even though it has no revenue and provided a disconnected phone number in its regulatory filings
Even the SEC is getting in on the joke…
The Fort Worth, Texas branch of the SEC recently tweeted "We're contemplating adding 'Blockchain' to our name so we'll increase our followers by 70,000 percent."
_**This type of market behavior is pure madness… **_struggling lemonade companies are getting into cryptocurrencies. And the market is rewarding them.
Same with UBI Blockchain Internet, which appears to be an outright fraud.
Comparisons to the tech bubble abound – when companies with zero tech focus would add "dot com" to their name and see their shares soar.
I've been writing this year about avoiding major mistakes that can cripple your wealth (including this piece urging caution about Ripple just before it plunged in price.)
**And once, again, I'd urge caution in the crypto space. **I'm not saying you shouldn't buy any. Nor should you necessarily sell if you're sitting on big gains.
But now probably isn't the time to go all in. Money today is acting completely irrationally in regards to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Kodak, a textbook case study in how to fail with technology, is launching its own blockchain and coin. Lemonade companies are mining crypto. Paris Hilton and Jamie Foxx are promoting initial coin offerings.
It's a circus. And most of these hair-brained schemes will fail.
Remember, any successful investment has to be based on something real – property, cashflow, an underlying technology.
Investments based on nothing but hype are HUGE mistakes. And that's what we're seeing in the crypto space.
Luckily, they're easy to avoid.
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Absolutely insane and basically is allowing for incredible pump and dumps across the board. I would be very weary of where you are putting your hard earned money these days.
The crypto market is very frothy right now and it's easy to make money by issuing coins or touting your connection to the blockchain. It's reminiscent of the 90s during the dot.com boom, during which all a company had to do was add ".com" to its name and it was rewarded with a lofty market multiple.
I expect we'll see a similar shakeout in the crypto market because there are a lot of scam artists taking advantage of people who lack knowledge about this technology, but those who invest in real projects run by smart, legitimate management will earn extraordinarily good returns.
I think that the crypto space will trigger an enormous amount of creativity in the coming years and we're just scratching the surface of what we'll see. Significant talent is moving into crypto and we're in the early innings of the money flowing in as well.
It's 2014 all over again...
I wish I'd gotten into crypto earlier than I did, but I think there's still plenty of money to be made by diligent investors who have the fortitude to ride out the wild swings.
Yeah, there's plenty left. Back in 2014, I kept wishing that I'd gotten into Bitcoin in 2011.
It's like a hazing: a big, bad bear market toughens you up. I'm awfully glad I stuck through & didn't quit in '15 or '16.
I hear you, brother. I've known about bitcoin for years but thought the notion that computer programmers could create a currency that would have value was absurd and dismissed the idea without investigating further. I also remember very briefly toying with the idea several years ago of buying some ethereum when it was dirt cheap to see if it could do what bitcoin did. I am very upset with myself for not doing that, but oh well.
No regrets on my side. Based upon my hapless trading, I prolly wouldn't have become an insta-millionaire anyway. Live and learn.
This sounds like STEEM to me.
I wrote an article that will be posted tomorrow that talks about something similar. I told my buddy a couple weeks ago after the LI Blockchain tea company that the market was going to carry on higher over the next few years as blockchain mania caught on and the banksters partied like it was 1999. He didnt agree with me....sadly, it seems true...well not sadly, I will ride that wave also.
As for the investment, cryptos are still the best option...if you select the right ones. Do not go blindly into them...pick ones that have a utility that puts tokens in people's hands.
Where can you read a good overview with predictions about STEEMIT? Can you expect that STEEMIT for many years and rely on your account as a long-term investment?
Hey task, I was wondering what other crypto you like, I just did a quick little post on what I like right now.
Steem is my addiction, not only is it useful as a crypto, it's fun! (plus updates coming)
@zer0hedge.. yeah present cryptocurrency field is a very usefull methode to get rich in a within short of time..in america also the govt announce that for the middle class peoples the investment in the crypto field is a very good option for getting rich..not only here entire the world thinks that to invest the crypto the main reason for the craze is 1 month back the sudden raise of the bitcoin price before the november month the cost of bitcoin is 4k usd arround and after few days it will raise upto 17 k usd suddenly ..entire world got shocked and every want to enquire about the bitcoin and so many peoples invest in it ..and some ones feel that the prices is high and not able to buy and they are turn into the another coins of low cost and make trading and get profits..this is the thing causes the crypto craze spreaded the entire the world...definatley its a very good flatform to make the money easily and within a short period...anyway bro thank you for sharing info with us...
That is overall good. If legit companies like Kodak want to do it - it's fine. When micro-cap/delisting-pending scam companies do it - it's not that good. At the moment people are acting crazy, if they hear the word -blockchain or crypto. But then again XRP is at 2 dollars, so...
The silver lining is that more and more companies will turn to blockchain, we will benefit all in the end.
I agree that adding the word "blockchain" to a company name can get you rich. This is a sad statement on how uncommon common sense is.
Anyone thinking of crypto investing on buzz alone is retarded.
Just post on Steem and earn crypto for free and then roll some into solid coins if you want to.
These wall street firms can play all the games they want though, it won't help. They know their number is up. The internet has the banksters in its sights. This thing is gonna knock the world on its side and when the dust settles the current economic and power structures will be just that, dust.
Thanks for the post.
Keep Steeming!
Informing people, and training them - is valuable at this time, when the market is crypto-currency simply bubbling.
I myself lost a lot of hundreds of dollars - just because of stupid mistakes!
Your posts are serious, and I have to read them to understand the main thing. It's worth it. Thank you!
So what if it's a desperate and stupid move?
The whole point of this space was no permission and no censorship. If everyone wants a piece of the pie without knowing what it's made of, let them have it.
The crypto space taken as a whole does resemble the dot com bubble. And now, like then, everyone knows that something new and amazing is coming with the potential to change the world and they want in. Desperately.
Most .com companies were worthless.
Most cyrptocurrencies are worthless.
The boom phase may just be something that we have to go through now like we went through it back then and the tech did end up changing the world.
Blockchain is going to change everything and there will be a day when everyone is using it in one form or another whether they want to or not - it will be the money of the future and our children or grandchildren will be looking at how we trade or buy things in their history lessons ( proberbly not books by then). I think before that happens there will be a lot of scams which take peoples money, think of the get rich quick schemes now, well I think they will be on a grander scale and with the new technology which not everyone will understand I think it will be easier to scam and cheat people . Each new technology brings out the con men promising the world. It is sad that people still fall for it.
Kodak is a dead company. Over here nobody uses their cameras. It is all smartphones with digital pictures. Too bad the executives thought it wrong at that company. It turns out people do take pictures on their computers, might not be on the same scale but instead of giving up maybe they should have tried to embrace the digital pictures and offer a service geared at them ( although I am not sure exactly what but they pay people to give them those ideas )
Yep, now, all you need to do is add the word Blockchain or Cryptocurrency in your company's name and all the crypto investors will pour their money into it. As you said, it is INCREDIBLY important to invest in projects YOU believe in and not what others do. In other words, don't invest into hype (like lending platform ICOs). There are so many lending platform ICOs out there that are nothing but hype, and right after the coin hits the exchange, everyone dumps. Do your research, think about the risks, and then invest.
Really like your crypto posts :D I just recently started a new series called Daily (maybe...) crypto news because of crypto bloggers like you, who inspired me. I know it sounds like an advertisement XD, but I'd really appreciate if you can take a look at my posts and tell me what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong. I would love to have some feedback on your part :D I'm not asking you to upvote my blog or anything, just take a look at them. Would really mean the world to me :D Thanks!
Like STEEM
It's clearly a mania, I heard about a cigar company that is using blockchain instead of barcodes to keep track of the cigars. When they announced it the share price went up something stupid like 800%. Something good will emerge from the other side of this mania, but at least 80% of the alt coins are going to zero. Hopefully steem isn't one of them
What's worse is that "their" concept is a complete rip off of what copytrack.io is already doing. AND Kodak is adding a mining farm as the second part of their strategy, soliciting investors that way. So basically plagiarizing the pros, and ripping off the newbs.
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Those examples just show how badly people want to invest into the crypto market. But due to the few possibilities to enter it right now and its current complexity they like to stick to the good old stock market, which is easy to reach for them.
Just imagine how the cryptosphere will grow whenever people can invest into it in an easy way ;)
@zer0hedge For decades Kodak was synonymous with anything to do with photography, and they were even a quite popular choice for video and audio cassettes in the 80s and 90s.
However, the drastic change that came with 21st century technology made them redundant or pushed them into oblivion and made them a pale shadow of what they once were..
Seems they are coming with hairbrained schemes like Bitcon miners in a bid to stay relevant!
While the announcement of them moving into crypto was good for its sagging share value, I'm very uncertain if this is a crypto that people want to invest into.. .. Crypto and blockchain have caught the fancy of mainstream companies and many are thinking of practically 'minting' some extra money by issuing coins via ICOs- it's so much easier than shares anyway (where you give part ownership of the company and have to cross so many hurdles to raise funds via an IPO because of gov regulations everywhere, for the right reason).
Kodak missed out on a huge discovery of what the future was going to be, they missed by fear of losing their stability, and later that cost them the company (bankrupt).
Now they saw the cryptocurrencies being the future and they don´t want to miss out!
Conclusion, learn with your mistakes and don´t repeat them.
Hope now kodak is not going to make mistake because cryptocurrencies are not easy to implement and maintain. Nice article @zer0hedge
Now I feel like the situation with crypto-currencies seems to be the same as situation with digital cameras and KODAK - some are strongly convinced of its ineffectiveness (in particular and me) and the rest in its conquest of the worlds. Maybe it's like with Kodak? A new twist of development will come soon.
We should be very carefull not to do the same mistake twice. And I think KODAK learned it very well.
Seems to me like Kodak fell off the technology train a few stops back and is now desperately trying to find a way to hop back on before they become even more obsolete then they already are.
I agree, it reeks of a desperate move.
" the company's stock price soared from $9 on December 11 to $87 on December 18 – even though it has no revenue and provided a disconnected phone number in its regulatory filings"
Yup, this is how you know a bubble is about to burst.
Wall Street hasnt even started to bubble anything yet. That is one small company.
Wait a couple years and you will see a market that his high flying into the mega-bubble range.
this could be like pogs or beanie babies or sports memorabilia, I became concerned just by the sheer number of offerings, that has to dilute the market.
people are looking at pictures on their television sets?
wow.. that was a great thing to know, hope that Kodak make a latest version like the high tech trending on this generation.
As you mention in your post 'hype' is the key driver feeding the crypto revolution at the moment. I think there will be a shift from hype driving price increases to company results delivering true value to digital currency. When this happens crypto prices will stabilise
espero que con esto nos podamos hacer millnarios
Muy buen articulo, realmente la tecnología blockchain es mágica, aun al solo nombrarla en un producto es capaz de hacer magia y aumentar una acción de forma increible, realmente creo que el bitcoin y las criptomonedas son el futuro,
It’s just amaizing how Blockchain technology has unlimited opportunity.
Whoever says that crypto and Blockchain is not a future is out of his mind.
Resteemed!
Wow ... i like kodak on time and now the other time ...
I wonder if I would gain 70,000% followers by adding a “blockchain” to my twitter account. Hehe. Worth a short eh?
Yeah, I would even use some margin for this one, what can go wrong.
yep, there are some companies who are seeing the crypto edge as the fastest way to make a buck. their stock has already gained so much! opportunistic, at best!
hopefully their product will have some redeeming value for photographers...
Upvoted and resteemed!
DO NOT KNOW FRIEND THE HEADACHE THAT GIVES BANKERS WHEN THEY HEAR THE WORD BLOCKCHAIN JEJEJEJE GOOD POST
Do you know that Sasson's invention took 50 milliseconds to capture an image and 23 seconds to record it to a tape. He would take the cassette tape out and hand it to his assistant, who would put it in the playback unit… 30 seconds later, you got a 100 pixel by 100 pixel black and white image.
Sasson promised Kodak's executives the processing time would decrease as technology improved.
SEC is coming after ICO's and those pump and dump posts on Reddit, and here
Buy and btc eth ltc for long time
Haha, this kind of thing is just hilarious to me. Company releases statement about brand new amazing ICO, stock rockets! Every failing company should do this right now
An ice tea company mining bitcoin makes a lot of sense. Just imagine all the skills that you learn making tea that would be useful mining bitcoin........ I any think of one either. It would be nice to know how many futures they bought before they released this news
I have been following Simon Black for years. The report that is linked in the piece got by me, and I thank you for posting it.
At first glance, it appears to have some valuable information in it.
Is it just me, or did Simon not mention the Kodak Cyrpto Mining unit in his piece?
"That Kleenex Moment"
that would be a good motto for them ;)
crypto isnt investing, its speculation, and can be like flipping a coin in my oppinion, but it is the most interesting market and is going to be for a long long time.
Best option is the buy during the ICO and sell it off when they are at their peak and get out of bs before it bites our a$$! I just found out your account, i will read more, you have some really interesting posts.
Very interesting i never knew Kodak dominated the film industry so much in the earlier days! Thanks for sharing!
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