Failure to embrace the future may have harmed Kodak in the past, but it seems determined not to make the same mistake again as it announces its own cryptocurrency and Bitcoin mining scheme.
News of Eastman Kodak’s plans to leverage blockchain and launch the KodakCoin sparked a storm of investor interest, driving the firm’s share price up by a towering 120 per cent.
Targeting an initial coin offering (ICO), Kodak is working with the British firm, Wenn Media Group, while the project will remain headquartered at the Kodak based in New York.
The other new initiative is the Kodak KashMiner, a project that the company is undertaking with an organisation it has worked with previously, Spotlite. The duo intends to produce bitcoin mining machines for the public to rent; this will result in customers and the business gaining a cut of the mined currency.
Bitcoin mining requires software via which miners tackle mathematical problems, the solving of which rewards bitcoins. The process causes the approval of transactions, ensuring network stability and security.
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The company has said that an upfront cost of $3,400 would be required to rent a mining machine, with Kodak gaining half of the quarry as well. Earnings of $375 per month have been estimated by Kodak and Spotlite, but many have been sceptical of this outlook, with mining believed to become less profitable as more miners engage in the process.
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As reported by the BBC, Garrick Hileman from the University of Cambridge, said: “This is a phenomenon we saw back during the dot com days in the late 1990s where traditional companies would mention some kind of internet strategy and their stock price would jump up… “When you see stock prices moving like this it does appear to be troubling – it’s hard to say if there’s a bubble but it certainly is indicative of a frothy investment market.”
