Screenshot: Gizmodo/Twitter
Meet Larry, a very good boy, forthcoming addition to the McKay household, and possibly the subject of one of the first-ever cat tweets to live on for eternity in the Ethereum blockchain.
Advertisement
Larry’s blockchain adventure comes through no fault of his own (quite the opposite, actually). This weekend, we finalized arrangements to adopt Larry, and I was so excited I tweeted some of his shelter-provided photos; Larry is so photogenic and got 1,500 likes. He also attracted the attention of Twitter user @FatRaccoon, who offered to buy the rights to my tweet for $50 in Etherium’s cryptocurrency, ether, via a process I’m still not completely clear on, but involves a unique cryptocurrency tech called a non-fungible token (NFT).
Image: Long Island Ice Tea Corp (Gizmodo)
I’ve got that deja vu feeling. In 2017, the price of bitcoin exploded, prompting a bunch of randomcompanies to announce their business was pivoting to “blockchain” in some form or another before being forgotten when the mania subsided. Three years later, we’re seeing bitcoin’s price fall from another record high and Long Blockchain Corp is back in the news.
Advertisement
The Long Island Ice Tea Corp’s decision to change its name and suggest it would be diversifying its business with vague plans to invest in the technology underlying cryptocurrency had the immediate benefit of tripling its stock price. But by 2018, it found itself under scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission. The tea-slingers quickly decided that promoting “globally scalable blockchain technology solutions” wasn’t for them, and the company was kicked off the Nasdaq exchange.