Blockchain is the buzzword in the financial sector these days. Even companies not even working on this technology will gladly use the term for financial gain. On-line PLC, a British company, try to conduct an experiment. The company added “blockchain” to the name and shares jumped in value immediately So much even the value increased by nearly 400% in quick succession. A rather telling and troublesome sign.
Big was the surprise of On-line PLC when their shares jumped by so much in quick succession. All the company did was announce an upcoming name change. More specifically, the new name will be On-line Blockchain plc. Just the name change alone suddenly made the company a lot more appealing to investors. Such a powerful trend paints a worrisome picture, though. If investors can be tricked this easily, things look pretty troublesome, to say the least.
An Interesting Decision by On-line Plc
What is so surprising is how this is not a new company. On-line Plc has been around since the nineties. The small-cap company is publicly traded since December of 1996. Their shares have never been all that valuable or subject to speculation. On Thursday and Friday, the company saw more trading volume compared to the entire year. A rather surprising turn of events, to say the least. It also shows how much hype is still associated with the word blockchain right now.
It is certainly true blockchain and cryptocurrencies are exciting businesses. On-line Plc has been working on these concepts for quite some time now. Reflecting these changes through a renaming process makes a lot of sense in this regard. It seems the company has planned development of a blockchain product. No real specifics have been mentioned at this point in time. Nor will it come to market anytime soon either.
This further confirms there is a lot of “dumb money” in the blockchain industry. Every type of business can benefit from DLT yet few will ever use it. On-line Plc is one of the few businesses effectively working on a blockchain-based product right now. The rebrand doesn’t warrant such a share value increase by any means though. Especially not until we know what they are working on exactly. A lot of investors will be disappointed if this venture doesn’t pan out as expected.
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