The much-hyped Kodak Kashminer, a bitcoin mining rig showcased at CES 2018 and marketed by Spotlite, will not be available on the market due to a block imposed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Speaking to the BBC on July 16, 2018, Spotlite’s CEO Halston Mikail revealed that the SEC had stopped the Kashminer rental service from commencing, and now, the company has apparently opted to use the equipment at its Iceland headquarters for private projects instead.
A spokesperson for Kodak who spoke with the BBC refuted allegations suggesting that that the Kashminer was in any way associated with the company.
According to his statement, Kodak’s licensee, Spotlite USA, used the Kodak brand name on its products sans official licensing.
During the CES, January 2018 event in Las Vegas, Spotlite announced that it would be leasing out the miner at an upfront fee of $3,400. Customers would enjoy a projected monthly revenue of $375 in bitcoin, which translates to a substantial $9,000 in two years.
The company’s Chief Executive Officer, Halston Mikail, had also announced plans to install the mining equipment at Kodak’s headquarters in Rochester, New York, a statement that has been debunked as untrue by the imaging technology company.
During its unveiling in January, Kashminer critics trashed the expected monthly revenues as unrealistic. The machine was later on revealed to be a repackaged Bitmain Antminer S9 with Kodak brand labeling.
The Kashminer unveiling news coincided with Kodak’s debut of its own cryptocurrency dubbed KODAKCoin, which had just been announced a week earlier.
Kodak’s blockchain and cryptocurrency venture announcement caused its stock to climb from $3.10 per share to over $13. The introduction of the Kashminer led to suspicion among some analysts, who saw it as a ploy to further inflate stock prices.
Kodak’s Blockchain Foray
The Kashminer controversy aside, Kodak officially took a plunge into the blockchain scene earlier this year, joining the likes of Rich Cigars Inc, Long Island Iced Tea Corp, and UBI Blockchain Internet via a partnership with WENN Digital.
The partnership was to realize the development of KODAKOne, a blockchain image rights platform that would take advantage of the distributed ledger technology to track images and provide a compensation system for photographers.
One of the more notable figures to be signed onto the KODAKOne platform is Formula One’s Fernando Alonso. The Spanish racing driver signed an exclusive deal with the company on June 28, 2018, to manage his personal and professional images and videos.
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Featured Image Credit: BBC
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