Last month, the Eastman Kodak Company (NYSE:KODK) made company history. Joining the blockchain industry, the Rochester, New York-based company revealed to the public its KODAKOne platform. This platform is entirely powered by blockchain technology. To no surprise, this announcement caused the stock to jump almost 100%.
While this was all very exciting, it seems now that not everyone was on board with the company’s decision to move into the blockchain sector. By everyone, I mean hedge fund Kerrisdale Capital and its CEO Sahm Adrangi. On Wednesday, a research report surfaced in which Kerrisdale Capital said they don’t think the Eastman Kodak Company’s move into blockchain is genuine. In fact, Kerrisdale Capital called it “a last-ditch stock promotion gambit for a company hurtling towards bankruptcy.”
According to the report that was released yesterday, the hedge fund forecasts that the Eastman Kodak Company won’t be able to develop a competitive edge against the other blockchain startups. Why? Because the Kerrisdale Capital doesn’t believe the company has the technological capacity.
Even though I might not agree with the latter statement, I wouldn’t be surprised if Kodak struggled a bit to compete with the other startups. I mean, there are a lot out there. Over the past two months, we have seen a massive amount of companies moving into blockchain, from Long Blockchain Corp. (used to be Long Island Iced Tea) to ChinaNet Online Holdings.