A misleading, controversial Kodak-branded mining company has confirmed the indefinite suspension of all plans to launch.
According to BBC on July 16, 2018, the Kodak “KashMiner” officially shut shop before a promised launch amidst several criticisms of an unsustainable, unproven business model.
The miner was sold by Spotlite USA, a distributor of LED and lighting products, and notably holds licenses to use Kodak’s brand name for their business use.
In January 2018, the KashMiner debuted at the CES Technology Show in Las Vegas to an unamused crowd of industry observers. The company’s representatives claimed stable profits via bitcoin mining at the time, with reports citing a figure of $375 per month.
Spotlite told visitors the miner is available for rent at $3,400 with a two-year guarantee of profits. The miner’s sticker price was not mentioned, and it remains unclear if selling the rigs were in Spotlite’s plans.
However, the company failed to address questions related to electricity rates, bitcoin exchange rates, and the ever-growing difficulty of mining potentially impeding their enterprising calculations.
Critics were quick to call out the firm’s questionable venture, noting the “unachievable and misleading” profits were nothing short of a scam, with writer David Gerard terming it a “cryptocurrency folly,” that would “never go beyond its unfinished website.”
Kodak has since confirmed the KashMiner was an unlicensed entity, with no such mining systems “installed anywhere on their premises.”
Moving to Iceland After Debacle
At the CES show, Spotlite chief executive Halston Mikail unveiled plans to install “hundreds of the devices” at the Kodak headquarters in New York, primarily to leverage the region’s cheap power supply.
Mikail claimed eighty miners were already in operation and made no further comments on the nature of their success or client testimonials.
However, according to Mikail, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) intervened in the company’s plans and shut down the illegal scheme.
Now, Spotlite will run its private bitcoin mining operations in Iceland– an upcoming location for bitcoin miners for its cool climate, cheap electricity costs and no rent models yet offered to citizens.
Meanwhile, Kodak’s digital token offering continues to gain momentum. The photography titan’s bid to enter the cryptocurrency market in January 2018 is seemingly paying off as celebrities and sporting stadiums adopt the blockchain-based photo sharing service.
Called KodakCoin, the token aims to protect the intellectual property of users while using a decentralized ledger to provide proof-of-ownership, as reported by CryptoSlate.
