This is an extract from Martin Vander Weyer’s ‘Any other business’ column, in this week’s Spectator.
In a week that felt rather starved of exciting business stories — the fat cats were evidently too busy packing for Davos — an unknown called Stapleton Capital, previously described as a telecoms investor, notched up a brief 130 per cent spike in its share price by changing its name to ‘Blockchain Worldwide’ and announcing that it has ‘seen a number of very exciting blockchain opportunities in recent months’ even if it has yet to buy into any of them. This brilliantly simple device — the cunning name change, not the cryptocurrency payment system — was road-tested last month by New York-based Long Island Iced Tea Corp, which more than tripled its share price after regenerating as ‘Long Blockchain Corp’ and announcing an instant change of focus from cold beverages to hot crypto-fintech.
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