As great an announcement as this might be, it's a bit absurd how this has affected Kodak's stock price. From $3 this morning to $9 in after hours trading.
As per google, the highest was $7.10 not $9. Still, 120% gain is insanely high for traditional stocks.
This quote from the article explains it a bit:
"This is a phenomenon we saw back during the dot com days in the late 1990s where traditional companies would mention some kind of internet strategy and their stock price would jump up," commented Garrick Hileman from the University of Cambridge.
Investors got way overexcited about it. Then again, if Kodak manages to manufacture their own rigs, more efficient than Bitmain's ones + if they have their own power plant (as mentioned in article) + if the rumours about China capping mining operations are true - then this could turn out to be the best move for Kodak.
Creating their own crypto seems to me like a totally missed idea, but if they were to launch it as an ICO, they could pocket some really big and quick profit even if the project fails in the longer run.
Company that totally missed the shift to digital age of photography and now tries to spearhead the crypto era for photography. Interesting
Their timing is a bit off on this one too. If they did this ~2 years ago, when "blockchain technology" was No.1 buzzword, the effect would have been much better.