(Bloomberg) -- Kodak may be slowing down its initial coin offering, but investors are dumping its stock -- fast.
Shares of Eastman Kodak Co. fell as much as 19 percent Thursday, after the 130-year-old company said that verifying the “accredited” status of potential investors for the digital KODAKCoin token could take several weeks. Over 40,000 investors expressed interest in the offering.
“The ICO is proceeding without delay and we are in the accredited investor validation phase,” Arian Hopkins, a spokesman for Wenn Digital, which is partnering with Kodak in the offering, said in a statement. “Once we have validated accredited investors we will be able to forward the offering document.”
“It doesn't really surprise me if they would be taking more time vetting both investors and this new structure,” said Daniel Hodd, general partner at Digital Asset Investment Co. “It's not altogether uncommon for there to be some waiting period before the tokens are actually created.”
Kodak first announced that it would offer the coin on Jan. 9, sending its shares up more than fourfold. The coin is at the center of a plan to use blockchain technology to manage and help protect photographer's rights to their work.
Since the initial euphoria, skeptics have come out in droves. Short sellers have begun circling the imaging company, with about one-third of shares traded as short positions.
To contact the reporters on this story: Kailey Leinz in New York at kleinz1@bloomberg.net, Lily Katz in New York at lkatz31@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jeremy Herron at jherron8@bloomberg.net, Dave Liedtka, Joanna Ossinger
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