Kodak's upcoming cryptocurrency has attracted over 40,000 potential investors, according to the developers behind it. The only problem? It isn't clear how many of those investors are legit.
On Wednesday, KodakCoin developers delayed a much-anticipated initial coin offering by "several weeks," in order to verify the status of each investor. KodakCoin is only open to "accredited investors" with an individual net worth of $1 million or $200,000 in earnings over the past two years.
"We will be contacting all potential investors that have previously registered for the ICO shortly for additional information," a posting on the KodakCoin website says.
Earlier this month, Kodak licensed the Kodak name to a blockchain-powered currency under development from WENN Digital, a photo agency that offers paparazzi images—a move that raised eyebrows in the business world.
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Wall Street has been bullish on blockchain technology, so Kodak's stock saw a boost on news of the delay. But the currency is more than just a digital asset; it's designed to help photographers get paid for their work. WENN claims its technology will crawl the web for unlicensed use of digital images; copyright violators will then theoretically pay the system, rewarding photographers with KodakCoin.
However, a day before Wednesday's ICO, media reports cast doubt over the currency's future.
"There is also a more obvious question: Why would photographers want to be paid in digital tokens, rather than cash?" asked The New York Times, which also claimed the white paper on KodakCoin is a "40-page mishmash of marketing buzzwords and vague diagrams."
So far, Kodak and WENN haven't commented on the criticism. But they aren't the only companies riding the cryptocurrency wave. On Wednesday, the Japanese firm behind the messaging app Line announced it would establish a virtual currency exchange. The messaging app, which is big in Asia, has over 168 million monthly active users in Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, and Indonesia.