The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission may have hit on a foolproof way to boost its popularity: Piggyback the passion for blockchain.
Less than three weeks after shares of Long Island Iced Tea Corp. surged as much as 289 percent after announcing a name change to Long Blockchain Corp., the agency responsible for enforcing U.S securities law appears to want in on the action. The Fort Worth, Texas, branch of the SEC announced its new big idea on its Twitter account on Monday:
“We’re contemplating adding ‘Blockchain’ to our name so we’ll increase our followers by 70,000 percent,” @FortWorth_SEC said.
It’s unclear at what point in a market frenzy financial regulators start making jokes, but investors can add the quip to the list of signals that the cryptocurrency frenzy may be bubbling over. Meanwhile the stance of regulators toward these assets isn’t always so relaxed. The SEC itself last year started cracking down on some digital token sales, while regulators in China and South Korea are increasing oversight on cryptocurrency trading and mining.
That’s helped drag down digital coins including bitcoin, ether and litecoin this week.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.