Even The SEC Is Thinking About Adding “Blockchain” To Its Name

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is having some fun with the cryptocurrency craze that has resulted in share surges for companies with “blockchain” attached to their names. According to a report in Bloomberg, the Fort Worth, Texas, branch of the government watchdog tweeted about a way to increase its Twitter followers: adding blockchain to its name.

“We’re contemplating adding ‘Blockchain’ to our name so we’ll increase our followers by 70,000 percent,” the official Fort Worth SEC Twitter handle said in the tweet.

The report noted that the joke on the part of the SEC branch could be yet another sign that the cryptocurrency craze is in bubble territory.

In late December, Long Island Iced Tea Corp. saw its stock surge after changing its name to Long Blockchain Corp. According to a Reuters report at the time, shares increased 300 percent after the company announced its rebranding as Long Blockchain and that it was focusing its business on blockchain technology. Long Blockchain said it was in the early stages of looking at specific opportunities to grow the blockchain side of its business. The company also plans to maintain its beverage business, through which it sells Long Island Iced Tea and Long Island Lemonade.

With the 300 percent increase in shares, Long Blockchain’s market value went from $23.8 million to $92 million as of the close of trading on Dec. 20.

Other small companies announcing blockchain businesses are also seeing their stock prices surge. This is reminiscent of the dotcom boom, when any company that tacked a .com to the end of its name was sure to get a bump on Wall Street.

While the SEC branch joked in the tweet, the government watchdog started clamping down on some initial coin offerings (ICOs) late last year. Similarly, ICOs have been banned in China and South Korea, and China already prohibits the trading of cryptocurrency exchanges.