Kodak Says Scammers Are Already Selling Fraudulent KodakCoins

(Bloomberg) -- Eastman Kodak Co. is warning that several fraudulent websites and Facebook accounts are promoting and even claiming to already be selling its planned digital token.

The warning, sent in an email to potential investors, comes as Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton is testifying before Congress about initial coin offerings and coin-related scams. Regulators have been increasingly scrutinizing ICOs, which raised $3.7 billion in funds last year, according to CoinSchedule.

The 130-year-old company said last week that verifying the “accredited” status of potential investors for the digital KodakCoin token could take several weeks, sending its shares down 13 percent. Over 40,000 investors expressed interest in the offering, the Rochester, New York-based company said last week.

Kodak’s plan has been greeted with a mixed reception, with some critics of the proposal saying the imaging company is jumping on the distributed-ledger technology bandwagon to boost its shares. Kodak is working with a company that promotes paparazzi photos to offer a blockchain-based service that would let photographers get paid whenever their images are used.

To contact the reporter on this story: Olga Kharif in Portland at okharif@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Crayton Harrison at tharrison5@bloomberg.net, Jeremy Herron at jherron8@bloomberg.net, Dave Liedtka, Brendan Walsh

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