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Long Blockchain Faces Delisting Again, Despite Name Change

Nasdaq seeks to remove shares after market value slumps anew

Long Blockchain Faces Delisting Again, Despite Name Change
A bitcoin logo sits on a LL 1800W power unit supplying cryptocurrency mining machines. (Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Long Blockchain Corp. is poised to be delisted, a fate the iced-tea company temporarily avoided by jumping in on the cryptocurrency craze.

The unprofitable beverage maker formerly known as Long Island Iced Tea Corp. got a notice that its shares would be removed from the Nasdaq, according to a filing Friday. Its market value has dropped back below the exchange’s $35 million threshold after surging in December, when the company announced it was acquiring 1,000 bitcoin-mining machines and changing its name.

Even if an appeal is granted, Long Blockchain will have to maintain its market value at $35 million or more for at least 10 business days to remain listed after April 9 -- or face the possibility of delisting again. At Friday’s close, the company’s market cap was $33 million, down by more than half from December, as bitcoin’s price tumbled.

Long Blockchain wasn’t the first to use blockchain as an antidote for lackluster stock returns, and it’s not the only one that’s come crashing down to Earth along with bitcoin’s decline. Riot Blockchain Inc., a former biotech company, sank Friday on a CNBC report that its crypto-rebranding was done to enrich its owners.

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, David Scheer

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.