Blockchain-based e-commerce company Future FinTech Group (FTFT.Q) announced their sale of HeDeTang Holdings to New Continent International on February 27, 2020.
Now what’s particularly interesting about this sale is what they’re selling. The cognitive dissonance is strong with this one. If you look at past press releases, the About Me section at the bottom says this: Future FinTech Group Inc, a company engages in blockchain based e-commerce and fruit juice business. If you’re at all a curious person and a know a thing or two about blockchain—that seems like a non-sequitur. Like something written by an intern, angry that he’s not being paid, and knowing there’s no future at the company he writes that into the bottom of the press release and it keeps getting published over and over, and nobody pays attention to these things so his low-grade sabotage keeps getting repeated.
What is Future FinTech?
Florida-based Future FinTech Group is an e-commerce business. They operate a blockchain based online shared shopping mall platform, but also operate as an incubator for applications projects using blockhain technology. The company and its subsidiaries develop blockchain technology for B2B and B2C applications, including the distribution, marketing and sale of consumer products.
They have been having a rough few months as they failed to meet the minimum requirements for shareholder equity (USD$2.5 million) to stay listed on the NASDAQ. They got a break on December 17th, when the listing qualification staff gave them an extension to regain compliance, and that’s what brought about this sale.
The sale is expected to divest approximately $148 million in asset impairment charges, which contributed to its stockholders equity’ deficit of $86.7 million, as of December 31, 2018.
Truthfully, there’s probably more chance of making money with a juice service than in blockchain-based fintech.
Don’t believe me?
Here’s BTCS’s (BTCS.Q) chart over the past year. Nice bump in the summer when bitcoin started hopping again, but since then has largely gone back to sleep.
How about Datametrex AI (DM.V), who despite going hard on their anti-fake news filter, have only drawn yawns from investors.
We can suppose that the company’s orange-juice venture is no stranger than their November 2019 venture into sheep farming. That’s right. The company entered into an agreement with Chifeng Supply and Marketing E-commerce Ltd to develop a blockchain contract farming platform to focus on sheep farming. It’s a sales arrangement for agriculture products between a customer and a farmer before production begins that establishes conditions for the production and markets for farm products. Presumably, connecting consumers and farmers directly, contract farming offers farmers an market and offers consumers high food quality and safety.
But seriously what is going on with these companies? This company pivots from financial technology to selling juice to offering sheep farmers access to markets, and it’s not the strangest duck in the pond. Other ducks, such as Graph Blockchain (GBLC.C) are just as strange, pivoting first from providing supply-chain solutions to Canadian beef, to smart city initiatives to esports and now trying to find inroads into the nascent psilocybin market.
Blockchain only has a handful of uses and a company that learns the strengths and weaknesses of the technology will be well-positioned to benefit from it. So far, nothing looks promising.
—Joseph Morton
