Portable camera pioneer Kodak has announced plans to create its own cryptocurrency.
The token, dubbed KodakCoin, will help photographers control and monitor their images rights, the news site says. It will do so using blockchain technology, an encrypted database of transactions that is accessible to everyone involved in the deal and not controlled by a central authority.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
According to The Verge, Kodak’s cryptocurrency will “create a new economy for photographers to receive payment and sell work on a secure platform”.
Kodak is to launch an initial coin offering (ICO) on 31 January, the website says, although a price for each token has yet to be announced.
Along with the reveal of KodakCoin, the company also showcased a new piece of hardware that can mine for the cryptocurrency bitcoin.
The KashMiner is a “bitcoin rig” that can be rented out by the public to create new bitcoin, a process that requires expensive hardware to carry out intensive mathematical solutions and that uses significant amounts of energy, says Business Insider.
The service costs $3,400 (£2,514) for a 24-month contract, the site says. Kodak estimates customers can yield around $375 (£277) per month - a total of $9,000 (£6,655).
But experts say that the bitcoin mining process becomes more difficult over time and that users of the service will see smaller yields every month.
There is no word on when KashMiner will be released, but according to BBC News, the service is already prebooked to capacity.
-
‘The worry is far from fanciful’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
How are Americans bracing for the end of SNAP?TODAY'S BIG QUESTION Millions depend on supplemental federal food funds that are set to expire this month, as the government shutdown begins to be acutely felt
-
Book review: ‘Joyride: A Memoir’Feature A journalist’s story of how she chased and accomplished her dreams
-
Bitcoin braces for a quantum computing onslaughtIN THE SPOTLIGHT The cryptocurrency community is starting to worry over a new generation of super-powered computers that could turn the digital monetary world on its head.
-
The noise of Bitcoin mining is driving Americans crazyUnder the Radar Constant hum of fans that cool data-centre computers is turning residents against Trump's pro-cryptocurrency agenda
-
What Trump's win could mean for Big TechTalking Points The tech industry is bracing itself for Trump's second administration
-
Network states: the tech broligarchy who want to create new countriesUnder The Radar Communities would form online around a shared set of 'values' and acquire physical territory, becoming nations with their own laws
-
Paraguay's dangerous dalliance with cryptocurrencyUnder The Radar Overheating Paraguayans are pushing back over power outages caused by illegal miners
-
2023: the year of crypto instabilityThe Explainer Crypto reached peaks — and valleys — throughout 2023
-
Sam Bankman-Fried found guilty: where does crypto go from here?Today's Big Question Conviction of the 'tousle-haired mogul' confirms sector's 'Wild West' and 'rogue' image, say experts
-
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried arrested in the BahamasSpeed Read
