Kodak launching own cryptocurrency for photographers

Portable camera pioneer Kodak has announced plans to create its own cryptocurrency.

The company - which broke the news yesterday at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), in Las Vegas - is partnering with London-based firm Wenn Media Group to develop its virtual coin, reports BBC News.

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.

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.