Andrew Heinzman
Do you ever get the urge to buy an old brand name like RadioShack and use its lifeless corpse to sell cryptocurrency? Oh, me neither. But that’s exactly what’s happening today. Retail Ecommerce Ventures, an unregulated investment company owned by Tai Lopez and Alex Mehr, is preparing to launch RADIO token.
Update, 7/1/22: This article was originally published in December of 2021. We’re republishing it in honor of RadioShack’s social media manager, who may have destroyed what’s left of the old brand by tweeting too hard.
According to the redesigned RadioShack website, RADIO token leverages the Atlas USV, a decentralized base layer (owned by Tai Lopez and Alex Mehr) that can manage first-party and third-party coins. It’s a complicated thing that’s difficult to understand, but that’s okay, because Tai Lopez and Alex Mehr are really banking on the RadioShack brand.
But why RadioShack? Aside from its financial instability, RadioShack has nothing to do with cryptocurrency or the blockchain. It’s just a dead brand that people remember with a quick laugh or a grimace.
Well, that seems to be the whole idea—according to its new owners, RadioShack has the brand recognition to “bridge the gap” and reach old CEOs and who are weary of crypto, which is usually championed by younger people. A blog post even mentions RadioShack’s 2014 Super Bowl advertisement to prove its enduring brand value, though the video only has 224k views on YouTube. So, there’s that.
I’ll be the first to say that I’m not a CEO, investor, or cryptocurrency expert. RadioShack has pages and pages of documents explaining how it will court older CEOs “who are especially authoritarian, intelligent, and well-read,” so maybe Tai Lopez and Alex Mehr are on to something.
But there are a few parts of this scheme that may not sit well with “intelligent” and established CEOs. For one, Tai Lopez and Alex Mehr’s previous venture has a 1.5-star rating with the Better Business Bureau. “Intelligent” CEOs may also notice that Retail Ecommerce Ventures is an unregulated investment firm, meaning (among other things) that investors are screwed if the company goes under. Very reassuring stuff here, guys!
Anyway, you can sign up to learn when RADIO token launches at the RadioShack website. Tai Lopez and Alex Mehr also own Dressbarn and Pier1, so who knows, maybe those old brands will become silly little crypto tokens if things work out.
Source: RadioShack via PC Magazine
