from Hacker News

RadioShack – Bringing Cryptocurrency to the Mainstream

by neb_b on 12/18/21, 8:00 PM with 61 comments

  • by clpm4j on 12/18/21, 9:01 PM

    If you scroll down and look at the 'The Team', you'll see it's two guys Alex Mehr and Tai Lopez. They bought the Radio Shack brand a couple of years ago: https://www.retaildive.com/news/radioshack-brand-acquired-by...

    Tai Lopez is a motivational speaker celebrity (first I've heard of him). And Alex Mehr is apparently a former co-founder of Zoosk (a dating app).

  • by iamleppert on 12/18/21, 9:56 PM

    Even the corpse of RadioShack has been brought back from the dead with the promise of crypto riches. Scrolling through their partners is like a who’s who of old defunct 90’s brands. DressBarn?? It makes it crystal clear what their strategy is.

    I have fond memories of RadioShack, it’s part of what got me into computers and electronics. But taking those memories and weaponizing them against me to try and extract what I can only assume is money, feels wrong on so many levels.

    If anything (and I don’t think I’m alone in this sentiment) I will avoid this new Frankenstein creation. That said, I’m sure it will still entrap enough people to make these two guys even richer while still being a net negative for society as a whole.

    File this under the same drawer as Mariah Carey partnering with McDonald’s to sell more junk food.

  • by PragmaticPulp on 12/18/21, 9:00 PM

    Fascinating to watch cryptocurrency and blockchain become the go-to pivot for those who have run out of traditional ways to be profitable.

    Is this the original company transitioning to cryptocurrency? It was the RadioShack brand simply auctioned off to someone who wanted to use an established brand for their crypto project?

  • by alphabet9000 on 12/18/21, 9:45 PM

    RadioShack devolved in such a way, with a long dying death, that all of my memories of early radioshack have been replaced with later-year memories of their store, when they became a total joke. I have no nostalgia for the brand. I'm sure it would be different if they went out of business with dignity in like 2001.

    The last time I went into Radioshack to 'get something' in 2011, i needed to get a couple of cables to connect a mini HDMI cable to a full size connector. They didn't have the exact cable so I had to get several different ones to make the connection work. The price for the cables was literally $91, so I didn't get it, and ordered it online instead. Sad

  • by sswaner on 12/18/21, 9:29 PM

    This will really help address the complaint that cryptocurrency is just a Ponzi scheme.

  • by SamBam on 12/18/21, 9:42 PM

    > "Meet our Partners and Collaborators"

    This is literally just the list of defunct brandnames Tai has acquired.

  • by computerliker on 12/18/21, 9:05 PM

  • by outside1234 on 12/18/21, 9:16 PM

    Its just incredible to me that this is allowed to go on and on. It is clearly BS all of the way down - where are the regulators to stop this before the massive crash?

    This is two guys who bought a brand and are using it to defraud people out of their money - how is this legal?

  • by joebergeron on 12/18/21, 9:12 PM

    > RadioShack, and RadioShack alone, can bridge the gap and "cross the chasm" of mainstream usage for Cryptocurrency.

    This is it, folks.

  • by zanek on 12/18/21, 9:49 PM

    Relevant tweet with Tai Lopez explaining: https://twitter.com/tailopez/status/1333228688456904707?s=21

  • by DeepYogurt on 12/18/21, 9:16 PM

    The grift continues

  • by filmgirlcw on 12/18/21, 10:00 PM

    You had me at Tai Lopez. Honestly, I’m very sad this is real and not a pitch-perfect parody site because everything about it is literally satire.

    Tai Lopez shilling for some RadioShack coin. What a world.

  • by mmastrac on 12/19/21, 1:30 AM

    RIP beloved electronics brand. I used to love this store as a kid.

    I still have my RadioShack branded multimeter.

  • by presspot on 12/18/21, 9:31 PM

    Can you say, "Jump the shark"?

  • by bredren on 12/18/21, 10:01 PM

    What a bummer for this brand.

    At one point, I had hoped that Amazon would buy up all the radio shacks and convert them into Amazon prime lounges and provide basically a sort of temporary workspace/island of calm you could escape to in any suburb.

  • by emerged on 12/18/21, 11:13 PM

    One person, or group of people, realizes you can hash elements in a linked list and we get decades of bullshit. Wake me when this is all over.

  • by okareaman on 12/18/21, 9:13 PM

    The Shack is Back

  • by musicale on 12/18/21, 10:16 PM

    This is not the RadioShack we need, but maybe it's the RadioShack we deserve. :(

  • by weaponizedlinux on 12/18/21, 9:59 PM

    Is this a joke?

  • by gigatexal on 12/19/21, 4:49 PM

    ugh the crypto virus is spreading to zombie companies

  • by sergiomattei on 12/18/21, 10:42 PM

    This is embarrassing.