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RadioShack – Bringing Cryptocurrency to the Mainstream

46 points| neb_b | 4 years ago |radioshack.com | reply

61 comments

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[+] clpm4j|4 years ago|reply
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).

[+] er4hn|4 years ago|reply
My first thoughts were: This is a scam, I'm on a page spelled almost like "radioshack.com"

Then: The old radioshack page has let their domain lapse and been taken over.

Then: Ah, Tai Lopez, the only man I've ever known to keep his bookcases in the garage, like a set of house tools.

On a side note, on Tai Lopez's head shot the man in the lower right facing the camera looks like he's realized this motivational talk is going nowhere.

[+] pdq|4 years ago|reply
It's savvy but pretty scammy, as people will assume the businesses are still alive, when they are just shell fronts, using the prior logo/branding/domain names.

Here's Tai's parent company and their purchased brands:

https://www.retailecommerceventures.com/

Some big ones that I recall going to back in the day are Radio Shack, Pier1, Stein Mart, and Linens N Things.

[+] colecut|4 years ago|reply
Tai Lopez is the master of flexing in front of books he hasn't read, cars he doesn't own, women he paid to be there..
[+] alphabet9000|4 years ago|reply
Update: 'The Team' section was removed from the site.
[+] oh_sigh|4 years ago|reply
About 5 years ago literally everyone was being bombarded with youtube ads by tai lopez, where he is in his garage showing off a lambo and talking about how books are his most prized possession
[+] Rickthedick|4 years ago|reply
Zoosk is a total scam dating app. I don't trust that guy
[+] iamleppert|4 years ago|reply
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.

[+] zyemuzu|4 years ago|reply
Hard to argue with any of your points, their entire concept is absurd.
[+] PragmaticPulp|4 years ago|reply
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?

[+] kranke155|4 years ago|reply
This is unfortunately how people get into the habit of thinking all crypto and blockchain is a scam - because a huge numbers of scams and silly ideas are indeed running in the space...
[+] dekervin|4 years ago|reply
There was a similar trend in 2017 I think, but it died off with the bear market. It has scents of the original dotcom bubble. Slap a .com extension on your brand, collect the cash.
[+] alphabet9000|4 years ago|reply
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

[+] ghaff|4 years ago|reply
And honestly even the memories of early-ish RadioShack involved a lot of rose-tinted glasses. Even in the 70s there was a lot of crap consumer electronics mixed in with the readily-accessible cables, components, and maker stuff (such as it was).
[+] sswaner|4 years ago|reply
This will really help address the complaint that cryptocurrency is just a Ponzi scheme.
[+] echelon|4 years ago|reply
This feels like the era of webvan and pets.com, except those things were simply premature.

A token defi swap of croins and crokens (crypto coins and tokens) brings zero value to the world.

[+] SamBam|4 years ago|reply
> "Meet our Partners and Collaborators"

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

[+] outside1234|4 years ago|reply
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?

[+] ghaff|4 years ago|reply
You're preaching to the same group of people who, in the main, oppose any regulation that restrict the ability of people to invest in anything they want to invest in.
[+] mistrial9|4 years ago|reply
ask the investigator, Judge and jury in this case -- apparently, you
[+] joebergeron|4 years ago|reply
> RadioShack, and RadioShack alone, can bridge the gap and "cross the chasm" of mainstream usage for Cryptocurrency.

This is it, folks.

[+] DeepYogurt|4 years ago|reply
The grift continues
[+] dannylandau|4 years ago|reply
Grift - is a small scale swindle. This is a large scale swindle, so need a new term that represents the scale.
[+] filmgirlcw|4 years ago|reply
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.

[+] mmastrac|4 years ago|reply
RIP beloved electronics brand. I used to love this store as a kid.

I still have my RadioShack branded multimeter.

[+] presspot|4 years ago|reply
Can you say, "Jump the shark"?
[+] bredren|4 years ago|reply
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.

[+] emerged|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] musicale|4 years ago|reply
This is not the RadioShack we need, but maybe it's the RadioShack we deserve. :(
[+] weaponizedlinux|4 years ago|reply
Is this a joke?
[+] pcthrowaway|4 years ago|reply
My first impression was that it might be serious (would sort of make sense for Radioshack to pivot), then I saw Tai Lopez listed on the team and assumed it was a joke.

But it appears to be "serious" (inasmuch as anything involving the anthropomorphic joke named Tai Lopez can be)

I work in the crypto space and am generally pretty bullish, but this is the biggest sell signal I've seen. I wonder if Tai took out a big short position and is now using his name to crash the market.