[slapshot]

The other way around. "Blank check companies" have existed for many many years, but were a relatively rare instrument and did very bespoke deals. Most investors never heard of them. In recent years, a standardized deal emerged that became known as a SPAC (and all the recent flavors of the month). If you look in SEC regulations, you'll see references to "blank check companies" all over the place.

[systemvoltage]

Interesting. Why are SPACs getting a bad rep? Is it because of the acquisitions of shady companies or is there an underlying issue with the process followed by SPACs?

[sdan]

SPAC sponsors get essentially a free money trade when they merge with a company; usually this results in merging with sub-par companies with bad numbers (no revenue or even product usually) so investors can cash out massively without the company really needing to succeed at all

Case in point: most SPACs have fallen anywhere from 50-70% (evtol/lidar/battery companies) over the past year due to the fact that most don't have either a working product or poor numbers