RadioShack, once the source for tech gear, plugs, adapters, circuits, and batteries (!) for legions of dedicated geeks, is now an online cryptocurrency business.
Two years after being written off by investors Tai Lopez and Alex Mehr of Retail Ecommerce Ventures Review (REV), century-old brand RadioShack has re-emerged as a new company focused on supporting mainstream consumers in the crypto space. It will do so by helping them trade existing crypto for a new cryptocurrency known as DeFi.
Apparently, there's something of a business model here where the new RadioShack makes a profit on these exchanges, but beyond that, the whole plan and mission statement: "we're going to lead the way in blockchain technology for widespread adoption." widespread by other big brands," makes about as much sense as a new 3,5mm headphone jack splitter that doesn't terminate at USB-C.
“We will be the bridge between the CEOs running the world's business and the new world of cryptocurrencies,” the recently updated RadioShack website notes.
To its credit, RadioShack explains in multiple documents and in excruciating detail how it plans to make it all work, and how its DeFi coin and partnership with Atlas USV is somehow better and more stable than other crypto exchanges.
It all gets a little shaky when you realize that Tai Lopez and Alex Mehr (yes, the same people who bought RadioShack in 2020) are also the brains behind Atlas USV, which is, according to the site:
"Universal Store of Value (USV) is designed by Dr. Alex Mehr and Tai Lopez as a universal, decentralized, and widely accessible DeFi base layer upon which the Atlas community and partners can build many future projects.
Perhaps that is why no one has heard of DeFi before, although there are many cryptocurrencies with "defi" in their name. Mehr and Lopez are the creators, owners and traders of crypto in this new system.
The genius of this plan, if it exists, is that REV also owns other semi-functional retail brands like Pier 1 and Dress Barn. You may be able to use the Defi exchange to create a crypto transaction system that could convert traditional currency proceeds into Defi on the back end, which can then be moved to REV holdings.
RadioShack lives to fight another day, it seems. But as a virtual crypto brother, that is not even a shadow of its former self.