Namewashing and Empty Suits

After all, bubbles are filled with gas

In December 2017, a company that sold iced tea out of Long Island, New York announced it would be called Long Blockchain Corp. It kept making iced tea. It owned no blockchain, ran no nodes, employed no cryptographers. It changed a few words on a press release.

The market got drunk on Long Island iced tea that day as the stock closed up 183%. That’s some strong tea.

A British firm added “blockchain” to its name in 2017 and ran up 394% within hours.

That these companies receive new money, and that their stock prices go up, is evidence that many people are gambling rather than investing in productive enterprises.

The gold explorer with no gold becomes a lithium play in 2021, a uranium play in 2023, a critical-minerals play in 2024, and bolts “AI” onto itself for the 2025–26 season. The ground didn’t change; only the investor deck did.

This is namewashing: dressing up a company in the current trend. Commonly it’s a shell, or close to it. The managers—unhindered by such irrelevant matters as cash flow or concern about crashing into rocks—sail in whatever direction the wind is blowing, shedding a failed story and donning the next hype, without ever building a mine, a greenhouse, or a server. Management stretches its expertise to fit the new tale, and the money pouring into the placements arrives. Like taking candy from a baby.

The public stock listing is the company’s only real asset, and it’s an asset only because of the challenges of getting a new listing. Indeed, the TSX Venture Exchange reverse-takeover machinery exists to recycle a listing: new board, a project vended in, a raise, a new name. The rename marks the regime change. You’re not buying a mining company that rebranded; you’re buying a ticker symbol burdened by millions of old outstanding shares.

Notice which way the dilution runs. Put fresh money into a real company and your shares thin out the existing owners’ claim on real assets, but add cash value. Such an investment is sensible for all. It’s also a reasonable speculation to put fresh money into a shell with experienced management and a great idea. But putting fresh money into a broke shell run by empty suits with a weak idea and a nifty new name? Your check is the first thing of value to walk through the door. The pre-existing shares, backed by nothing, now share in your money. You did not dilute the old holders. The old holders diluted you.

Whether it’s namewashing or just a lousy shell, they’re looking to turn their dream and your money into your dream and their money.

It is not new, and it is not subtle

In 1999, three finance professors studied 95 companies that added “.com” onto their names. In the five days around the announcement, the name change alone produced abnormal returns near 53%. A suffix was the entire business plan.

When the dotcom dream curdled, researchers tracked firms that stripped “.com” back off their names. Those companies also rose — by roughly 60% over the following weeks. The label paid going in and coming out.

It keeps working, without doing any work.

A name change moves no earth and ships no product. It nurtures nothing but hopeful expectations. That a name change alone reprices a stock at all tells you the buyer is paying for the story, not the value.

In April 2026, Allbirds perfected the form. The wool-sneaker company sold its actual shoes to a licensing outfit for $39 million, kept the empty listing, and declared itself an artificial-intelligence company: NewBird AI. It owned no chips, ran no data center, wrote no code. The stock ran nearly 600% in a day. It has just renamed itself again—Smartbird—and popped another 39%.

Start with the People

Two of Doug Casey’s 9Ps of Resource Stock Evaluation are People and Paper (share structure). Namewashing is one of the tells our 9Ps assessments look to catch. We are not grading the moniker. We are grading whether the people running the company build assets or just harvest the float. A team that rechristens its company to match this quarter’s fashion has told you which business it is in, and that business is namewashing. Ask one thing: has this crew ever handed shareholders an ounce, a permit, a dividend or an exit — or only a new name and a new request for money to keep food on the table and appease the prior round of shareholders whose money was burned?

Long Blockchain was delisted, subpoenaed, and folded into a footnote. The strategy did not retire with it.

When your friend tells you about an exciting new AI company to “invest” in, remember that these so-called opportunities are currently appearing several times per day. Always ask yourself, is this company trying to build wealth for all the shareholders by finding and producing goods and services? Or is it trying to mine your wallet to produce money for itself?

At Crisis Investing, we see the difference. Join us as we find companies with good people, good ideas, and good property — companies that work to resolve crises rather than add to them. You can subscribe to Doug Casey’s Crisis Investing here.

Sincerely,

John Hunt, MD