VR Penny Stock Up 200% on Crypto Business Pivot

Another penny stock just joined the crowd of public market options that has seen a significant price surge after announcing it would shift its corporate focus to cryptocurrency related business.

TimefireVR Inc, an Arizona-based company that was founded in 2014 to develop a virtual reality application platform, announced Thursday in a release that the company has sold its virtual reality assets as part of its strategy shift to investing in cryptocurrencies and the potential acquisition of blockchain technologies.

The firm, publicly listed on OTCQB, an over-the-counter exchange platform operated by the OTC Marketplace Group, has since seen a 200 percent price surge, according to data from Yahoo Finance.

After closing at $0.03 on Jan. 3, the penny stock saw a high open at $0.1 today, and dropped slightly to $0.0938 as of press time. Other public stocks have seen a similar trend. In recent months, the biotech company BiOptix and beverage firm Long Island Iced Tea both recorded major price jumps after rebranding to Riot Blockchain and Long Blockchain, respectively, a new focus that was reportedly related to the blockchain technology.

Also notably following such market movements, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), a self-regulatory organization (SRO) in the U.S., issued a warning to investors, urging them to be cautious about stocks that tout involvement in blockchain or cryptocurrencies and subsequently see a stock price increase.

In addition, the firm said in the release that it has hired Jonathan Read as its CEO. Read, who has been a director of the TimefireVR since August 2017, served as a board director of BTCS, a publicly traded bitcoin startup since July last year.

While indicating the new strategy will focus on ethereum, the firm has yet to respond to an inquiry asking for clarification whether such investment refers to owning the ethereum tokens or developing smart contract applications on top of the ethereum blockchain.

VR headset image via Shutterstock