Boomer brand changes NYSE ticker from 'ETH', acknowledging crypto’s ascendancy
Ethereum has achieved another milestone this week apart from the London hard fork, with a 90-year-old New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) listed company changing its ticker to avoid confusion with Ethereum.
Home decor and furniture chain Ethan Allen — which has more than 300 stores across the US — announced on Aug. 4 that it had changed its NYSE ticker from “ETH” to “ETD”. The firm said that it has incorporated “D” to reflect design and changed its ticker to avoid investor confusion and solidify its online keyword searches:
“We also believe this change will better differentiate Ethan Allen news from Ethereum news in search results, as Ethereum is often abbreviated as ETH.”The home furnishing manufacturer and retail chain was founded in 1932. Investors who want to hodl both versions of ETH will have until Aug.16 to do so before Ethan Allen’s symbol is changed for good.
According to The Wall Street Journal in May, the interior design firm’s stock saw a surge in interest from mistaken retail investors who thought they were buying Ethereum.
“We’ve definitely seen a massive increase on a percentage basis in mistaken activity on the Ethan Allen stream,” Rishi Khanna, Chief Executive Officer of social investing site Stocktwits told WSJ.
According to data from Yahoo Finance, the NYSE version of ETH was priced at $20 at the beginning of this year and surged by more than 50% to the $32 mark by May 7. Since then the price has crashed down to around $23 at the time of writing.
On the comments section of the stock overview on Yahoo, there are many users who are either confused, annoyed, or have found the funny side of the name confusion between the two.
One user named “Terry,” wrote under the stock on Aug. 1 that “$ETH has risen $800+ since 20th July” and that in “under 12 weeks this bill run is taking off. Looking very bullish and we’re just getting started. Long way off ATH’s.”
While “Chris L” wrote on Aug. 4 that: “Ethan Allen should really change their stock symbol. It would be nice to discuss an actual great business.”
Related: Ethereum network burns $395K ETH per hour after London upgrade
The price of Ethereum has seen a resurgence over the past three weeks as anticipation grew leading up to the London hard fork or EIP-1559 that went live on Aug. 5.