The Defiant

Strip Mall Icon RadioShack Resurrected as a DeFi Play With Token

RadioShack, the storied electronics brand, is beiing reinvented as a DeFi player.

By: Owen Fernau Loading...

Strip Mall Icon RadioShack Resurrected as a DeFi Play With Token

Crypto is an industry known for entrepreneurs slapping buzz words on projects they hope hit the jackpot. A less trod path is buying a venerable brand that went bankrupt in 2015, and resuscitating it as a DeFi project.

That’s what’s happening with RadioShack, a 100 year-old consumer electronics retailer revived by internet entrepreneurs Tai Lopez and Alex Mehr as a DeFi protocol.

The new RadioShack’s primary objective is to distribute blockchain technology, according to the project’s docs, which target “blue chip, large corporations” as adopters.

Exchanges

The project has raised some eyebrows as a possible jump-the-shark moment. “We have a month, 6 weeks tops left in this bull market,” tweeted Brantly Millegan, director of operations at Ethereum Name Service. “If RadioShack DeFi and Melania NFTs aren’t a signal then I don’t know what is.”

Melania Trump, former first lady of the United States, released an NFT collection last week.

Under the hood, RadioShack appears to be launching an exchange, which the project calls a “swap” in its docs. Indeed, the project cites Uniswap and SushiSwap, both decentralized exchanges (DEXs), as profitable protocols and cites a Jeff Bezos quote that reads, “Your margin is my opportunity.”

Symbiosis

RadioShack says their their competitive advantage stems from what the project’s docs call “symbiosis” between Atlas USV, which bills itself as a “DeFi base layer”, and Retail Ecommerce Ventures, a holding company that has acquired other bankrupt brick and mortar businesses like Pier 1 Imports and Modell’s.

Both Atlas USV and Retail Ecommerce Ventures are spearheaded by Lopez and Mehr.

There will also be a RADIO token, which will be used as a bridge asset, according to Radioshack’s docs. So a USDT to DAI trade would actually be a USDT to RADIO to DAI trade under Radioshack’s design.

DeFi AlphaPremium Content
Start for free

The RADIO token has yet to go live, but users are asking about it in the project’s Discord.

Subscribe to DeFi Daily Newsletter and Get Smarter on DeFi & Web3.

80k+ investors informed every day.