Graph Blockchain (GBLC.C) is rolling out an e-commerce wellness marketplace platform and subsidiary, BluStem, during the week of June 1, 2020.

BluStem is an e-commerce marketplace for business to consumer and business to business customers in support of scaling both its own brand and the brands of its partners, which is vague and relatively opaque and more of what we’ve come to expect from this company.

Here’s what Christian Scovenna, Graph’s president and third or fourth CEO in a year (it’s hard to keep track), had to say:

“These are exciting times for the company and its shareholders, as we are poised to move in a direction using our current core technology. With today’s announcement of our BluStem e-commerce marketplace, we are pursuing the creation of a revenue model that facilitates both scale and organic growth.”

Graph is a former client and company we’ve been following for since late 2018 when they went public off an RTO with Datametrex AI (DM.V). They were a blockchain company offering a grab bag of services to the highest bidder, and for awhile they sounded like they could’ve been one of the rare companies to come out of the 2018 blockchain deep freeze. All they had to do was find a few solid clients and land a place for their blockchain solution to work its magic. Except they didn’t do any of those things and have really turned into an object lesson for other blockchain companies in what NOT to do.

Instead, they bounced around Asia, doing the functional equivalent of gig-work while trying to trade on the big names of those clients. Granted, a few of those names were noteworthy: the smart city project with the City of Seoul, in South Korea. Offering blockchain solutions to Samsung and LG. But the dollar amounts attached were enough to barely keep the lights on and definitely not enough to produce any sustained growth and therefore provide value for what few investors they had.

The whole chart shows that those investors were few and far between as well. Although if there’s a positive to note it’s that this company’s price has leapt considerably over the past few months—jumping from a fraction of a fraction of a penny to roughly $0.04. But it’ll come back down soon enough.

Enough so, that they actually suspended reporting on American exchanges altogether earlier this year, figuring they could do so much better in Asia.

Sure. Maybe.

Blockchain has certain gained a wider acceptance on that continent than here, and that also includes a fair amount of market saturation. They can’t compete here—why would one think they could compete there?

Graph is one of those companies that shuffles through their C-suite on a fairly regular basis, and each of those CEOs has tried to get them onboard with the latest market trend. Except nothing has stuck, and it’s been the functional equivalent again of frantically waving their hands at investors by trying to get involved with the newest and flashiest market trends.

When blockchain and smart cities didn’t pan out they moved onto esports and tried to make some acquisitions and get involved there. But esports has proven to be kind of a dud and so they’ve recently moved onto the proposed shroom boom. But it’s early there. And now they’re trying to get take advantage of the opportunity in COVID-19 related products like personal protective equipment and a test service once they’ve finished sourcing everything they need to make that happen.

So instead of focusing on their somewhat vaguely defined blockchain services, they’re reaching out for as many bags as they can, and that’s what BluStem is all about. They’re trying to get into e-commerce to selling products, marketing, licensing and product fulfillment fees, including BluStem the company’s own shroom brand, which they’ll try to push out to white label clients.

To sum up: no business plan, no direction and no chance.

—Joseph Morton