Shares of New York finance company, Longfin, showed an astonishing 1,342% rise when the company announced its forthcoming purchase of a Singapore-based blockchain company, Siddu. Siddu acts as a platform for cryptocurrency transactions and has no intrinsic value, according to Longfin CEO, Venkat Meenavalli. Eyebrows are being raised, however, when it is seen that Meenavalli is 95% owner of Meridian, Siddu's parent company.

According to a recent CNBC report, Longfin share prices leaped up from $5.45 at closing on December 14th to $72.38 to closing on December 18th, after the proposed Ziddu purchase was announced.

The share price escalation raises Longfin's market cap to an estimated $3.1bn, which Meenavalli says is totally unjustified in relation to the $5 IPO price. He attributes it to the "euphoric mania" of cryptocurrency trading, which has gone through the roof in the past weeks. Longfin itself went public on Nasdaq on December 13th, and was valued at $220m, which the company claims is more realistic.

Much discussion is taking place after the December futures trading launches in Chicago, with many sceptics relating the current manic market activity to historical frenzies, like dotcom bubbles and tulip mania. Cryptocurrency supporters, however, suggest that this is just the beginning of the move into the mainstream that the DLT industry has been waiting for, with Bitcoin riding the wave of the first trading storm.