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Owning cryptocurrency is a wild ride at times.

It’s all well and good to say you’re going to hold (or HODL) on to your Bitcoin when the price swings wildly, but it’s another thing to actually brave those dips without jumping ship.

Some people have made millions (or billions) riding that wave, whilst others have lost significant chunks of money.

One company you wouldn’t expect to be much affected is US furniture chain Ethan Allen, but here’s where the connection comes in.

As of last week, the retailer had seen its stock climb 51% year-to-date, with many pointing to the fact that it has the same trading ticker as the cryptocurrency ether: ETH.

Ether works on the ethereum blockchain.

Markets Insider reports:

The StockTwits investment forum dedicated to Ethan Allen is riddled with messages about the cryptocurrency rather than the furniture seller. Daily message volume on StockTwits’ Ethan Allen page has surged 300% since the start of May, which coincides with a parabolic surge in ether’s price.

Image: Ethan Allen

“We’ve definitely seen a massive increase on a percentage basis in mistaken activity on the Ethan Allen stream,” StockTwits CEO Rishi Khanna told The Wall Street Journal.

Whilst it’s unfair to put the share price rise down solely to this confusion – the retailer has seen a boom in business, with year-over-year revenue growth of 18% in the first quarter of 2021 – novice investors are clearly getting the two confused.

The cryptocurrency has seen a pretty sizeable fall in price over the past few weeks, and the same is true for Ethan Allen’s share price, although it has since rebounded slightly over the past week.

Still, if you bought the cryptocurrency a year ago, things are still looking very rosy:

That’s a price increase more than tenfold.

Owning Ethan Allen shares is certainly less volatile, but I guess it all depends on how much risk you like to take.

[source:marketsinsider]