On Oct. 4, 2017, Bioptix, a tiny company that owned a veterinary products patent and was developing new methods for detecting diseases, abruptly abandoned its original business model and renamed itself Riot Blockchain. Shortly afterward, the company unveiled its plans to become a pure-play Bitcoin miner.

At the time, many investors dismissed Bioptix's transformation into Riot as a cynical attempt to capitalize on the growing interest in blockchain-powered services and Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) to generate some short-term gains. But if you had invested $1,000 in Bioptix on the day it announced that big change, your investment would be worth about $2,200 today. Let's see why Riot defied the critics, how it scaled up its business, and where it could be headed in the future.

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Source Fool.com