CoinDesk’s New Overlords

By replacing CoinDesk's upper management and throwing more money at its problems, Bullish could help the publication regain a healthy growth trajectory. But I have my doubts.

Yes, I know, I promised to look at business models for my first article, but CoinDesk’s acquisition by Bullish is oh-so relevant. Not only does it showcase the powerful economic forces behind Web3 media, it also exemplifies the struggle between journalists and stockholders. 

So let’s dig in.

CoinDesk is, in my opinion, the most respected of the old guard publications. It sets the standard for editorial integrity in the crypto industry. Even when the banks of the Nile burst and greed and mania sweeps the crypto landscape, as it does every season, CoinDesk remains unfazed. 

That’s why you should pay close attention to the changing of the guard. On Feb. 8, CoinDesk CEO Kevin Worth, along with the rest of the upper leadership, was replaced by Sara Stratoberdha Stiefler, Head of Business Development at Bullish. 

As a bit of background, Bullish is an overvalued crypto exchange owned by the profiteers over at Block.One. Both companies are headed by Brendan Blumer, one of the artists behind EOS’s $4 billion public fundraise, but more on that later.

Just under three months ago, Bullish claimed that the existing management team would continue to operate CoinDesk as an independent subsidiary within Bullish Group. Kevin Worth was at the CoinDesk helm for seven years, which is a long, long time in crypto. Maybe I’m reading too deep into the tea leaves, but I find it curious that Bullish didn’t even put in the effort to replace Worth with someone who, at least nominally, appears independent and has a little bit of experience peddling editorial integrity, especially given his eon-long tenure at the company.

Putting someone like Stiefler at the helm sends a clear message to the rest of the staff—swear fealty to your new masters or get packing. 

Changing of the Guard

I won’t claim to know why the whole leadership team was replaced, but I can speculate. If I’m being generous, it is possible that CoinDesk’s management left voluntarily. Perhaps they had too much dignity to go along with the Bullish-it Blumer will task them with doing. But the more likely explanation is that CoinDesk is ailing as an organization. The company seems plagued by bureaucratic bloat and ineffective management. 

As said by Joon Ian Wong, CoinDesk’s Managing Director of Content Product from 2018 to 2020, “Coindesk being run by bullish is objectively a bad outcome. That said moving the old team on probably was overdue…” 

“At CoinDesk upper management was ineffective for a long time. Cleaning house was long overdue,” said Leigh Cuen, Senior Reporter at CoinDesk from 2018 to 2021.

Not only that, I suspect that CoinDesk’s financial position is precarious, especially after its events business—its primary revenue driver—was decimated by COVID-19. It may need a rich benefactor like DCG or Block.One to continue producing journalism at its current quality.

It’s not all bad news, though. The change in management and ownership could breathe new life into the publication. The organization’s old master behind the scenes, Barry Silbert, and his crypto empire DCG are getting battered in bankruptcy proceedings, with a civil fraud case from NY’s attorney general as the cherry on top of the excrement storm. It looks like as fine a time as any for CoinDesk to find a new patron.

My Diatribe Against Block.One

Unfortunately, that the new patron is Bullish, a subsidiary of Block.One, which is run by Brendan Blumer, and has ties with several other questionable characters.

First off, I don’t like Brendan Blumer. Anything he touches seems to turn to lead, even while him and his cronies make a killing. His biggest professional accomplishment is fleecing retail investors for $4 billion in the EOS token sale in 2018. Then, he was clever enough to funnel that money into schemes that would enrich Block.One instead of anything that would actually yield a return-on-investment for the commoners that invested in EOS.

I truly find it amazing. Even with every available resource, Brendan Blumer, and his accomplices Dan Larimer and Brock Pierce, found a way to run EOS into the ground. Another example of Block.One’s stunning ineptitude is Voice, an ill-conceived and buzzword-laden social media app that the company poured more than $150 million into. Voice was abandoned in September of 2023.

As individuals, the trio have their own strange and storied histories, each long enough for its own newsletter. But the tldr is that I have more trust in the integrity of an Ikea bookshelf than I do in the gang who founded Block.One.

What Happens to CoinDesk?

I’m hoping, but not optimistic, that the leadership change at CoinDesk will resolve the underlying issues that have caused its growth to flounder. My main concern is the integrity and aptitude of the management behind Bullish. We will need to wait and see what kind of compromises CoinDesk will need to make to satisfy its new owners. But here’s a hint from Bullish front man and former NYSE president Thomas Farley: 

“...the restructuring was designed to shift CoinDesk’s media, indices and events businesses into a flatter organizational structure. Some CoinDesk functions, such as Human Resources, will now report to their equivalents at Bullish. CoinDesk’s tech and product teams will also be integrated with Bullish.”

To me, that sounds like an equivocal way of saying that CoinDesk will be losing a lot of its decision-making autonomy and independence. 

But maybe CoinDesk gets lucky. If the acquisition is more for optics than anything else, then in an ideal world, CoinDesk’s new owners might forget that the publication exists while still bankrolling its losses—similar to the parasitic relationship Decrypt had with its former host, Joseph Lubin.

The Big Picture

Overall, I’m ambivalent about the whole affair. It fits into my expectation of Web3 media becoming more corporate and more beholden to people with lots of money.

My prediction is that Web3 news corps will either get bought-out and rolled into the mega-media conglomerates, or hold out and fade into irrelevance. This trend is accelerating because of the efforts of traditional media companies to capture the crypto audience (see Bloomberg, CNBC, and Forbes). Keeping traffic and search ranking numbers up is tough against the juggernauts!

Once that happens, the content on crypto media platforms will be replaced by the same attention-grabbing clutter that populates Buzzfeed, the New York Times, and the rest of the internet.

I certainly hope I’m wrong.

Yours truly,
Mitchell Moos

P.S. In the next issue of 0xZeitgeist, I’ll be examining the business models fueling the major Web3 publications, as initially promised. If you found this newsletter thought-provoking, mash that like button to give me a little hit of dopamine.

Bonus Section for History Geeks

Here’s how I would describe CoinDesk’s current competitive environment using a metaphor: The year is 1700 AD. Each major publication gets a nation to embody its esprit de corps.

The Block would be represented by Great Britain—industrious and imperious—Decrypt would be idealistic and jingoist France, Blockworks would be the rapacious United Provinces (the Dutch), Crypto Briefing would be an addled Poland-Lithuania surrounded on all sides by hungry rivals, and CoinTelegraph, of course, would be Tsarist Russia, but with freelance writers instead of serfs.

CoinDesk would be the Ottoman Empire, already past its zenith and on its way to become the sick man of Europe.