An article on Justin Sun’s “ridiculous” banana-buying stunt published by CoinDesk was taken down by the crypto news outlet after Sun complained about the tone of the piece. 

Fortune reports that an objection from Sun’s team prompted an intervention from CoinDesk’s owner, crypto exchange Bullish. 

Bullish removed the December 2 opinion article titled “I Watched Justin Sun Eat the World’s Most Expensive Banana. I Don’t Get It.” A number of CoinDesk journalists subsequently attempted to get it reuploaded — while highlighting the need for editorial independence — at a meeting with Bullish CEO Tom Farley and CoinDesk CEO Sara Stratoberdha.

While the article is viewable on Yahoo, it’s currently not on the CoinDesk website. 

Read more: Justin Sun directed wash trading scheme from his US apartment, SEC claims

It was written by Callan Quinn and details his experience watching Sun eat the $6.2 million art piece. To recap, eating the banana doesn’t diminish the piece in any way. Quinn called the event “ridiculous,” and said that he couldn’t comprehend the artistic merit behind the art piece itself. 

What may have rubbed Sun the wrong way was the inclusion of last year’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charge that accused him of secondary market wash trading, fraud, and other securities law violations. Sun is fighting this case. 

In addition, Quinn touched on Sun threatening legal action against news outlets that are reporting on the use of his Tron blockchain by terrorists. Reuters reported that Tron is popular with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah, and that Israel’s counter-terrorist agencies have frozen 186 Tron wallets since July 2021. 

CoinDesk editor resigned this week

Bullish bought CoinDesk last year for over $70 million and said it would operate CoinDesk as an “independent subsidiary.” It appointed the executive editor of the Washington Post, Matt Murray, as the chair of CoinDesk’s editorial committee.

However, Fortune reports that Murray resigned on Monday. He declined Fortune’s request for comment. 

The crypto exchange has a 24-hour volume of $2.5 billion and the 94 spot on CoinGecko’s top crypto exchange list. Tron was also a sponsor of CoinDesk’s Consensus event and was picked as one of CoinDesk’s most influential figures in crypto. 

For the record, Protos also thinks that Sun’s banana stunt was ridiculous and that he’s basically paid $6 million to have to replace a piece of fruit every seven to 10 days. Our newsroom is, however, completely independent, so we’ll be keeping our Sun articles up for the rest of time.

Protos has reached out to Bullish, CoinDesk, Matt Murray, and Callan Quinn for comment.  

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Bullish, the cryptocurrency exchange funded by Block One, has reportedly purchased CoinDesk in an all-cash deal with undisclosed terms.

This comes after a previously reported deal with Matthew Roszak and Peter Vessenes appears to have fallen apart.

CoinDesk’s current parent company, Digital Currency Group, has been facing a series of problems, including civil lawsuits that allege fraud. 

What is Bullish?

Bullish is a cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2021 with an investment from Block One. Block One was the firm that conducted a purported $4 billion dollar ICO for the EOS token.

Block One ended up paying a $24 million fine to the Securities and Exchange Commission for selling unregistered securities.

Bullish initially intended to go public using a Special Purpose Acquisition Corporation (SPAC) at a valuation of $9 billion, which included approximately $6 billion in assets that it received from Block One. This was eventually called off following a failed settlement between Block One and EOS investors. 

Read more: Who is CoinDesk’s likely buyer Matthew Roszak?

One of Bullish’s key distinguishing features was that “Bullish cross-hashes to the EOS Public Blockchain to facilitate externally verifiable state integrity.” Protos was unable to find any information on Bullish’s website or support documents about how one would go about using information on the EOS blockchain to externally verify state integrity and has reached out to Bullish to see if they can provide additional information on how this process works. 

Tom Farley, the CEO of Bullish and former president of the New York Stock Exchange, stated that the firm intends to operate CoinDesk as an “independent subsidiary,” maintain the current management team, and will form a new editorial committee led by former Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Matt Murray.

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The post A look into Bullish, the crypto exchange buying CoinDesk appeared first on Protos.

Two recent opinion articles from CoinDesk, one comparing Justin Sun to SBF and Do Kwon, and another suggesting that Chainalysis had accuracy issues with its software, were recently retracted.

The double retraction — a rarity for an outlet as esteemed as CoinDesk — took place on August 26 and immediately gave rise to a raft of rumors and theories. And while the real reason behind the move isn’t quite as fascinating as some have suggested, the story behind it might be.

Loosely defined policy

According to sources familiar with the matter, the op-ed (opposite the editorial) section at CoinDesk had a loose policy that allowed for the publishing of pieces by anonymous and pseudonymous authors. At least it didn’t explicitly forbid them.

However, since the retractions, it’s become clear that this policy has changed.

It’s important to put these retractions into context. CoinDesk is preparing to be sold off by its parent organization, Digital Currency Group (DCG). As it readies itself for the sale, it’s no surprise to see the company essentially cleaning house or to see editorial staff deciding they’re uncomfortable with publishing.

However, reasoning aside, there’s no doubt that quietly deleting stories, not telling the authors, and hoping no one would notice has bad optics written all over it.

Read more: Opinion: Charles Hoskinson would be the worst thing to happen to CoinDesk

Hanlon’s Razor

Of course, as the unannounced retractions were discovered this weekend by internet sleuths, speculation around why CoinDesk chose to remove those particular stories went into overdrive. Was it pressure from DCG companies? Threats from Sun? Was money involved? The answer to all of those is a flat-out “no.”

Instead, staff have pointed to leadership issues at the company, with chief content officer Michael J. Casey taking time off immediately following the wave of layoffs. There are also claims of a lack of communication with journalists and editors who find themselves unsure of policy guidelines.

Regardless, there’s no need to cook up conspiracy theories or speculate about the possibly nefarious reasons for the retractions. CoinDesk is still home to some of the most talented journalists and editors covering the cryptocurrency industry and their objectivity and breaking news coverage remain top-tier and intact.

However, there’s no denying that the company’s brand and image have taken a knock due to the way in which the retractions were carried out.

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CoinDesk has reportedly laid off approximately 40% of its editorial staff in preparation for its forthcoming acquisition by Matthew Roszak and Tally Capital alongside Peter Vessenes of Capital6.

The cuts come just months after CoinDesk journalists were awarded a George Polk Award for their reporting, which helped expose Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX, and Alameda Research. The knock-on effects of that reporting have led to a number of bankruptcies across the ecosystem, including at CoinDesk’s sister company Genesis.

This may have been a potential motivating factor in Digital Currency Group’s (DCG) decision to look for a buyer for the outlet. 

Roszak, one of the reported acquirers, has a long history in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, dating all the way back to the days of Mt. Gox.

Read more: Opinion: Charles Hoskinson would be the worst thing to happen to CoinDesk

Before he was in cryptocurrency, Roszak had a long history as an investor, often collaborating with Andrew ‘Flip’ Filipowski. Filipowski runs Tally Capital and Silk Road Equity with Roszak, and he also used to run Blue Rhino. Roszak notably had to settle charges with the SEC over insider trading in a Blue Rhino merger.

He also co-headed an initiative to hand each member of Congress $50 worth of digital assets, however not all took him up on the offer.

Once Roszak moved into crypto, he had a variety of roles. After the collapse of Mt. Gox, he partnered with several Tether co-founders, including Brock Pierce, William Quigley, and Jonathan Yantis, in a project called Sunlot Holdings, through which he hoped to re-acquire and re-launch Mt. Gox.

They were aided in this effort by John Betts, who would eventually start Noble Bank with Pierce (which banked Tether), and Louis Freeh, who would later provide a memo attesting to the quantity of Tether reserves.

After the project hit a variety of legal difficulties, including a lawsuit from Vessenes and his company CoinLab against the Gox estate, Tally Capital began investing in a variety of other firms.

Its investments include:

• Binance
• Blockstream
• GoCoin
• Block.One
• Coinbase
• Core Scientific

Now they’ve set their sights on one of the most important news outlets in cryptocurrency — which has subsequently shed half of the editorial team that helped build this reputation.

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