CoinDesk Editorial Layoffs

CoinDesk’s parent company, Bullish, has fired three senior editorial staffers, including Editor-in-Chief Kevin Reynolds, according to several employees. The move comes after news broke on Thursday that upper management at Bullish forced CoinDesk editors to pull a feature story about Tron founder Justin Sun purchasing a $6 million conceptual artwork made of a banana and duct tape at auction.

Affected Staff

Deputy Editors-in-Chief Nick Baker, who previously worked at Bloomberg, and Marc Hochstein, who resigned as editor-in-chief of American Banker to join CoinDesk in 2017, were also affected by the layoffs. Both declined to comment. Fortune first reported the news.

Concerns About Editorial Independence

According to a letter sent to Bullish CEO Tom Farley and CoinDesk CEO Sara Stratoberdha, many members of CoinDesk’s editorial team are concerned about Bullish’s increasing influence over newsroom decisions. “In the original press release announcing Bullish’s acquisition of CoinDesk, you expressed your ‘unwavering support for CoinDesk’s commitment to journalistic independence,’” reads the letter. “Unbeknownst to most of the public — we no longer function as an ‘independent subsidiary’ of our parent company. Instead, we have been fully absorbed into Bullish, a crypto exchange that directly competes with many of the companies we cover.”

CoinDesk was purchased for $75 million by Bullish in 2023, while its previous owner, Digital Currency Group, faced bankruptcy. The acquisition followed CoinDesk’s publication of award-winning scoops related to the FTX fraud.

Editorial Direction and Layoffs

At the time, Bullish hired former Wall Street Journal EiC Matt Murray to a “one-person” editorial committee to serve as a liaison between editorial and business operations. However, staffers have noted that Murray is “stretched thin” by other responsibilities, including serving as executive editor at the Washington Post. On Thursday, it was reported that Murray resigned from the CoinDesk-Bullish editorial board.

In late November, CoinDesk reporter Callan Quinn published an article about Justin Sun’s purchase of a conceptual art piece. Following publication, representatives for Sun reportedly reached out to Farley, requesting the article be removed due to its irreverent tone. Farley “ordered” CoinDesk “to take down an article at the behest of TRON,” according to the letter. Though now offline at CoinDesk, the article was syndicated to Yahoo News.

Ethical Concerns and Future Outlook

The letter highlights that the decision to retract the article “was outrageous,” showing blatant disregard for editorial independence and harming CoinDesk’s reputation. CoinDesk has gone through multiple rounds of layoffs since being acquired by Bullish last year.

Management’s Intentions

Bullish emailed its employees, including reporters at CoinDesk, indicating plans to go public and that such news should be kept confidential. Farley believes the newsroom should drive revenue rather than being a loss leader. CoinDesk staffers have raised concerns about being turned into cheerleaders for Bullish and the Consensus conference series. They indicated that management has also “placed limits on our ability to publish opinion articles … to avoid offending industry leaders.”

Despite previous ownership’s conflicts, the CoinDesk journalists noted a clear firewall between the companies. However, they now say they have been “fully absorbed into Bullish” and are encouraged to attend weekly “Bullish Scrum” meetings that are largely irrelevant to journalism.

“Bullish no longer seems interested in operating CoinDesk as a real newsroom,” the journalists wrote. “Instead, it feels we are being kept in stasis until your IPO, after which point we will be hung out to dry or repurposed as a thinly-veiled marketing arm for Bullish and the broader crypto industry.”

Editor’s note: Removes a statement about a clause in CoinDesk’s employee contract, which was never effective, as explained by a current employee after publication.