The community response to CCN announcing that it would shut down was a mixed bag. Cynics on /r/Bitcoin dubbed its news reporting as 'half-assed clickbait' and so good riddance, they said.
Critics elsewhere have pointed to the fact that CCN is at fault for being mostly dependent on Google for the bulk of its web traffic. This is a little unfair: news sites the world over have been forced to succumb to the absolute power of the ad-driven data giant.
Having seen first-hand what it's like in a modern newsroom - for a top 3 regional paper in the UK, one of the best performing 'local' news outlets - I can say that CCN are not the exception. Even many established institutions are struggling.
Previously their main income stream came from ads, but now the Facebook and Google duopoly hold an iron grip on 60% of the U.S. advertising market and this is even more pronounced in the UK. News sites are battling against the odds with their business model having been eroded more quickly than many of them have been able to react.
I recall a gloomy staff meeting where the managing editor told reporters and editors that the state of news was changing. He said that perhaps in the past they were arrogant in refusing to sit down with publicists. In the present climate, he stressed, advertisers hold all the cards and in many cases are the key to an effective business model for newspapers.
Which leads to the next issue of PR agencies paying crypto news sites to place articles featuring a blockchain project, a problem that is near endemic in the space (see picture below). But not on CCN.
Cost of placing a promotional article without a sponsored tag. Source: Breaker Mag.
Even the best reporting in the space is not enough to remove the need to face a daily existential question: are journalism ethics more important than surviving to continue to write the news?
CCN gave their answer when they announced their shutdown. Other crypto news sites thrive on adverts disguised as journalism, extracting lofty sums from bloated marketing budgets. This just doesn't feel right.
Because if we are going to be blunt about the state of cryptocurrency markets right now then we must admit that there is rarely any solid notion of real value. People are usually advised only to trade and speculate on cryptos when they know what they are doing.
But this does not stop retail investors fantasising about fast, massive, easy altcoin gains.
Add this to the fact that startups are not always aiming to show their world-changing version of a blockchain - or layer on top of it, many haven't even built their own - to genuine enthusiasts. No, they want retail investors who will gamble on their altcoin with visions of parabolic gains. They primarily want their marketing team to secure funding for them.
This is a very, very dodgy space to operate in. For traditional financial markets it was always the case that a person may 'overhear' what is said in a board room, might see tell-tale signs written on a CEO's face before making savvy stock decisions mere moments before price movements.
You just have to look at Enjin coin, which rose 206 per cent within one day of the public getting wind of an official partnership with Samsung. These are insane gains for markets that are largely unregulated and this should be ringing major alarm bells.
Enjin's parabolic rise and following correction. Source: TradingView.
Imagine someone privy to the upcoming partnership buying up Enjin coin, knowing the coin was at that point undervalued but would soon become overvalued after the Samsung announcement became public knowledge (we know that FOMO-driven investors tend to instigate a late, final price surge).
Someone with inside knowledge of the partnership could theoretically have tripled their money within a few hours and then cashed out to the detriment of everyone who bought in late.
For me, this is a stark warning of how careful we need to be with encouraging retail investors. Accepting large sums of cash to write 'news' that effectively advertises a cryptocurrency is nothing short of disgusting when there are so many murky forces at play. Most new buyers will almost certainly have absolutely no idea how little they are aware of.
A fine way to encourage sensible, measured interest in crypto is through trustworthy news.
CCN through all of the question marks still surrounding the shutdown - it's not hard to believe they were struggling, nor that they are so reliant on Google rankings... many companies are - can deliver on a promise to report the news without ulterior motives.
In a climate where even top crypto news group Cointelegraph was implicated in the scandal, this is more valuable than ever.
Thank the crypto gods that CCN rose from the dead. Whether this was a publicity stunt (as some in the community claim) doesn't necessarily matter.
What is important is that we heed the warning: objective and ethical journalism is vital for the integrity of crypto. Breaker Mag has already closed down for lack of a viable business model. Losing CCN would be another devastating blow.