Crypto exchange Bullish buys 100% stake in crypto media site CoinDesk: Report

Cryp­to media plat­form Coin­Desk has been acquired by cryp­to exchange Bull­ish for an undis­closed sum, accord­ing to a report pub­lished in The Wall Street Jour­nal (WSJ) on Nov. 20.

The cryp­to exchange is head­ed by for­mer New York Stock Exchange pres­i­dent Tom Far­ley. The media plat­form said that for­mer Wall Street Jour­nal edi­tor-in-chief Matt Mur­ray will chair an inde­pen­dent edi­to­r­i­al com­mit­tee, and the cur­rent Coin­Desk edi­to­r­i­al team will remain intact.

Accord­ing to the report, Bull­ish acquired the cryp­to media plat­form in an all-cash deal, though the terms of the deal were not dis­closed. The media plat­form, pur­chased by Bar­ry Silbert’s Dig­i­tal Cur­ren­cy Group for $500,000 in 2016, had been in acqui­si­tion talks amid DCG’s finan­cial crunch fol­low­ing a severe cryp­to win­ter that saw many high-pro­file cryp­to firms face bank­rupt­cy. Accord­ing to reports, Coin­Desk gen­er­ates an annu­al rev­enue of $50 million.

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Bull­ish was not the only firm inter­est­ed in the media com­pa­ny. In July, a group of investors led by Matthew Roszak attempt­ed to pur­chase Coin­Desk for $125 mil­lion, but the deal didn’t materialize. 

Coin­Desk is not the only cryp­to media com­pa­ny to have strug­gled dur­ing the bear mar­ket. The Block also had to cut ties with its orig­i­nal founders after links with FTX sur­faced short­ly after the exchange col­lapsed. The cryp­to news plat­form sold a major­i­ty of its stake to Sin­ga­pore-based ven­ture cap­i­tal firm Fore­sight Ven­tures at a $70 mil­lion val­u­a­tion, which bought an 80% stake for $60 million.

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