News website CoinDesk may be acquired. There is reportedly plenty of interest in a $300 million acquisition.
https://twitter.com/AlertingCryptos/status/1597685583962316800
Takeover rumour
CoinDesk is part and owned by the Digital Currency Group (DCG). There are reportedly several potential buyers, including private equity firms, family offices and competitors (including Blockworks).
Hedge funds are also said to be interested, but no formal sale process has been initiated (yet), anonymous sources said. The stated amount of $300 million would not be high enough, Semafor said.
CoinDesk caused a stir in the crypto market last month with good journalistic work. Through a leaked document, it became clear that Alameda Research’s balance sheet consisted mainly of FTT tokens. This was the catalyst for a reels of events, starting with the dump by Binance.
Eventually FTX collapsed, proved to be insolvent, hundreds of thousands of customers lost their balances and bitcoin dropped several thousand dollars.
CoinDesk reportedly earns about $50 million a year from advertisements and the conference they organise called Consensus.
A spokesperson for DCG declined to comment on the story.
Umbrella company
Worth noting: CoinDesk is part of DCG. In a letter to shareholders, CEO Barry Silbert spoke of problems with one of the group’s other companies.
Among others, Genesis Trading was affected by the collapse of FTX. They lost nearly $175 million because they had cryptocurrencies listed for derivatives trading. Also, Genesis Global Capital has billions in loans outstanding with other DCG companies.
Meanwhile, Foundry Digital, one of the other companies under the DCG umbrella, did briefly buy up two mining farms from bankrupt Compute North.
