Coindesk ready for sale? Investors Circle crypto news publication Genesis amid bankruptcy
Investors are considering buying news publication Coindesk after Digital Currency Group (DCG), a subsidiary of Genesis Global Capital, filed for bankruptcy protection. It is an independently operated news and conference business and operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of Digital Currency Group.
A source familiar with the matter indicated the value to CoinDesk is around $200 million, according to Ethereum and Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson. Hoskinson has shown his interest to buy Coindesk as we can see in a youtube video called “Buying Coindesk”.
Hoskinson’s $200 million bid is less than what Semaphore had estimated at the end of 2022, while investors are interested in buying Coindesk, according to a source. At the same time, Bradley Saks and Liz Hoffman of Semaphore indicated that an offer of a $300 million purchase price had been suggested, and people familiar with the matter reported that the $300 million estimate was “considered too low”. ”
Bradley Saks points out that CoinDesk generates most of its revenue from things like Consensus conferences and advertising and notes that the revenue “pool of both is rapidly shrinking.” In addition to Charles Hoskinson, Wang Feng, the founder of Marsbit, a news publishing company based in China, has just announced the purchase of the publication. Coming to Marsbit, this crypto exchange is backed by Binance which is the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume and services. According to the founder’s tweet, Wang announced on January 18, 2023, that Marsbit was ready to “organize a variety of well-known funds to jointly acquire Coindesk and bring it together”. He also said that the consent conference business would also be included in the acquisition. CoinDesk was originally founded in 2013 by Shakeel Khan, an entrepreneur who is also listed as the co-founder of Prima Materia and an early investor in Bitpay. CoinDesk was acquired by Digital Currency Group in January 2016 for an estimated amount of $50,000 to $60,000, according to a report by TechCrunch reporter Lucas Matney. Also noted in an article that he is excited to join the digital currency group, noting that , was one of CoinDesk’s “early investors and supporters’.
