On January 18, Wang Feng, founder of China-based news publication Marsbit, announced plans to buy Coindesk along with others in the crypto industry. This news follows a report from Semafor in late November 2022 that Coindesk had received buyout solicitations from several investors.
Coindesk’s presumed purchase price: $200 million or more, with Charles Hoskinson and Marsbit expressing interest in the buyout
Investors are reportedly considering buying crypto-currency news publication Coindesk after a Digital Currency Group (DCG) subsidiary, Genesis Global Capital, filed for bankruptcy protection. Coindesk is an independent news and conference company that is fully owned by DCG.
According to Charles Hoskinson, co-founder of Ethereum and founder of Cardano, sources familiar with the matter have indicated that the asking price for Coindesk media is around $200 million. Charles Hoskinson has expressed interest in buying Coindesk, as he stated in a YouTube video titled “Buy Coindesk“.
Hoskinson’s $200 million price tag is below the estimate given to Semafor in late November 2022, when sources informed the news outlet that investors were interested in buying Coindesk. At the time, Semafor’s Bradley Saacks and Liz Hoffman reported that there was a “suggested purchase price of $300 million“. The report added that people familiar with the matter had stated that the $300 million estimate was “considered too low.“
Bradley Saacks of Semafor said Coindesk generates most of its revenue from events such as Consensus conferences and advertising. Saacks notes that the “revenue pool for both is shrinking rapidly“. In addition to Charles Hoskinson, Wang Feng, the founder of China-based news publication Marsbit, also said Coindesk was a financial services company has announced its intention to buy the publication. Marsbit is a news publication supported by Binance.
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我相信加密产业的未来,愿意脚踏实地地做基础设施服务,无论是交易还是媒体。
加密元素旗下的火星财经(Marsbit)愿意组织多家知名基金联合收购整合Coindesk,包括其加密媒体和共识大会业务,有兴趣投资基金和业界公司可以谈。或者,谁有进一步的消息交易可以告诉我。 pic.twitter.com/URoNBUqDPq– 小隐|Element (@wangfeng_0128) January 19, 2023
Wang announced on January 18, 2023 that Marsbit is ready to “organize a number of well-known funds to jointly acquire and integrate Coindesk“, according to the founder’s tweet. He also stated that the conference activity Consensus would be included in the acquisition. Coindesk was originally founded in 2013 by an entrepreneur and Shakil Khan who is also the co-founder of Prima Materia and an early investor in Bitpay.
Coindesk was acquired by DCG in January 2016 for an estimated $500,000 to $600,000, according to a company press release. An article by Techcrunch reporter Lucas Matney. Coindesk published an article about the acquisition, noting that they were “excited” to join DCG and mentioning that DCG had been one of the “early investors and supporters” from Coindesk.