Blockchain-powered network Civil's token sale failed because people buy into blockchain to make money and don't necessarily want to use it to “fix” journalism
Alas, the Blockchain Won’t Save Journalism After AllBy Jonah Engel BromwichThe Problem
The technology that undergirds cryptocurrency is complex, but because it’s been touted as the next big thing for the last several years — teenagers have Coinbase Wallets and various semi-normal people got rich quick with Bitcoin and then poor quicker — it feels as if even the less financially sophisticated of us should have wrapped our heads around the whole phenomenon.
People who are in a strong position to understand what Civil is doing — either because they are experts on blockchain technology or because they work for one of its newsrooms — have openly admitted that they don’t understand how the organization works. The rate of such statements only increased as Civil’s token sale got underway in September.
Joe Weisenthal
I know it's in vogue to say this, but I've read at least a dozen explainers/articles/videos now on Civil, and I don't get it either.
Neeraj K. Agrawal
@NeerajKA
I don’t understand how Civil works
The collective confusion might have something to do with how the Civil token (called a CVL) is meant to work.
“People who want to buy CVL tokens are token buyers, not investors,” Mr. Iles said this summer. “The consumer token is critical to us because what we are essentially doing for the person is deploying a cryptocurrency that is primarily about using it to operate a network.”
In essence, that means: Buying CVL isn’t meant to make you money.
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (which introduced blockchain technology to the world) and Ethereum are commodities — like gold, they fluctuate in value whether they are used or not. CVL tokens were designed to function as consumer items. In practice, that means that Bitcoin and Ethereum have tempted even know-nothings to make a purchase in the hopes of getting rich quick. Civil is asking people to buy in for the privilege of enthusiastically participating in running a blockchain-media platform.
Or, as Mr. Iles put it: “We even think that we are going to be able to show people that it’s more fun, it’s more rewarding, to pay for the news using CVL tokens as opposed to cash.”
But many people aren’t willing to pay normal money for journalism.
“Look, we sometimes get asked, are we too early?” Mr. Iles said. “And the answer is absolutely yes. But you only are ever going to be too early or too late.”
Fewer than three thousand people were willing to buy tokens. The sale certainly suffered from how complicated the buying process turned out to be. John Keefe, a writer at Quartz who wanted to invest in the project, described his experience in an article for Nieman Lab, “How to buy into journalism’s blockchain future (in only 44 steps).”
Catherine Tucker, an MIT economist who has paid close attention to the rise of blockchain, said that she thought Civil had a targeting issue.
“Ultimately the ideal customer is someone who knows enough about crypto to get through the token-buying test and cares enough about journalism to not mind that the token is restricted in its use,” she said. “I suspect that it is a small intersection of the population.”
Aimee Rinehart
@aimeetwoee
Sorry to read about the @Join_Civil token setback. I tried to buy but after a longish quiz was told I need to know more about crypto currency
https://cnn.it/2P0hOwA Civil Media's token sale has failed
Civil Media's ambitious plans for journalism suffered a big setback this week.
cnn.com
Aimee Rinehart
@aimeetwoee
I understand crypto currency & blockchain blah blah blah, but I never really understood this effort. Perhaps the reboot will be less complicated? Here's hoping for @Join_Civil & journalism!
Perhaps the biggest problem is that the project is bad. Just like the vast majority of all the latest ICOs that have been released. This can and should be compared to the beginning of the internet where many felt that the great value of a company was in their domain name, even when there was no solid company behind.
