According to Parker Molloy, CNN discontinued their massive Web3 initiative on Monday afternoon by saying, “we have decided that it’s time to bid goodbye to the Vault by CNN.”
Vault by CNN started in the summer of 2021 as a marketplace for its own NFTs (non-fungible tokens) that would “provide collectors with the chance to own a piece of history.” It was similar to NBA Top Shot, only it produced CNN stories of major events or creative renditions inspired by them, generating digital treasures that owners could show off or barter with others, similar to baseball cards. When bitcoin prices were sky-high and articles concerning NFTs didn’t contain language like “trading volumes plummet 97 percent from January peak,” this theory seems more logical.
Things have certainly altered as the “crypto winter” has set in, albeit the Press Gazette reported in April that CNN had made more than $300,000 from the transactions.
Another statement on the service’s Discord channel advised owners that although the Vault website would “undergo adjustments,” they will still be able to browse their collections and utilize the marketplace. The community’s reactions included shock, disappointment, and a few posters threatening to contact their lawyers while accusing CNN of a “rug pull,” which in crypto terms refers to when a development team unexpectedly withdraws support — and funds — from a project, leaving those who invested with nothing.
CNN said in the Discord that it intends to pay “the thousands of collectors who joined us in this experiment” with distributions depending on the purchase price of each wallet’s NFTs as of October 6th. CNN worker “Jason” said in a separate message, “The distribution will be either FLOW tokens or stablecoins placed into each collector’s wallet.” We are still ironing out the specifics, but we anticipate that the distribution amount will be about 20% of the initial mint price for each Vault NFT held.” He also said that the actual material for the NFTs is kept in IPFS, a distributed file system, so they should be accessible even if CNN’s website goes down.
