CoinDesk Revenue Slowed Before Sale to Bullish

Barry Silbert’s Digital Currency Group announced last week that it sold its crypto news subsidiary CoinDesk to the crypto exchange Bullish. Silbert said in a tweet that the sale made CoinDesk, which DCG bought for $500,000 in 2016, “one of our best investments of all time,” but the sale price was not disclosed and could not be learned.

What is clear, though, is that CoinDesk has seen its business slow dramatically over the past year as crypto advertisers have generally pulled back. One of CoinDesk’s big moneymakers is its Consensus conference, which was held in April this year. It also sells price indexes for crypto. It brought in $24 million in revenue in the first nine months of 2023, according to a person with direct knowledge of the company’s finances, putting it on track for full-year revenue that’s well below the $50 million it brought in for 2022. Its revenue is also on pace to come in below the projected $40 million it would generate this year as of July 2023, according to a deal memo viewed by The Information. A representative for CoinDesk declined to comment on the revenue figures.