Down but not out: Civil hits token sale restart button

Blockchain-based journalism network, Civil, is to issue refunds to token sale participants after failing to hit the $8 million minimum it set out to raise.

In a blog post, Civil Founder, Matthew Iles, says: “It’s a setback for us, though not a shock. We watched the CVL token sale’s progress with the rest of you. We expected a different outcome when we launched the sale, but circumstances changed. We learned a lot of lessons which we will reflect on in the coming weeks and share with our community and the public.”

He adds that a new, much simpler token sale is in the works. “Civil is not going anywhere. The Civil Media Company is here to stay. The Civil Foundation now has $3.5 million in funding, and this doesn’t include the funding it will receive from the new sale of CVL tokens. We’re here to build, and we’re excited for this new beginning.”

Forbes

Last week we reported that Forbes had joined the venture’s network, becoming the first major media brand to begin experimenting with publishing content to its platform.

“We are relentlessly focused on rapid experimentation and implementation so that we can determine what’s in the best interest of our audience and what is next for our industry,” said Salah Zalatimo, Senior Vice President of Product & Technology at Forbes.

“Forbes and Civil believe passionately in the mission of journalism, and together we can provide audiences with a level of unprecedented transparency around our content. We’ll also be able to expand the reach of our writers and identify new revenue channels over time.”

Under the agreement, Forbes in the first quarter of next year will begin to publish metadata from select articles to the blockchain via Civil, where the information will be permanently archived and cannot be altered by any third-party. If all goes well with the experiment, Forbes may begin committing metadata from all of its articles to Civil’s decentralised network at some point later next year.