One Year Later, CNN Shuts Down NFT Marketplace, Accused Of ‘Rugging’ Users

On Oct 12, 2022

After just over a year of operations, CNN is shuttering it’s NFT platform, ‘The Vault.’ Despite the crypto and NFT markets enduring substantial downturn throughout a good portion of this year, CNN was operating a modest, relatively under-the-radar NFT project that was the media outlet’s first web3 foray.

Despite nearly half a million dollars worth of sales revenue from the NFT releases on the platform, CNN is pulling the plug, and ‘vaulting The Vault.’ Let’s look at some insights around why the media behemoth is shutting down the platform.

CNN: A Case Study

We covered CNN’s entry into NFTs when the outlet announced their very first collection, ‘Moments That Changed Us,’ around the same time that Fox Entertainment was launching NFT initiatives. While other legacy media companies have had relatively limited successful engagements in web3 and NFTs (exceptions do exist however, such as TIME Magazine and their ‘TIMEPieces’ work). Other outlets, such as the Associated Press, have followed suite but with no real traction. CNN utilized the Flow blockchain for their collectables platform.

CNN's 'The Vault' was powered by Dapper Labs' Flow blockchain, a frequent blockchain of choice for corporate entertainment and sports properties and brands. | Source: FLOW-USD on TradingView.com

When The Backlash Hits

The platform’s Discord channel reportedly advised users on Tuesday that the platform would “undergo changes,” with the project’s official Twitter channel subsequently releasing the shutdown news:

News of our own to share pic.twitter.com/qcxaDXNRYO
— Vault by CNN (@vaultbycnn) October 10, 2022

The collectables are expected to remain available through the Vault site, but active maintenance and future releases are seemingly done for. Discord and Twitter community members expressed ire in the team’s handling of the matters, as up until now, the Vault communications were still building hype around an anticipated release next month, titled the ‘Art of Voting’ collection. The marketplace website has yet to state anything about a shutdown.

The news comes on the heels of a brutal beat for crypto on Tuesday, following two substantial hacks, reports of SEC investigations into NFT conglomerate Yuga Labs, and other bear-market-fuel that has hit the wire to start this week. ‘The Vault’ critics have described the closing chapter as a “rugpull,” claiming that CNN is just another traditional web2 publication that sought to take advantage of consumers, and that the platform is going back on it’s word in describing the project in present day as an “experiment” when it wasn’t previously described as such.