Blockchain-Based Journalism Platform Civil Announces Shutdown

Civil, a journalism startup based on blockchain technology, and a group that considers itself a “decentralized marketplace for sustainable journalism,” has announced that it will end in a new blog post.

Now, the team at Civil will work with ConsenSys to “build identity solutions on Ethereum.” The goal was for it to be a public-operated journalism platform and to innovate the industry while providing “cutting-edge” technology.

“Several months ago, we started to develop products related to decentralized identity in the media and advertising space, which attracted enterprise interest for use cases such as trackable content licensing and transparent ad decisioning,” the post notes.

At that time, the group had started working with ConsenSys to help build identity and provenance tracking, it says. This leads in to the next steps for the Civil team, as they can’t continue alone due to the failure to independently sustain themselves.

Fortunately, those who have already written on Civil will see their work remaining online. This is partly due to the decentralization of the network overall, as it doesn’t need a company to maintain the platform.

“Civil will always hold a special place in my heart. Our grand experiment did not achieve its mission, but we did succeed in bringing many people together around something radically different and in service of something deeply important. Our mission for journalism is more important now than ever. I’m grateful for our chance to make a difference,” ends the post by Matthew Iles, the Civil CEO.