During the demise of FTX, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong praised the work of crypto experts and citizen journalists.

Coinbase CEO and co-founder Brian Armstrong praised citizen journalists and blockchain analysts for their work on the FTX crisis and its former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.

Armstrong suggested in a Nov. 16 tweet that had been retweeted over 9,000 times at the time of writing that regular citizens, rather than traditional media, had uncovered many of the developments associated with FTX’s liquidity crisis and subsequent bankruptcy filing.

In response to a recent New York Times “puff story,” Armstrong stated, “Feels like a turning moment for citizen journalism and loss of faith in MSM.”

Mainstream media will still thrive, but increased competition from citizens will cause them to be more accurate, as their oligopoly on information is disrupted

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 11, 2022

Crypto Twitter has also been critical of the story, with Polygon Studios CEO Ryan Wyatt tweeting at the author that Bankman-Fried had “done grave crimes” and that the article was “a disservice to all of those touched.”

Since acquiring the social media network in October, Elon Musk has tweeted several times about the emergence of citizen journalism.

Mainstream media will still thrive, but increased competition from citizens will cause them to be more accurate, as their oligopoly on information is disrupted

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 11, 2022

On Nov. 5, blockchain tracker Whale Alert announced that just under 23 million FTX tokens (FTT), representing approximately 17% of the circulating supply and valued at $584.8 million at the time, had been moved onto Binance.

This event turned out to be one of the first signs of FTX’s liquidity crisis, a story that the New York Times did not cover until November 8.