Civil Issues Refunds to All Buyers of its Cryptocurrency

Blockchain start-up issues refund to buyers of its Initial Coin Offering. Their plan was doomed to fail, but no one can say that The Civil Media Company lacked ambition.

The Brooklyn-based blockchain start-up and media champion pledged to sell over $8 million worth of its initial coin offering, entitled CVL Ethereum-based tokens. Its aim was to sell 34 million CVL tokens, the proceeds of which would be used to create a new economy for journalism using the blockchain. The sale started on September 18th, and 1,012 buyers purchased $1,435,491 worth of CVL tokens.

A company spokesperson revealed that an additional 1,738 buyers successfully registered, but never completed their sale. The sale ended on Monday, October 15th and much to the sceptics’ smug delight, Civil’s ICO, failed to attract sufficient interest. The company, which was set up in 2017, admitted, they were disappointed with the result of the sale, not overly surprised.

Civil chief executive officer Matthew Iles revealed in his blog just before the sale end:

“This isn’t how we saw this going. The numbers will show clearly enough that we are not where we wanted to be at this point in the sale when we started out. But one thing we want to say at the top is that until the clock strikes midnight on Monday, we are still working nonstop on the goal of making our soft cap of $8 million.”

In a last bid attempt to sell more tokens, the company reportedly reached out to newspapers and media sources such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Dow Jones and Axios, and more but to no avail. There were only 1,012 investors who purchased $1,435,491 worth of CVL tokens, so the company missed out its soft cap by $6.5 million. Many sceptics are saying it was obvious that Civil wouldn’t hit its target and they certainly faced challenging conditions.

Many crypto and blockchain start-ups have struggled amid the bear market, losing clients and interested investors. Even golden coins like Coinbase have watched in dismay as their US customers beat a hasty retreat. But despite its setback, Civil is holding its head up high in the face of adversity and has vowed to provide a full refund to all who purchased CVL tokens. It aims to have completed all refund transactions by October 29th and it hasn’t been put off by the failed sale. Civil is now putting all its energy into organising a new token sale which promises to be much simpler.

After these tokens have been distributed, Civil then aims to launch a blockchain-publishing plugin for WordPress, a community governance application called The Civil Registry and a developer tool for non-blockchain developers to build apps on Civil. Civil already has a head start on achieving its goal as blockchain venture studio ConsenSys has promised to buy $3.5 million worth of those new tokens.

Capital raised from the token sale will be donated to the Civil Foundation, an independent non-profit foundation funded by Civil that gives grants to the newsrooms in Civil’s network.

Civil has also been securing deals with major media outlets, such as the world-famous Associated Press, which will be using the company’s services, as well as Forbes.

When it was established, Civil’s ultimate goal was to transform the management of digital journalism and create a “new economy for journalism” using the power of blockchain and crypto economics whilst restoring trust and credibility in the profession.

The 14 initial newsrooms that received seed funding from Civil will keep running for now — and they will also receive a share of the $3.5 million from ConsenSys.

By Joy Lewis.