January 20, 2023: Crypto trade publication CoinDesk is investigating a potential sale, hiring advisors at Lazard to weigh a shift that would remove it from Barry Silbert’s Digital Currency Group.

“Over the previous months, we can get numerous inbound indications of interest in CoinDesk,” CEO Kevin Worth stated in an emailed statement. The Wall Street Journal was the initial to report on the media company’s hiring of Lazard.

CoinDesk, in the year 2013, broke the first story about potential balance sheet improprieties at Sam Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research.

That reporting sparked a downward spiral at crypto exchange FTX, ultimately leading to the company’s collapse in November, the arrest of Bankman-Fried and multiple regulatory probes.

The contagion from the FTX meltdown hit CoinDesk’s sister company Genesis, a crypto lender owned by DCG that hired advisors for a potential bankruptcy filing after freezing withdrawals and loan origination.

Genesis is also the topic of a Securities and Exchange Commission charge alongside the crypto exchange Gemini.

Worth said Lazard is helping CoinDesk “explore many options to attract growth capital to the CoinDesk business, including a partial or full sale.”