Coinbase Launches 'Fact Check' To Combat Misinformation About Crypto, But The Community Is Not Impressed

What Happened: Crypto exchange Coinbase Global Inc COIN unveiled ‘Fact Check’- a new section of the company’s blog that will be dedicated to “combat misinformation and mischaracterizations about Coinbase or crypto being shared in the world.”

https://t.co/kfwro8UXLV

— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) May 26, 2021

“To become a source of truth, companies will increasingly need to be comfortable sharing facts which paint them in a negative light as well,” said the exchange’s CEO Brian Armstrong in a blog.

The Fact Check section already has four stories published, where Coinbase has “reacted to recent misinformation” about a range of topics, including Bitcoin’s effect on the environment and Coinbase executives' share sales at the time of its direct listing.

Why It Matters: So far, the introduction of Fact Check has received a mixed response from the crypto community.

See also: How to Buy Coinbase (COIN) Stock

While some were supportive of the company’s move, others were skeptical of whether the company would be able to disseminate facts in an unbiased manner.

According to a Chinese journalist Colin Wu, Coinbase’s article that states that “half of global mining takes place in Sichuan, China,” is in itself inaccurate.

There are a lot of factual errors in this article, such as 'Half of global mining takes place in Sichuan'. Study the real facts instead of using rumors to write articles https://t.co/D3rayD6Khy https://t.co/HLbfilrwiY

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) May 27, 2021

What Else: Armstrong concluded that over time, more and more companies would “go direct” and build their own media arm.

In the future, he plans to move beyond fact-checking and start creating original content to communicate with its audience.

See also: Former White House Advisor Joins Coinbase As Chief Policy Officer

“Distribution of our content will happen through podcasts, YouTube, our blog, Twitter, and every other channel we own. But in the future, it will also likely move to more crypto native platforms, like Bitclout, or crypto oracles,” he said.

Coinbase shares closed at $247.09, 2.31% higher that during the intraday trading. It was at $247, 0.036% lower after-hours.

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