Quick take:
- Vault was originally launched as a 6-week experiment.
- Almost a year since its launch, Vault is shutting down.
- CNN said the Vault NFT collection will “live on.”
CNN has decided to shutter its NFT project, Vault, the company revealed in a statement on Monday.
The CNN Vault project was announced last November as a 6-week experiment for releasing NFT Moments of stories and events as well as historic news coverage from the last 40 years. The news outlet also promised interested buyers that future NFT drops would include different topics and formats as “Vault by CNN grows and adapts to its community of collectors.”
Almost a year since CNN announced the Vault project, it has decided to bid it goodbye. The news outlet did not give a reason for the project’s shutdown, which left NFT buyers wondering what would happen to the CNN NFTs they purchased.
In the statement, CNN said that the “Vault NFT Collection will live on” and urged users to head to its Discord server for more information. Users can also access their CNN Vault NFTs via the VIV3 marketplace.
News of our own to share pic.twitter.com/qcxaDXNRYO
— Vault by CNN (@vaultbycnn) October 10, 2022
Some upset users called the abrupt end of CNN Vault a rug pull. In response to questions by users on Discord, a CNN Discord community manager said that there would be compensation for those who bought the NFTs.
“The distribution will be either FLOW tokens or stablecoins deposited into each collector’s wallet,” he wrote. “We are currently working out the details, but expect the distribution amount to be roughly 20% of the original mint price for each Vault NFT owned.”
CNN Vault previously partnered with Blocto to create a digital wallet, and with Infinite Objects to offer select users display cases allowing users to showcase their NFT purchases. Some of the topics depicted in the NFT art include President Obama’s 2012 re-election, war notes from Ukrainian citizens, he selection of Pope Francis and the release of Nelson Mandela from prison.
While CNN has never disclosed the amount it has made with the NFT sales of its Vault project, the company’s director of emerging products Jason Novack told Business Insider in April that: “NFTs are unlocking entirely new possibilities that have not existed until very recently – including being a strong source of revenue.”
Media outlets have been using NFTs to monetise their businesses over the past year. In March, South China Morning Post (SCMP) dropped its NFT collection and sold almost $127,000 worth of NFTs within the first two hours of launching.
Time Magazine has also entered the NFT space with NFTs of its past covers as well as an NFT store, TIMEPieces, selling Time-branded art from over 40 global artists. According to Press Gazette, Time made at least $10 million in nine months from Web3 ventures.
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