FTX’s collapse changes the face of crypto media, here’s how…

In late October, Sam Bankman-Fried and Erik Voorhees, a crypto evangelist with strong libertarian leanings, held a podcast debate on regulation in the industry. Little did Sam realize that this podcast would be the first domino in his demise.?

Sam’s call for stricter regulation and cooperation with the Treasury department was met with outrage across the Web3 Twitter community. Clips from the interview and Sam’s blog post spread like wildfire.?

Shortly after the interview, a balance sheet from Alameda, FTX’s sister company, leaked with troubling numbers regarding their assets and liabilities. It took less than ten days for FTX to go from industry darling to bankruptcy.?

The collapse didn’t only expose the cracks and myths surrounding decentralization, but also showcased the new power and power players of Web3 media.?

Let’s look at these new media power brokers and where they stand after the debris settles..?

The Paid Thought Leaders?

Similar to traditional finance, crypto has an entire class of thought leaders who are regularly paid by companies to promote tokens, exchanges and NFT collections. These thought leaders tread the line between paid marketers and independent thought leaders.?

But folks like Anthony, ‘Pomp,’ Pompiliano have emerged broken from the FTX scandal with their reputations in tatters as their loyal followers turned on them for “shilling” dubious projects without proper due diligence. These thought leaders were paid thousands to get users to sign up or simply promote projects.?

These established players are at risk of slipping from respected intellectuals to finance shock jocks.

The Citizen Journalist

From tracking SBF’s private jet to monitoring etherscan as FTX’s account was drained by hackers, citizen journalists like watcher.guru, Autism Capital and ZachXBT have gained massive followings reporting hundreds of tweets per hour in real time.?

These citizen journalists, with their anonymous profiles, haven’t taken the reputation hit like their thought leader counterparts and they’ve benefited as traditional media outlets lack the technical acumen to analyze the stories.?

Twitter spaces like “ " have hosted the likes of Elon Musk and Kim DotCom, and done exceptional work on deciphering which pieces of the FTX story can be backed up by data on the blockchain.?

The Mob Mentality

Perhaps even more powerful than the citizen journalist is the mob mentality and Twitter itself. If there was any doubt as to where the Web3 conversation holds court, it's irrefutable now that Twitter is in a class by itself.?

Everyday users churned out millions of memes of Sam and his co-founders. Users dug up old Tumblr fan pages of Caroline Ellison and details of FTX co-founder Gary Wang’s identity.?

Regardless of how one feels about the Twitter culture, it’s irrefutable that everyday users’ opinions and the movement of the mob can decimate even unicorn companies with just one tweet.