CoinDesk Reports Cointelegraph Is Seeking a Buyer After Traffic Collapse, Cointelegraph Denies Sale

CoinDesk reported on October 7 that Cointelegraph is seeking a buyer after a collapse in its web traffic, citing a person familiar with the matter. The source did not disclose an asking price.

According to the report, the crypto news outlet lost 80% of its organic search traffic after receiving a manual Google penalty in October 2025. Citing Similarweb estimates, it said monthly visits fell from more than 12 million in December 2024 to just above 700,000 by September 1, 2026. The figures cover different traffic measures: the 80% decline concerns search traffic, while the monthly visit totals include other sources.

The report also pointed to weaker interest in crypto news during a prolonged period of depressed prices, adding pressure on several digital asset newsrooms. Cointelegraph, founded in 2013, has more than 200 employees listed on LinkedIn.

Cointelegraph Accuses CoinDesk of Factual Errors and Demands a Correction

Cointelegraph issued a combative response in an X post, addressing CoinDesk’s publisher and editorial leadership directly and calling the report false and factually inaccurate.

The publication accused CoinDesk of using controversy to attract readers and sell events, saying commercial pressures were no excuse for misleading its audience. It also challenged the publisher’s responsibility for editorial standards, asking whether sensational headlines were being rewarded over accurate reporting.

Cointelegraph demanded that CoinDesk correct the record, clearly acknowledge the alleged errors, and give the correction the same visibility as the original claims. “Do not quietly change the wording and pretend the original reporting was sound,” it wrote.

Cointelegraph’s Traffic Collapse Followed Scrutiny of ClickOut Media’s iGaming Content

SEO investigator Timothy Malmros Genach published several investigations into Finixio and ClickOut Media’s SEO practices in late 2024. One investigation, published in December 2024, examined Cointelegraph’s iGaming section, alleging that ClickOut managed gambling content on the publisher’s website to benefit from its established search reputation. This practice, known as site reputation abuse, involves publishing third-party content on a trusted website primarily to rank higher in search results.

Genach identified differences between the iGaming section’s code, stylesheets, and navigation and those of Cointelegraph’s main news website. He also connected authors publishing in the section to ClickOut Media, including Graziella Calleja and Lucas Wallman. His findings suggested that the gambling section was managed separately while appearing under the Cointelegraph brand.

Genach later removed the investigations following a lawsuit from ClickOut Media.

In October 2025, ten months after Genach’s investigation, Cointelegraph’s search visibility collapsed. TheHolyCoins’ analysis identified a sharp decline beginning around October 6, followed by the removal of the publisher’s iGaming section. Archived pages show that the section remained accessible during the early days of the decline, with its main page captured by the Wayback Machine on October 12. By November 2025, the gambling pages returned errors.

Evidence linking the collapse to manual enforcement became stronger in August 2026. Google announced that, from August 30, manual actions under its site reputation policy would no longer affect search results shown to users in the European Economic Area. Enforcement outside the region continued. Cointelegraph’s estimated organic traffic began recovering around the same date, after months of almost no search visibility.