Vitalik boycotting Coindesks 2018 conference

VITALIK is boycotting Coindesk’s 2018 Consensus conference and strongly recommends others do the same.

Yesterday (26th April) Vitalik Buterin tweeted a list of questionable behavior from the cryptocurrency news site coindesk.

Pointing out there complacency towards giveaway scams, ignorance when covering EIP999, poor reporting policies and finally he refused to contribute to “That level of rent seeking”.

I am boycotting @coindesk's Consensus 2018 conference this year, and strongly encourage others to do the same. Here is my reasoning why. 1. Coindesk is recklessly complicit in enabling giveaway scams. See their latest article on OMG, which *directly links* to a giveaway scam. pic.twitter.com/WDr9uZ8XOw — Vitalik "Not giving away ETH" Buterin (@VitalikButerin) April 26, 2018

2. Their coverage of EIP 999 was terrible. They published a highly sensationalist article claiming the chain would split, when it was very clear that EIP 999 was *very far* from acceptance. This is why pundits need to be replaced by prediction markets, ASAP. pic.twitter.com/6A7OWlx0nR — Vitalik "Not giving away ETH" Buterin (@VitalikButerin) April 26, 2018

4. And by the way, the conference costs $2-3k to attend. I refuse to personally contribute to that level of rent seeking. — Vitalik "Not giving away ETH" Buterin (@VitalikButerin) April 26, 2018

Shortly after this announcement OmiseGO also announced that they would not be attending the conference.

Citing that Coindesk’s behavior is bigger than just one error. Failure to use proper due diligence when reporting on token projects is directly harmful to both the readers and users of the technology.

We have decided to join @vitalikbuterin in not attending #Consensus2018. We can’t in good conscience support a publication that puts its readers at risk through careless reporting and reacts with hostility rather than humility when the error is brought to its attention. https://t.co/mXjCj0g5IW — OmiseGO (@omise_go) April 26, 2018

This marks another stain on Coindesks reputation which as other twitter users were quick to point out has not been up to the best standard.