Singapore’s GBCI Ventures led a $10 million investment in Cailu, a Chinese news platform that seeks to use Blockchain and token payments to promote accurate news and ferret out fake stories. GBCI, which bills itself as a smart-city venture fund, led the round with Orka Capital.
Douglas Gan, GBCI co-founder and CEO said that Cailu is “capable of incentivizing high-quality news and disincentivizing low-quality content and even fake news,” according to Deal Street Asia.
Cailu, a year-old startup, provides cryptocurrency incentives to boost participation from users and its content creators base. Users earn the company’s CLC token by completing various activities on the platform, such as reading, commenting or providing content.
- Companies are beginning to explore Blockchain as a potential solution to journalism’s fake news problem. Competitors to Cailu include LBRY, a decentralized content sharing platform; Steem, a startup that rewards users for sharing content; and nwzer, a Blockchain-based crowdsourced news platform.
- U.S.-based Civil, a similar Blockchain journalism platform, was forced to cancel its ICO in October 2018 after it failed to hit its lofty goal of selling $8 million worth of its token, CVL.
- Karma Take: Blockchain is growing as a potential solution to journalism’s woes, but the validity and longevity of its application in the media space has yet to be proven on a larger scale.
