FIGGE VS. THE “FREE” PRESS: Yuga Labs CEO Michael Figge Calls Out CoinDesk Over $300K “Glowing Research” Reports And “Ragebait Headlines On The Same Industry”
- Kyle
- 4 hours ago
- 3 min read
Things are anything but boring around the swamp after Michael Figge called out CoinDesk for what he describes as years of pay for play journalism of sorts, alleging glowing coverage for supporters and hit pieces on the entire industry at large!
“Over the past few years, I’ve woken up to random @CoinDesk articles shitting on our industry, and specifically NFTs. That alone wouldn't bother me. Criticism is healthy. The press should hold this space accountable,” he tweeted. “But while Coindesk takes $ 300k+ to write glowing “research” around companies in crypto, they also write ragebait headlines that shit on the same industry.”
Case in point, this morning, the outlet shared a report with its 3.5 million followers framing the recent price action around NFTs as a “mask” for a shrinking market, citing declining users and volume.
“Beneath the headline price gains, the market's structure tells a different story, as broad participation is shrinking,” reporter Sam Reynolds wrote, pointing to wash trading, negative aggregate profits, and a concentration of activity in a handful of collections.
But critics of that framing say it misses the bigger picture.
From the outside, the report paints a narrative of consolidation on the way to zero. Inside the ecosystem, however, the story looks different.
As the Gazette previously reported, Yuga Labs has been shifting toward real life experiences and community building under Figge’s leadership. The company has also launched an OTC desk for high end NFTs, aiming to bring back collecting around grail Apes, Mutants, and Otherside assets. At the same time, events across the Otherside continue to draw daily participation from the community.
Further, the idea that many projects from the 2021–2022 cycle would not last isn’t new.
Longtime NFT bull Gary Vaynerchuk has repeatedly said that most NFTs will go to zero and that the real opportunity lies in identifying the few that won’t.
“NFTs are collectibles for the rest of everyone’s life in here, the end” Gary said on Spaces in January 2026. “And I think that NFTs right now are just in the same place that many collectibles have been. Stamps, coins, trading cards, toys, they’re in a lull. This is a good one to end on, LEGOs were almost out of business 25 years ago. Then they started to do Star Wars and realized, oh shit, IP matters and their company exploded. So let there be no confusion, things can cycle back…. This is where we are at .NFTs are forever, NFTs are forever, NFTs are forever. Now the question becomes for all of us in 26 and 27, which are going to be the ones.”
With that context, Figge didn’t just stop at criticism, he put money where his mouth is. Figge revealed that he had opened a short position on CoinDesk’s parent company, Bullish, a few weeks ago.
“It’s about principle,” he tweeted. “The principle: you can’t hurt our community for your corporate gain. Why can a business shit on an industry it participates in and still aim to profit within it? Well, it can’t. That was my bet anyway. I’ve now closed the short up $5,387.46.”
While the trade is closed, Figge made it clear his stance isn’t.
“To be clear: the position is closed. Nothing I write here profits me from a trading standpoint. The trade is over. What's left is the principle,” he said. “I will use the money to take Bored Apes out to dinners, or Laker Games, or whatever the fuck I want - and every time I do, I will post an entire article about how I got the money (shorting Coindesk) and why I think Coindesk’s current approach is bad for our industry. Congrats Coindesk, you’re now at war with a fucking psycho. I will relentlessly bearpost this behavior until a representative reaches out to me and assures me that they’re going to knock this shit off.”
The Gazette reached out to CoinDesk’s Global Head of News, Aoyon Ashraf, for comment but had not received a response at the time of publication.
