DL News to Shut Down After More Than Two Years of Crypto Investigations and Industry Reporting

DL News, the crypto media outlet launched alongside DefiLlama in 2022, is shutting down at the end of May, , by director Paige Aarhus.

In a farewell post published on the company’s website, Aarhus said the company had informed staff on May 1 that the publication would close after layoffs began in mid-April. She cited deteriorating conditions in digital media, shrinking traffic across crypto journalism, and the growing impact of AI-driven search disruption and content aggregation.

The closure marks the end of one of the more aggressive investigative newsrooms in crypto media during the post-FTX era. Despite operating with a relatively small team, DL News built a reputation for original reporting on DeFi exploits, founders, token projects, regulation, and industry scandals.

Traffic Declines and Distribution Challenges Became Unsustainable for DL News

In the closure announcement, Aarhus said DL News was originally created as the media arm of DefiLlama, the widely used DeFi data platform, after its founders became frustrated with both mainstream crypto coverage and promotional “shilling” common in crypto-native media.

The company launched during a very different media environment, before Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter and before AI tools dramatically altered online publishing and search traffic patterns.

Aarhus wrote that an internal conflict at DefiLlama in early 2023 effectively separated the two organizations operationally, despite the continued branding connection. According to the statement, DL News no longer had meaningful access to DefiLlama’s distribution network during the following years.

“We remained tied to the DefiLlama name and identity, but without meaningful operational alignment or access to its much larger distribution,” Aarhus wrote.

The company later attempted to diversify revenue through DL Research, a commercial research and analytics division launched in 2024.

DL Research Grew Rapidly but Could Not Save the Publication

According to Aarhus, DL Research became a successful business unit despite difficult market conditions.

She said revenue grew 270% in 2025 and surpassed seven figures in annual sales, with clients including major crypto firms. DL Research offered market research, on-chain analysis, sponsored research products, and custom reports for crypto companies.

Still, Aarhus said the growth was not enough to offset wider problems affecting crypto media.

“Traffic across crypto and tech media contracted severely,” she wrote. “AI accelerated the collapse of search distribution and enabled endless waves of parasitic aggregation.”

The DL News shutdown reflects growing pressure across digital publishing as publishers face declining search visibility, weaker advertising leverage, and growing competition from AI-generated summaries, aggregators, and social platforms.

Aarhus also defended the newsroom’s editorial work, saying reporters regularly faced legal threats after publishing investigations and accountability reporting.

“We angered powerful people often enough that legal threats became almost routine,” she wrote.

How DL News Positioned Itself in Crypto Media

During its two-and-a-half-year run, DL News built a reputation for investigative reporting and crypto-native financial journalism focused heavily on DeFi.

One of its most visible reporting efforts covered Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon after the collapse of Terra and Luna. Reporters traveled to the Balkans during Kwon’s time as a fugitive and published reporting tied to his movements and eventual arrest in Montenegro.

The outlet also produced investigations into Waves and the collapse of Vires Finance, including reporting around wallets allegedly connected to Waves founder Aleksandr Ivanov. Ivanov denied involvement in the allegations raised in coverage.

In early 2026, DL News published an investigation into , questioning discrepancies surrounding the project’s fundraising claims, exchange listing promises, employee payments, and mining hardware deliveries.

The publication also covered major crypto crime and scam investigations, including pig-butchering schemes, DeFi exploits, and hacks. One widely cited report included an interview with a figure claiming involvement in the $200 million Euler Finance exploit.

Outside investigations, DL News covered regulation, token markets, exchange activity, venture funding, and crypto policy developments. The newsroom regularly relied on DefiLlama data and on-chain analytics in its reporting.

What Was DL News?

DL News officially launched in January 2023, following development work that began in 2022. The publication was closely associated with DefiLlama, one of the crypto industry’s most widely used DeFi data aggregators.

The outlet positioned itself as an alternative to both traditional financial media and promotional crypto publications. Its editorial focus centered on original reporting, investigations, and market analysis rather than token promotion or influencer-driven coverage.

The company operated from Dubai and employed reporters, editors, analysts, and researchers across Europe and other regions.

DL News won a 2023 WAN-IFRA Digital Media Award Middle East for the Best Trust Initiative category. The publication also maintained an ombudsman role focused on media ethics and misinformation in crypto reporting.

Paige Aarhus, who authored the closure announcement and served as director of DL News, previously worked as a journalist and analyst covering international affairs and finance across the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Before joining DL News, her work appeared in outlets including VICE, The Spectator, World Politics Review, and The Banker.

The shutdown of DL News highlights the growing difficulty of sustaining independent crypto journalism even for outlets that built reputations through original investigations and industry reporting.