I'm pretty sure I purchased Civil tokens today — literally buying into an experiment to put journalism on the blockchain.
After the sale, There were no tokens in my wallet and no indication my purchase was "on its way." Just a blank screen.
Unsettling, but I'm not actually worried.
UPDATED at 7:45 pm ET on 9/17/2018 with new information. See the end of the post for details.
It's my time to go crypto.
I've followed blockchain technology, principles and trends for years without getting involved, but now have couple of reasons to get real: A new blockchain-based journalism project is about to launch, and my employer, Quartz, just launched a new cryptocurrency newsletter.
It also seemed perfect for my practice of beginning new things repeatedly.
Earlier this year, friends Manoush Zomorodi and Jen Poyant left their public radio jobs to join a new journalism … thing … called Civil. I had heard snippets about Civil, and started listening to Manoush's and Jen's podcast, ZigZag, part of which attempts to explain it.
After weeks of being pretty confused, I think I get it. Here's my attempt: Civil is a system designed to foster and reward quality journalism in a decentralized way, in contrast to platforms like Facebook and Google upon which so much journalism rests today.
The system’s backbone is the blockchain-based Civil token, abbreviated CVL. Holders of tokens can start news organizations in the system, challenge the membership of other news organizations in the system and/or cast votes when such challenges arise.
I have no idea if it will work. But I’m interested, and I’d rather participate than watch from the sidelines. So I’m willing to give it a whirl and okay with losing a little money in the process.
To participate, I just needed to buy some CVL ... though it turns out there's no just about it. But that's okay, too.