At the end of May 2026, DL News, which was once seen as an extension of DeFiLlama's landscape, will officially press the shutdown button. This news department, which was incubated from an on-chain data platform in 2022, originally attempted to enter the crypto narrative with in-depth reporting. After internal conflicts at the beginning of 2023, it became independent from the parent entity but has never been able to find a self-sustaining path. Ironically, DL Research, which grew parallel to the continuously losing news business, delivered impressive results in 2025 with approximately 270% year-on-year revenue growth and annual sales exceeding seven figures in dollars—profitable research did not lift the losing news, becoming the company's most brutal contrast. The reason given for DL News's shutdown is not new: a prolonged inability to achieve profitability or build a sustainable model, compounded by a decline in traffic that has swept through crypto and tech media since 2022, an increasingly deteriorating environment, and an increasingly unsustainable traditional subscription path, has made it seem even more "redundant" alongside the rapidly growing research sector. The brief trajectory from a highly anticipated extension project to quietly exiting under the shadow of research business outlines the structural dilemma currently tearing at the flow and business models of crypto media.

From DeFiLlama Incubation to Separation

The story of DL News begins from the desk space within DeFiLlama. In 2022, this platform, rooted in on-chain data, tried to extend its influential traffic and engineering culture across the industry to the narrative level—thus DL News was launched as an internal news department, designed as DeFiLlama's "in-depth reporting front": data in the back, stories in the front, allowing users to complete the transition from "looking at numbers" to "looking at people and events" without migrating to another platform. At that stage, DL News did not need to explain who it was; it naturally attached itself to the DeFiLlama brand, enjoying the synergy of traffic, product placement, and team resources, seen as part of the parent ecosystem rather than a standalone company.

A turning point occurred in early 2023. Internal conflicts erupted within DeFiLlama, with the final arrangement being: DL News was separated from the parent entity and became an independent operating entity, while its name and brand continued—readers still saw DL News, but the organizational relationship had changed from a "department" to a self-sustaining media company. Some information sources suggest that this conflict, aside from emotional factors, substantially severed the operational synergy and distribution channels that had originally existed between DL News and DeFiLlama, while DeFiLlama continued to operate as a data platform with limited daily communication with DL News. After separating from the parent entity, DL News needed to independently attract readers and revenue without the innate traffic, and the subsequently launched DL Research was a product of this pressure seeking new monetization paths. However, from that moment, the protective net between the news business and the data platform had been removed, foreshadowing the subsequent loss of synergy and the outcome of fighting alone.

Under the Same Roof: Profitable DL Research, Losing News

After separating from DeFiLlama, DL News focused on news and research: the former insisted on in-depth reporting in the crypto industry, while the latter provided research and consulting services under the name DL Research. Disclosed data shows that DL Research achieved approximately 270% year-on-year revenue growth in 2025, with annual sales exceeding seven figures in dollars, whereas during the same period, DL News's news business has not been profitable since its establishment and has struggled to find a viable business model. One of the official explanations is that the traditional subscription model is difficult to sustain, with direct charging to readers failing to generate sufficient cash flow to cover costs, and in an environment where advertising budgets are shrinking and industry traffic is declining, the news business can only continue to "burn money."

Within the same company, "profitable research" and "losing news" are placed side by side on financial statements, forming an irreconcilable structural contradiction. Commercial research services cater to institutional clients willing to pay for informational advantages, with clear willingness to pay and sufficiently high unit prices; a report or a set of consulting services can contribute substantial revenue. In contrast, the news team must rely on unstable advertising and slow-growing subscriptions to sustain the entire editorial system in a context where overall crypto and tech media are under pressure, with reader size, click fluctuations, and market sentiment all lowering its ceiling. When DL Research proves with a 270% year-on-year growth that "in-depth information can be sold to institutions," DL News proves that "in-depth reporting finds it difficult to charge readers." Under the same roof, this structural imbalance of quickly monetizing on one side while repeatedly losing on the other is almost destined to push the news business toward being abandoned in resource allocation and survival priorities.

Dual Assault of Traffic Decline and Subscription Failure

Zooming out from DL News to the timeline of 2022–2025 reveals that it is not an isolated instance of failure, but rather a microcosm of the entire track. Since the industry entered a long cycle adjustment in 2022, crypto and tech media have generally encountered the same curve: reader interest has fallen from peaks, the distribution logic of search and social platforms is continually revised, content acquisition has become further platformed and algorithmic, and media control over their own traffic is being gradually eroded. When DL News announced its closure, the official reasons included "declining media traffic" and the overall deterioration of the crypto/tech media environment, indicating that even if the content itself maintains high quality, the natural traffic on regular news pages has become difficult to return to the levels anticipated at the time of their establishment.

The cooling of traffic directly penetrates the revenue side. For most media outlets whose selling point is in-depth reporting, traditional subscriptions and single advertising have always been the two most intuitive yet fragile monetization paths: advertising depends on the overall industry budgets and sentiments, while subscriptions rely on users' willingness to continue paying for information. Since 2022, crypto-related advertising budgets have generally tightened, compounded by readers' hesitation toward "one more subscription," making the so-called "traditional subscription model" increasingly difficult to look good on financial statements. In its closure statement, DL News listed "the traditional subscription model is difficult to sustain" as one reason, essentially acknowledging that even by raising content thresholds and strengthening paywalls, readers' willingness to pay and subscription growth are insufficient to support the costs of an entire professional news team. In an era where search and social distribution are firmly controlled by platforms and algorithms, some viewpoints even regard AI and search transformations as new variables diluting general news traffic; however, for DL News, it appears more as a case slowly pushed to the margins by the entire media winter rather than a "special case" that suddenly stumbled due to a particular technological disruption.

Loss of DeFiLlama Distribution and Synergy

As part of DeFiLlama's internal news department, DL News did not need to compete from scratch for attention in the market— it naturally relied on an entry that had already been repeatedly accessed by a large number of on-chain data users, utilizing product interfaces and brand trust to complete distribution and conversion, a hidden dividend that is difficult to replicate for most independent media. Users initially came for the data and then conveniently clicked into an in-depth report; advertisers or partners also found it easier to accept content that is closely tied to industry infrastructure; this product and content synergy allowed early DL News, even if not a true business line, to remain in a state supported by the parent entity.

After the internal conflicts in early 2023, DL News separated from DeFiLlama and turned to independent operation. Formally, it was just an organizational structure change; in essence, however, it severed the original distribution and operational synergy. Some unverified information suggests that this conflict directly caused DL News to lose sustained traffic channels, and communication with DeFiLlama became limited thereafter, making it hard to share user attention and product scenes as before. From the perspective of readers and advertisers, when DL News was no longer closely connected to a leading data platform, but just another player among many independent crypto media, acquiring new users and fighting for budgets became more difficult and costly. When DL News officially announced it would close its news business at the end of May 2026, it vaguely referred to the inability to establish a sustainable business model but did not reiterate its relationship with DeFiLlama, which reinforced a judgment: in the broader environment of declining media traffic, the opportunity cost brought by severed synergy was ultimately reflected in that simple reason for closure.

The Direction of Content After DL News Falls

DL News will shut down its news business at the end of May 2026, leaving behind a clear dividing line: from two lines incubated within the same company, DL Research achieved approximately 270% year-on-year revenue growth in 2025, with annual sales exceeding seven figures in dollars, while DL News, responsible for in-depth reporting, has never been profitable, with news collapsing before research; this almost writes reality in the ledger—during the current cycle, selling institution-oriented research services is easier to survive than selling mass-oriented news. Meanwhile, the information distribution in the crypto industry has quietly shifted: more and more key information is directly announced by project parties, reported by research institutions, or disseminated by KOLs and various community channels, with traditional media no longer being the only entry point, often reduced to organizers of "second-hand narratives." Therefore, the failure of DL News resembles a pressure test that arrived early: in the future, the supply of crypto content will likely continue to tilt toward data platforms, research institutions, self-media, and project-owned content. The news team must embed itself in these frameworks, producing products closer to decision-making scenarios such as in-depth research, data tools, and vertical communities, or accept a fate of marginalization. For readers and practitioners, this means adapting to reshaped content forms while not giving up on the quality of information, and finding a balance anew between commercial pressures and professional credibility—whoever can find a sustainable model within this gap will qualify to tell the industry's stories in the next cycle.

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