To our subscribers, and the cryptocurrency community,
It is with great sadness that 21CRYPTOS Magazine has reached the end of its 3 year journey, and will soon be filing for closure. In this message we’ll discuss how this has happened, and what this means for our existing subscriber base.
The world is experiencing a devastating pandemic, and one of the side effects of this is that small businesses have been hit hard. Of these small businesses, Cryptocurrency companies can be hit especially hard for a few reasons.
For one, many startups in this industry have grown through investment from individuals and the community at large. With the pandemic, very few people are spending or investing in these companies, and so the life blood of funding has been cut off for a lot of projects.
The second reason is that companies in this industry can struggle to secure support from their respective governments in the form of bounceback loans, grants, and furlough for staff due to the decentralised nature of the crypto world, and also due to the stigma that still seems to be associated with the word cryptocurrency.
For us, all of these reasons apply. We were in the middle of a funding round, and whilst we were fortunate enough to receive investment in 2019, our further contacts and investment potentials immediately and understandably pulled out as soon as the pandemic hit and global lockdowns were initiated.
Because of the decentralised nature of 21C, the fact that we had staff in 4 countries meant that none of these governments could help financially, despite 21C being a legitimate legal entity that paid its taxes and had a base of operations. We were not eligible for any grant, bounceback loan, or even staff furlough. Our subscriber count dropped by around half very rapidly, and with no further investment, little sales income, and zero advertising income, there was no money to pay staff. In fact we were all out of a job rapidly. Some companies could survive this, but this is also coupled with the fact that the industry we’re all in has seen around an 80-90% drop in interest since its peak. It was too much to tackle, especially for a startup.
A lot of you have been emailing, and I apologise that I haven’t been able to get round to everyone yet – I will do with time. Some of you have been waiting a long time already. I’m sorry. Please understand that there are no staff. Whilst I’m dedicating as much time to sorting all the issues with 21C as I can, on a personal note – I’m struggling to find work (as I’m sure many of us are) whilst also being in a great amount of personal debt from the company. There’s just not enough hours in the day to reply to you all as rapidly as I’d like. But you will be heard and replied to as soon as possible.
For current subscribers who haven’t yet received some of the magazines they’ve paid for – everything will be done to ensure you get as much of a refund as possible, but the reality is that there isn’t enough money in the company to go around. But rest assured the remaining money will almost all go to yourselves, none will go to former staff or myself. I’m just figuring out the arduous process of closing a company and how assets and funds need to be allocated.
If you have a query or would like to talk about anything discussed here, or your existing subscription, please email contact@21cryptos.com (do not reply to this email, or use the ‘sales@’ address, these’s a tech issue with receiving mail), and I’ll reply as soon as I can (this may take a few days, a week, or longer depending on how this process goes and how many emails are received). Aside from any queries, I’ll keep you all updated along the way with followup emails.
A big thank you to all of the subscribers, investors, influencers, and fans that made this endeavour possible. While our light was short, I hope it was enjoyable for some of you in some way. It was a joy to be part of the crypto community.
We’ll all come out of this pandemic stronger, a little wiser, and a little more empathetic than we went into it. We’ve got to hang in there and play the waiting game, and we’ll soon get back to the safety and security that I’m sure we all miss right now.
My deepest respect and appreciation goes out to all of you.
Thank you,
Jowan Dawes
21C Owner