Events

Welcome to the second season of ACJR's Off the Record, a peer-to-peer way for journalists to get up to speed on all things crypto. 

In this session we're looking at how crypto broke onto the scene in DC as the horse-trading over the infrastructure bill intensified, and crypto became a part of the legislative conversation. As policy and regulation continue to remain critical factors for crypto adoption, the intersection of DC and crypto isn't going away any time soon. 

A 10-minute talk by Nikilesh De, regulatory reporter at CoinDesk,  author of its 

Half an hour for Q&A with Nik and other panelists including 

• Ephrat Livni, DealBook reporter, The New York Times

• Kellie Mejdrich, reporter, Politico's Pro Financial Services

This whole session really is off the record, so it’s not recorded and we ask attendees to abide by 

This event is open to journalists and researchers only. 

About the Association of Cryptocurrency Journalists and Researchers (ACJR)

 is a professional body that recognizes the best journalism and research on cryptocurrencies and blockchains.

Off the Record was put together by an ACJR working group comprising: 

Joon Ian Wong, Renee McGivern, Molly Jane Zuckerman, Pete Rizzo, David Pan.

Crypto Goes to Washington: Covering the Infra Bill (and Policy in General)

🚨 Click the zoom link in 'event location' at the top of this page under the date, don't click the link in 'next up' which is outdated!

In this session we're looking at the white-hot NFT markets and going beyond the basic. How do NFT markets work? How should you interpret the data from marketplaces and market trackers? How much wash-trading is going on? What are price floors?

A 10-minute talk by Steve Stirling, The Street Crypto. His work has been featured in FiveThirtyEight, PBS FRONTLINE, USA TODAY and has been honored by IRE, ONA and the Scripps Howard Foundation.

Half an hour with Steve and other panelists including 

 is a professional body that recognises the best journalism and research on cryptocurrencies and blockchains.

Beyond the Drop: How to Cover NFT markets, from Floor Prices to Wash-Trading.

As crypto becomes an institutional asset, it's attracting more interest from regulators. The New York Attorney General, for instance, has taken a keen interest in Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin by market cap. 

This Off the Record webinar will focus on the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the U.S Department of the Treasury. No other agencies are likely to pose the kind of existential threat to crypto that these agencies could. The SEC is the elephant in the room as far as investor protection is concerned. Treasury is in charge of anti-money laundering, sanctions and tax policies.

Guided by your questions, our experienced panelists likely will talk about 

• Specific crypto issues the agencies are working on

• How to keep track of what the agencies are working on

• What reporters should read and who should they follow, and

The panelists will also touch on what they know so far about Biden’s upcoming exec order on crypto. Our intention is that you walk away with useful information to start or improve your reporting on regulatory agencies.

De, one of the industry’s most prominent crypto regulatory reporters, and Peter Van Valkenburgh, director of research at Coin Center, a DC-based trade group for the digital assets industry. Our moderator is Elizabeth Coyne, a veteran tech journalist located in the Chicagoland area. She is published in Blockworks, McSweeney's Internet Tendency and other national and international publications.

How to report on regulatory agencies: SEC & Treasury

For our next Off the Record session, we are teaming up with Nansen, a blockchain analytics platform, to dive into the NFT market and parse through the data to find out more. Nansen’s tools allow you to have a ‘God’s-eye view into the blockchain’, which is incredibly valuable for any journalist. 

The blockchain is an open and transparent ledger. But there’s also a mountain of on-chain data which makes it difficult for journalists covering the space to understand what’s going on. 

NFTs are the hottest digital asset class on the market right now. But are these $30,000 digital apes one big wash trading ploy to suck in retail traders? Or are they a legitimate asset class that’s only possible thanks to the underlying technology of the blockchain which creates digital scarcity? 

It’s tough to understand NFTs without understanding the data behind them. You might hear about accusations of NFTs being used for wash trading, but without the data to back it up these are just anecdotes.

Not to mention, NFT market data and typical crypto trading statistics don’t exactly square. How do you figure whether the NFT you’re reporting on is truly valuable, when prices vary so much even within a single collection and can supposedly be easily gamed?

• How to use Nansen to track the data behind NFTs

• How to parse this data into actionable intelligence for stories

• Quantitative insights into the NFT market, such as the number of unique buyers, and pricing data

All attendees will get a free seven-day trial of Nansen for use in their newsroom. 

Our speakers are Paul Harwood, product manager for NFT's at 

 and Martin Lee, a data journalist at Nansen. Our moderator is David Canellis of Protos.

A "God's-eye view" into the blockchain for journalists

Notice: This webinar has been cancelled. Registrants were notified via email on May 9 about this cancellation. Thanks for your interest.

Terra is one of the most dynamic and interesting protocols in the decentralized finance space. 

While there have been significant questions surrounding the makeup of some stablecoin’s reserves, Terra is transparent as to what backs its decentralized stablecoins (the most popular is TerraUSD)... Bitcoin. 

Behind the scenes there’s a complicated leviathan keeping TerraUSD pegged to the USD involving another coin called LUNA, arbitrage plays, and algorithms. 

To top it all off, Terraform Labs, the firm behind the protocol, is suing the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to get it to drop a subpoena that seeks to compel Do Kwon — who is neither a US national nor resident — to provide testimony regarding if Terraform Labs (registered in Singapore) is issuing securities. 

So let’s unpack it during Off The Record: Reporting on Terra.

• Sam Kessler, a reporter at CoinDesk who covers technology, DeFi and DAOs

• Moderator: David Canellis, Blockworks editor

Many thanks to Nansen for its sponsorship. Nansen is a blockchain analytics platform that analyzes 100M+ labeled crypto wallets & their activities, so you can separate the signal from the noise.

Reporting on Terra

This webinar has been postponed! Watch @acjr_network for information about a new date. Thanks for your interest.

We're kicking off our 5th Off the Record season!

Between the collapse of Terra and the implosion of Three Arrows Capital, we are well into a bear market. While the market cap of crypto has shrunk significantly during the last few months, and many projects are facing a liquidity crunch, crypto media has been facing some of its best months yet as investors and the public at large search for answers as to what happened. 

Join us for “Reporting on the Crash” to hear how crypto-native reporters and editors are searching for truth in a bear market. Along the way, you'll get a brief overview of how to report with metrics that better indicate the health of the overall market aside from price. This will include NFTs, DeFi, and general ERC-20s. 

Moderator: David Canellis, editor at Blockworks. Panelists: Danny Nelson, news editor at CoinDesk; Andrew Thurman, simian psychometric enhancement technician at Nansen and former Cointelegraph editor, CoinDesk reporter.

This event is for ACJR members and cryptocurrency journalists; registrations will be reviewed.