DL News Closes Despite 270% Revenue Jump in 2025

DL News founder Paige Aarhus told staff on May 1 that the crypto publication would shut down by month's end. Revenue had climbed 270% in 2025 and crossed seven figures in annual sales.

The closure comes after a rough stretch for crypto media broadly. Traffic contracted across the sector as AI accelerated the collapse of search distribution and enabled what Aarhus called endless waves of parasitic aggregation. Commercial viability became increasingly difficult without meaningful audience scale, she wrote in the closure announcement.

DL News launched in 2022 as the news arm of DefiLlama, the crypto data platform. An internal conflict at DefiLlama in early 2023 severed the operational ties between the two companies, leaving DL News to operate independently with minimal communication between the entities for two years. The publication launched a commercial research arm, DL Research, in 2024 to diversify revenue streams.

Aarhus said the team realized relatively early that a traditional subscription model would not sustain the business. She noted that journalism quality remained excellent but fewer people were seeing it on the site. The founder said she had never been prouder than when threats arrived, a reference to pushback the publication faced for its reporting.

DL News broke major stories during its three-year run, including coverage of the Roman Storm Tornado Cash trial where prosecutors alleged the protocol was built for money laundering. Aarhus previously worked at CoinDesk and The Block before launching DL News out of frustration with crypto media quality. Layoffs began in mid-April 2025 after the decision to close was made.