CNN's foray into the world of NFT came to an untimely end with the announcement that the Vault (opens in new tab), which promised users "to collect NFT of CNN's historical moments and artistic expressions," is closing.

"The Vault team is honored to have partnered with some of the world's greatest journalists, producers, artists, photojournalists, and collectors during our time together, but we have decided it is time to say goodbye to Vault by CNN." Vault said in a message posted on Twitter. [Vault by CNN said in a message posted on Twitter, "Vault initially began as a six-week experiment, but the support and engagement from our community allowed us to expand the project into something much larger. Thank you all for your interest and involvement in what we have created together."

The Vault was launched in June 2021 as a repository for "digital collectibles" - NFTs - extracted from CNN's archives. The plan was to begin with six weekly drops containing "important historical moments organized around specific themes, including early CNN exclusives, world history, and presidential elections," with future drops featuring a broader range of topics.

"Token holders can have their moments featured and displayed on their Vault user page," the Vault website states.

"Some limited edition sets include a premium video display case that renders a physical representation of the moment on the screen.

Naturally, there was also a money-making promise: CNN said the Vault would "experiment with different sales formats, including both open and limited editions."

CNN had something like this for sale:

In its announcement, CNN said that the Vault would no longer be developed and maintained, but that "the Vault NFT collection will live on." Not all CNN NFT owners were convinced by this statement, of course. Several responses on Twitter accused CNN of "rag-pulling" (a term used to describe scammers who promote the NFT and then take the money and run.

It is a bit of a stretch to apply that to CNN, which clearly does not rely on NFT sales: it is slated to earn nearly $1 billion in profits (open in new tab) in 2022, the network's worst performance since 2016, and the world we live in Note that this is clearly cause for alarm, as it is fundamentally broken. More importantly, everyone involved has paid the price: the Vault will fade away, but the NFT will continue to exist. At least as long as the NFT can be said to exist.

However, there are other complaints about CNN's decision to label the Vault a six-week experiment that has run its course. In fact, the 2022 roadmap is still posted on the Vault's documentation site, with everything from a new series of NFTs, "Photography for Change," to "Vault collector-only CNN benefits," to the ability to mint NFTs based on your favorite CNN article things are promised.

Things are not much better on the Vault's Discord (opens in new tab), where complaints of having the rug pulled out from under them and requests for refunds (and the occasional threat of legal action) are common. Apparently, partial refunds will be made: details will be announced later, but Jason, the administrator of Vault Discord, said in a message that for each NFT he owns, he will be offered as flow or stablecoins equal to about 20% of the original minting price. That has not worked out particularly well either.

"20% is too low," one Discord user wrote. 'It's over 75%. I will be contacting my lawyer this week, the 6 week experiment was not communicated to us."

"It's literally a joke," another replied. 'If you guys shut it down, it will all go to zero.'

One user indirectly (and perhaps unintentionally) suggested that the relatively low refund amounts are because people haven't actually lost anything; Vault's NFTs are still accessible on the NFT marketplace, which is compatible with Flow, even after Vault itself is gone and tradable. While this is good news for those who don't want to give up their digital collectibles (some people on the Vault Discord said they will continue to cherish them as such), the worry for "investors" is that the Vault's demise will make it difficult to make a profit on the Vault NFT in the future.

"As an investor, I don't know if I will break even in a few years," wrote a Discord user.

"Can CNN share why they think 20% is reasonable? On what kind of optimism do they base their rebate percentage?

I asked the Vault administrator for more information about the rebate.