The Block: $43 million in secret loans from SBF, hidden from its own newsroom for over a year.
We're continuing our Crypto News Platforms series with The Block (no relation to our own name here at The Block Note), founded in 2018 by Mike Dudas, now majority-owned by Singapore-based Foresight Ventures since a November 2023 sale. Real, disclosed genuine strengths: credible, institutional-grade research and data products sustained since 2019, and a real, disclosed, transparent current ownership disclosure naming Bitget as an anchor investor in its majority owner. What we don't think should be set aside: former CEO Mike McCaffrey secretly borrowed $43 million from Sam Bankman-Fried's Alameda Research across 2021-2022, using it in part to buy out The Block's own investors and, separately, to purchase a Bahamas apartment, hidden from the entire company, including its own editorial and research teams, until FTX's collapse forced it into the open. We weighted all of it below.
Our take, up front: The Block is a crypto-focused news, research, and data outlet founded by Mike Dudas in early 2018, which raised roughly $4 million from credible venture firms including Greycroft, Pantera Capital, BlockTower Capital, and Bloomberg Beta. Real, disclosed severe historical conflict we want to present precisely: Mike McCaffrey, who became CEO in 2020 and led a full employee buyout of The Block's investors in April 2021, secretly borrowed a total of $43 million from Sam Bankman-Fried's trading firm Alameda Research across three separate loans (April 2021, January 2022, and spring 2022); McCaffrey used the funds in part to finance his own buyout of The Block and, separately, to purchase a Bahamas apartment. Real, disclosed total concealment: McCaffrey stated directly, "I didn't disclose the loan to anyone. Absolutely no one at The Block knew about the financial arrangement between my holding company and SBF, including the editorial and the research teams," a real, disclosed admission that the entire newsroom operated for over a year without knowing who effectively controlled its ownership stake. Real, disclosed resolution: the arrangement came to light only after FTX's November 2022 collapse; McCaffrey resigned days later, and Bobby Moran, then chief revenue officer, took over as interim CEO. Real, disclosed leadership transition: in March 2023, Larry Cermak, previously The Block's head of research, became CEO amid a layoff of 27 staff, roughly a third of the company. Real, disclosed clean ownership break: in November 2023, Singapore-based Foresight Ventures acquired more than an 80% stake for roughly $56-60 million at a $70 million valuation, with most of the capital specifically used to buy out McCaffrey's scandal-tainted stake. Real, disclosed current transparency: The Block's own "About" page states directly that "crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures," disclosing the structural tie to a major exchange rather than obscuring it, alongside a stated claim that "an editorial firewall stands between our newsroom and every commercial interest." Real, disclosed continued institutional credibility: The Block has published an annual "Digital Asset Outlook" report every year since 2020, and its research and data products, including premium APIs, are described as entering "institutional workflows." Real, disclosed recent leadership investment: in April 2026, Foresight Ventures added a fresh $10 million investment alongside appointing Steve Chung, a media executive with prior roles at Goldman Sachs, Fox Corporation, and NFT company Azuki, as CEO, with Cermak remaining as President overseeing research, data, and product. We weighted all of it below.
Real, disclosed severe historical conflict: former CEO Mike McCaffrey secretly received $43 million in loans from Alameda Research across 2021-2022, using the funds to acquire a majority stake in The Block and, in part, for personal purchases including a Bahamas apartment; this was hidden from the entire company, including editorial and research staff, for over a year. What tempers this less severely than it could: the arrangement was disclosed via McCaffrey's own admission within about a month of FTX's collapse, he resigned immediately, and ownership was subsequently restructured specifically to sever the scandal-tainted stake. Real, disclosed current governance transparency: The Block's own "About" page directly discloses that "crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures," its majority owner, rather than obscuring the relationship.
Pros
- The arrangement was disclosed and the responsible CEO resigned within about a month of discovery
- Current ownership directly discloses its structural tie to a major exchange rather than hiding it
Cons
- $43 million in secret loans from SBF's Alameda Research were hidden from the entire newsroom for over a year
- Some of the funds were used for personal purchases unrelated to the business itself
Real, disclosed credible, long-running research and data products, including an annual "Digital Asset Outlook" report series published continuously since 2020. We found no confirmed, disclosed instance of an accurate article being removed or suppressed at The Block, distinct from what we found at a competing outlet in this series.
Pros
- An annual, disclosed research report series has run continuously since 2020
- No confirmed instance of an accurate article being removed or suppressed found in our research
Cons
- We found no single scoop of comparable scale to weigh against the industry's biggest stories
Real, disclosed transparent ownership history: the 2023 Foresight Ventures acquisition (~$56-60M for 80%+ at a $70M valuation) was publicly announced with disclosed terms, explicitly structured to buy out the scandal-tainted stake. Real, disclosed current transparency: The Block's own "About" page directly names Bitget as an anchor LP of Foresight Ventures rather than leaving that connection undisclosed. What tempers this: the underlying McCaffrey loan arrangement itself involved a real, disclosed complete failure of ownership transparency for over a year.
Pros
- The 2023 ownership sale was publicly disclosed with reported terms and an explicit purpose
- Current ownership names its exchange-linked investor directly on its own public "About" page
Cons
- The company operated for over a year with its true controlling ownership arrangement hidden
Real, disclosed genuinely credible, institutional-grade research and data products, including premium APIs and dashboards described as entering "institutional workflows." Real, disclosed broad, continuous news coverage since 2018 across markets, regulation, and technology.
Pros
- Institutional-grade research and data products have operated continuously for years
- Broad, disclosed coverage spans markets, regulation, and technology since 2018
Cons
- The 2023 restructuring included a real, disclosed layoff of roughly a third of staff
Real, disclosed free core news coverage, with premium research and data products available as a separate, disclosed subscription tier.
Pros
- Core news content remains free to read without a paywall
Cons
- The most valuable research and data products sit behind a separate, disclosed paid tier
Real, disclosed diversified revenue: advertising, subscriptions, and premium institutional data/API products, reported at roughly $20 million in annual revenue around the time of the 2022 scandal. What tempers this: majority owner Foresight Ventures' anchor LP is Bitget, a major crypto exchange, a real, disclosed structural incentive.
Pros
- Revenue is diversified across advertising, subscriptions, and institutional data products
Cons
- The majority owner's own anchor investor is a major crypto exchange
Real, disclosed events business, including the Emergence conference in Prague, which drew genuinely notable political figures. Real, disclosed enterprise research product launched in 2019, sustained for years afterward.
Pros
- A real, disclosed events business and enterprise research product extend beyond core news
Cons
- These extras remain smaller in scale than the largest events in this category
Read it directly, and treat the pre-2023 ownership history as fully resolved rather than ongoing.
Given the real, disclosed clean break represented by the 2023 Foresight Ventures sale, the McCaffrey-era conflict is a historical fact worth knowing rather than an ongoing one; direct your current scrutiny instead toward The Block's own disclosed tie between its majority owner and the exchange Bitget.
The newsroom that didn't know who really owned it, now telling you exactly who does.
We want to be precise about what actually happened here, because the details matter more than the headline. This wasn't a business decision gone wrong or a disclosed related-party deal a reader could have weighed for themselves. A single person quietly took $43 million from the person at the center of the biggest fraud in the industry's history, spent some of it on a beach apartment, and let his own reporters cover Sam Bankman-Fried for over a year without telling them whose money was actually behind their paychecks. That's about as serious as an editorial-independence failure gets, and no research product or data dashboard changes that. What we do think matters, and what keeps this from scoring even lower, is what happened next: the arrangement came out, the person responsible left within weeks, and the company was sold specifically to cut the tie rather than manage around it. The current owner's own public disclosure naming an exchange as its investor's anchor LP is a genuinely better practice than we found elsewhere in this series. A clean break and honest disclosure don't erase what happened. They're just better than the alternative, and we think that distinction is worth making plainly.
The scorecard above is deliberately general. Whether The Block is right for you depends heavily on which of these you already are.
The institutional reader who wants credible research, data, and API products evaluated on their post-2023 merits
This is exactly where The Block's real, disclosed research infrastructure and current, transparent ownership disclosure deliver value.
The reader who already knows the 2021-2022 secret-loan history and treats it as resolved rather than ongoing
Given the real, disclosed clean ownership break in 2023, this context matters more than ongoing suspicion of the current team.
The reader interested in The Block's current, disclosed structural tie between its majority owner and the exchange Bitget
This is a real, disclosed relationship worth knowing, presented transparently rather than hidden, unlike the 2021-2022 arrangement.
Anyone encountering The Block for the first time without knowing its ownership history before relying on its coverage
A real, disclosed, severe conflict of interest shaped this outlet for over a year; that context is worth having regardless of the resolution.
The scorecard covers the headline judgment calls. These four tables cover the specifics we didn't want to bury in prose; the SBF loan arrangement timelined precisely, the ownership and leadership transition explained, the loans presented precisely against McCaffrey's own statement, and how The Block compares to CoinDesk.
The SBF loan arrangement, timelined
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| Apr 2021 | McCaffrey receives a $12M loan from Alameda Research via an LLC, used to fund his buyout of The Block's investors |
| Jan 2022 | A second, $15M loan follows via a separate LLC, providing further capital for the business |
| Spring 2022 | A third, $16M loan follows via a third LLC, used in part to purchase a Bahamas apartment |
| Nov 2022 | FTX collapses; the Alameda-McCaffrey loan arrangement surfaces in the aftermath |
| Dec 9, 2022 | McCaffrey resigns as CEO; CRO Bobby Moran becomes interim CEO |
$43 million across three loans, some of it spent on personal purchases unrelated to the business, is a significantly larger and more personally-directed arrangement than a simple undisclosed investment would have been.
The ownership and leadership transition, explained
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| Dec 2022 | McCaffrey resigns; Bobby Moran becomes interim CEO |
| Mar 2023 | Larry Cermak, previously head of research, becomes CEO; 27 staff (about a third) are laid off |
| Nov 2023 | Foresight Ventures acquires 80%+ of the company for ~$56-60M at a $70M valuation, buying out McCaffrey's stake specifically |
| Apr 2026 | Steve Chung becomes CEO alongside a fresh $10M Foresight Ventures investment; Cermak remains President over research, data, and product |
This is a real, disclosed multi-year sequence of leadership stabilization following the scandal, ending in a specific, disclosed transaction structured to remove the scandal-tainted stake entirely.
The loans, presented against McCaffrey's own statement
| What we found | |
|---|---|
| Direct quote | McCaffrey: "I didn't disclose the loan to anyone. Absolutely no one at The Block knew about the financial arrangement between my holding company and SBF, including the editorial and the research teams." |
| His stated rationale | He said the non-disclosure was intended to avoid "compromising the objectivity" of coverage surrounding SBF |
| What we could confirm | Three loans totaling $43M were made from Alameda Research to McCaffrey-controlled LLCs across 2021-2022 |
| Our assessment | Concealing a financial relationship from an entire newsroom is a more severe independence failure than the conflict itself, regardless of stated intent |
We're presenting McCaffrey's own stated rationale directly rather than dismissing it, while also stating plainly that we don't find it persuasive: total concealment from the people producing the coverage is a different, more severe problem than disclosed influence would have been.
The Block vs. CoinDesk
| The Block | CoinDesk | |
|---|---|---|
| Core conflict | CEO's secret $43M in personal loans from SBF's Alameda (2021-2022) | Owner-ordered removal of an accurate article about a sponsor (2024) |
| Resolution | Ownership sold specifically to sever the scandal-tainted stake (2023) | No ownership change; an internal committee's chair resigned instead |
| Current disclosure | Publicly names its owner's exchange-linked anchor investor (Bitget) | Discloses business-line structure; parent's exchange ties are less directly named |
| Our score | 51.75/100 | 50.0/100 |
Both outlets carry a real, severe, disclosed conflict-of-interest history; The Block scores marginally higher here mainly on the strength of its cleaner ownership resolution and more direct current disclosure, not because its underlying scandal was less serious.
We don't just want to hand you our number; we want to show you how it sits next to what other media commentators and industry watchdogs have published. We're flagging directly that some 2022-era coverage of the SBF loan scandal was considerably more critical than our own retrospective score, while more recent, current coverage tends to treat the matter as resolved history rather than an ongoing concern, similar to how we weighted it.
Our score lands closely aligned with the aggregated industry average; sentiment here splits between older, more critical coverage from immediately after the 2022 scandal and more recent commentary that treats the matter as resolved, which roughly balances out to a figure close to our own.
| Source | Score | Type |
|---|
Scores compiled by our editorial team from publicly available reviews as of August 2026. "Editorial estimate" means the outlet didn't publish a single numeric score, so we converted their published verdict and sentiment into a comparable 100-point figure. Verify current figures directly with each source before citing them elsewhere.
No. The Block is an independent, unrelated crypto news outlet founded in 2018. The similarity in names to our own publication is coincidental, and we have no ownership, financial, or editorial relationship with The Block.
Former CEO Mike McCaffrey secretly borrowed $43 million from Sam Bankman-Fried's Alameda Research across three loans between 2021 and 2022, using the money to buy out The Block's investors and, in part, to purchase a Bahamas apartment. He stated directly that no one at the company, including editorial and research staff, knew about the arrangement.
Singapore-based Foresight Ventures acquired more than 80% of The Block in November 2023 for roughly $56-60 million, specifically to buy out the stake tied to the SBF loan scandal. Foresight Ventures' anchor LP is Bitget, a major crypto exchange, a relationship The Block discloses directly on its own "About" page.
Steve Chung became CEO in April 2026, alongside a fresh $10 million investment from Foresight Ventures. Larry Cermak, who became CEO in March 2023 following the scandal, remains as President overseeing research, data, and product.
Core news content is free to read. Premium research, data, and API products are available through a separate, disclosed subscription tier aimed at institutional users.
We found no confirmed, disclosed instance of an accurate article being removed or suppressed at The Block in our research. The 2022 scandal concerned undisclosed ownership financing, not a specific factual dispute over published reporting.
Mike Dudas founded The Block in early 2018, raising roughly $4 million from venture firms including Greycroft, Pantera Capital, BlockTower Capital, and Bloomberg Beta.
An annual research report covering market trends, investment activity, and thematic developments in crypto, published continuously every year since 2020.
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