“Rug pulling” is done by scammers. This was an “experiment.” By a well-trusted company! Huge, huge difference.

> Although CNN claimed in their shutdown announcement that "Vault was originally launched as a 6-week experiment", CNN had not mentioned that the project was an experiment that was expected to possibly end. As recently as last month, Vault had been teasing upcoming events scheduled around election day in November, and encouraging users to buy more Vault NFTs to access the upcoming drops.

That might sound dishonest, but companies take time to move, to change direction. Surely this was accidental. Poor planning, not malicious intent. Like the Stadia shutdown announcement, right? And forgetting to call it an experiment early on, well, oopsies

> As an apparent attempt to placate angry users worried that the value of their NFTs might drop, CNN promised to return "either FLOW tokens or stablecoins" for "roughly 20% of the original mint price".

Ok so that roughly 80% from the NFT bag holders… uhhhh… early adopters… of what was retroactively called an experiment… but they won’t lose it all!

> However, the project is built on the Flow blockchain, where users can only withdraw stablecoins $10 at a time—and with a $4 fee on each withdrawal.

So that 20% is going to be fee’d to death, assuming it leaves the network.

But still, this was just an experiment, by a well respected company trusted with providing vetted news.

> Buys digital property on unsecure centralized blockchain

> Value completely dependent on centralized media corporation

> Web3 is GoInG GrEaT

It's like becoming a vegan for health reasons after eating McDonald's.