Terms & Conditions
Last updated: July 6, 2026
1. The Agreement
1.1 These Terms of Service ("Terms") are a binding agreement between you and Defiant Media Inc., a Delaware corporation headquartered in Brooklyn, New York ("The Defiant," "we," "us"). They govern the websites, newsletters, feeds, applications, and services we publish, including the editions The Defiant and Converge (the "Services"). By accessing or using the Services you accept these Terms; if you do not accept them, do not use the Services.
1.2 These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy and any subscription terms presented at checkout, are the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Services.
2. What The Defiant Is
2.1 We are an independent news publisher covering cryptocurrencies, decentralized finance, and the systems being built around them. We publish articles, newsletters, research, podcasts, video, and events coverage.
2.2 Some content is produced with the assistance of automated and AI-based tools under human editorial standards, and is labeled where our editorial policy requires it.
3. Journalism, Not Advice
3.1 Nothing on the Services is investment, financial, legal, tax, or trading advice. We publish journalism. Content is for informational purposes only, and you may not rely on it for any investment or financial decision.
3.2 Digital assets are volatile and speculative; you can lose everything you put in. Nothing we publish is a recommendation, solicitation, or offer to buy or sell any asset, token, security, or financial instrument. We are not your broker, dealer, adviser, or fiduciary. Do your own research and consult qualified professionals. Your financial decisions are yours alone.
3.3 Opinions expressed by writers, journalists, and guests are their own and do not reflect the opinion of The Defiant. Mention of, or links to, any project, token, or company is not an endorsement by us. Authors, staff, and guests may hold assets discussed in our coverage; material conflicts are disclosed per our editorial policy.
3.4 Market data and prices displayed on the Services may come from third parties; we do not generate that data and do not warrant it.
4. Advertising and Sponsored Content
4.1 The Services are supported in part by advertising and sponsorships. Sponsored or partner content is labeled (e.g., "Sponsored," "Partner Content").
4.2 Sponsored content and press releases reflect the views of the sponsor or issuer, not our newsroom. We do not verify them and do not endorse anything in them, and Section 3 applies to them in full. Commercial inquiries: sponsors@thedefiant.io.
5. Our Content and Your License to It
5.1 The Services and everything in them — text, graphics, logos, audio, video, code, and the selection and arrangement of all of these — are owned by Defiant Media Inc. or its licensors and protected by copyright, trademark, and other laws. All rights not expressly granted are reserved.
5.2 We grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to access the Services and to share links, headlines, and brief excerpts with attribution and a link back to the original article. That is the whole license: republication of full articles, systematic redistribution, or any commercial reuse of our content requires our prior written permission (sponsors@thedefiant.io).
5.3 Nothing in these Terms grants any license to The Defiant's or Converge's names, logos, or trademarks.
6. Automated Access: A Conditional, Revocable License
6.1 Unlike most publishers, The Defiant permits automated access to its publicly available pages — including by search engines and by AI systems for indexing, retrieval, and model training. This permission is a limited, conditional, revocable license, granted only on all of the following conditions:
- (a) the access complies with our robots.txt directives and any published crawl guidelines;
- (b) it does not circumvent, probe, or interfere with the paywall, authentication, or any other access control;
- (c) it does not degrade the Services or impose a disproportionate load on our infrastructure;
- (d) it does not harvest subscriber or other personal data and does not misrepresent the crawler's identity or operator; and
- (e) it is not used to republish substantially complete articles commercially — permission to crawl is not permission to republish (Section 5.2 governs republication).
6.2 We expect AI systems that surface our content to users to attribute it to The Defiant and link back to the source article.
6.3 We may revoke or condition this license at any time, in whole, in part, or as to any individual operator, by updating robots.txt, by technical means, or by written notice. Automated access outside this license — or after revocation — is unauthorized. This Section grants no license to our trademarks.
7. Accounts
7.1 Certain features, including premium content, require an account. You must provide accurate registration information, keep it current, and keep your credentials confidential. You are responsible for all activity under your account, and accounts and credentials may not be shared.
7.2 You must be at least 16 years old to create an account.
7.3 We may suspend or terminate any account, with or without notice, if we reasonably believe it violates these Terms, abuses the Services, or creates risk for us or others; where applicable law requires notice or an opportunity to cure before termination, we will provide it. Section 8.6 governs refunds when we terminate paid access without cause.
8. Paid Subscriptions and the Metered Paywall
8.1 Some content is free; some is metered (a limited number of articles per period); some is subscriber-only. We may change meter limits, and what is free versus paid, at any time.
8.2 Paid subscriptions are billed through our third-party payment processor; we do not store your full card details. Prices, billing cycles, and included benefits are stated at checkout.
8.3 Auto-renewal. Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each billing period at the then-current price unless you cancel before renewal. The renewal price and cycle are disclosed at signup, and we will notify you of price increases before they take effect.
8.4 Cancellation. You can cancel at any time in your account settings — the same online mechanism used to subscribe. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period; you keep access until then.
8.5 Refunds. Except where required by law, payments are non-refundable and there are no refunds or credits for partial periods, unused access, or cancellation mid-cycle. Trial and promotional periods are non-refundable. Any refund or credit we choose to grant in our discretion is a one-time accommodation and does not create a waiver, precedent, or entitlement. Where applicable law grants you a mandatory withdrawal, cooling-off, or refund right that cannot be waived, that right is unaffected.
8.6 Termination by us; pro-rated refund. As the sole exception to 8.5: if we terminate or disable your paid access for reasons other than your violation of these Terms (including discontinuing a paid product), we will refund the pro-rated unused portion, calculated on the amounts you actually paid, issued to your original payment method or — where permitted by law — as account credit at our election. That refund is your exclusive remedy for the termination.
8.7 Trials and promotional pricing, if offered, convert to a paid subscription at the disclosed price unless cancelled before the trial ends.
8.8 Billing disputes. If you believe a charge is incorrect, contact admin@thedefiant.io before disputing it with your bank or card issuer. We reserve the right to contest chargebacks and to suspend or terminate accounts that initiate chargebacks on valid charges.
9. Rules of Use
You agree not to: (a) break the law or infringe anyone's rights while using the Services; (b) interfere with or disrupt the Services or impose an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on them; (c) attempt unauthorized access to systems, accounts, or data, or circumvent the paywall or any security feature or access control; (d) share, resell, or publicly redistribute subscriber-only content or account credentials; (e) impersonate The Defiant, its staff, or anyone else; (f) transmit malware or spam; (g) reverse engineer, decompile, or otherwise attempt to extract the source code of the Services, except where that restriction is prohibited by law; or (h) disable, damage, or alter the functioning or appearance of the Services, including the presentation of advertising. Automated access is governed exclusively by Section 6; nothing in this Section expands it.
10. What You Send Us
10.1 If you submit content to us — comments, tips, letters, event submissions, or anything else — you grant us a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license to use, reproduce, edit, adapt, publish, distribute, and display it in any media, in connection with the Services and our business, with attribution at our discretion. To the extent permitted by law, you waive moral rights in submissions as used under this license.
10.2 You represent that you have the rights to what you submit and that it is lawful. Submissions must not be defamatory, obscene, harassing, hateful, deliberately misleading, or unlawful; must not contain malware or spam; and must not be posted by automated means. You are solely responsible for your submissions.
10.3 We have no obligation to review, host, or publish any submission. We may remove, edit, moderate, or decline to publish any submission at our sole discretion and without notice, and may suspend accounts that violate these standards. Moderating some content creates no duty to moderate all of it.
10.4 News tips and corrections: editorial@thedefiant.io. We may quote correspondence sent to editorial addresses unless you clearly request otherwise; source protection is governed by our editorial policy.
11. Copyright Complaints
11.1 If you believe content on the Services infringes your copyright, send a notice to admin@thedefiant.io.
11.2 A valid notice must include: your physical or electronic signature; identification of the copyrighted work; the location of the allegedly infringing material on the Services; your contact information; a good-faith statement that the use is unauthorized; and a statement under penalty of perjury that the notice is accurate and you are authorized to act for the copyright owner.
11.3 We will respond to valid notices, including removing or disabling access to the material and, where appropriate, terminating repeat infringers.
12. Third-Party Links and Services
The Services link to third-party sites, protocols, and applications, including blockchain explorers, exchanges, and wallets. We do not control, endorse, or accept any responsibility for them. Interacting with any third-party service — especially connecting a wallet or transacting in digital assets — is entirely at your own risk.
13. No Warranties
13.1 THE SERVICES AND ALL CONTENT ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE," WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, TIMELINESS, MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICES, THE SERVERS THAT MAKE THEM AVAILABLE, OR EMAILS SENT BY THE DEFIANT ARE FREE OF VIRUSES OR OTHER HARMFUL COMPONENTS.
13.2 News moves fast and markets move faster. We work to be accurate and to correct errors promptly (corrections: editorial@thedefiant.io), but we do not warrant that any content is error-free or current at the moment you read it, and we are not responsible for any loss caused by reliance on any content.
14. Limitation of Liability
14.1 TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, DEFIANT MEDIA INC. AND ITS OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, CONTRACTORS, AND AGENTS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, DATA, OR DIGITAL ASSETS, ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE SERVICES OR RELIANCE ON ANY CONTENT, REGARDLESS OF THE THEORY OF LIABILITY AND EVEN IF WE WERE ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
14.2 TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, OUR TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) AMOUNTS YOU PAID US IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM AROSE OR (B) US $100. THIS LIMIT DOES NOT APPLY TO LIABILITY THAT CANNOT BE LIMITED BY LAW, INCLUDING LIABILITY ARISING FROM GROSS NEGLIGENCE OR WILLFUL MISCONDUCT.
14.3 You agree that, to the extent permitted by law, any claim arising from the Services may be brought only against Defiant Media Inc. as an entity, and you waive any claim against its individual officers, directors, employees, or agents personally.
14.4 Some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions or limits; in those places, these provisions apply to the fullest extent permitted.
15. Indemnification
You will indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Defiant Media Inc. and its officers, directors, employees, and agents from all claims, damages, liabilities, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising from your violation of these Terms, your submissions, your violation of law or third-party rights, or your misuse of the Services. We may assume the defense of any matter subject to indemnification, in which case you will cooperate with us.
16. Time Limit on Claims
To the extent permitted by law, any claim arising out of or relating to the Services or these Terms must be filed within one (1) year after the claim arose, or it is permanently barred.
17. Governing Law and Dispute Resolution
17.1 These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of New York, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules.
17.2 Informal resolution first. Before filing any claim, you agree to contact admin@thedefiant.io and give us 30 days to try to resolve the dispute informally.
17.3 Arbitration. Any dispute not resolved informally will be resolved by binding individual arbitration in New York, New York, administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules (which govern fee allocation), rather than in court — except that either party may bring qualifying claims in small claims court, and we may seek injunctive or equitable relief in any court of competent jurisdiction for infringement or misuse of our intellectual property or breach of Section 6 or 9.
17.4 Confidentiality. The arbitration, including all filings, evidence, and the award, will be kept confidential except as needed to enforce the award or as required by law.
17.5 Class action waiver. Disputes will be arbitrated only on an individual basis; class, collective, and representative actions and class arbitrations are waived. If this waiver is found unenforceable as to a particular claim, that claim proceeds in court, not in arbitration, and the rest of this Section survives.
17.6 30-day opt-out. You may opt out of arbitration by emailing admin@thedefiant.io within 30 days of first accepting these Terms, stating your name and that you opt out.
18. Changes to the Services and These Terms
18.1 We may modify, suspend, or discontinue any feature of the Services at any time. If we materially reduce what a paid subscription includes mid-cycle, Section 8.6's pro-rata remedy applies.
18.2 We may amend these Terms at any time. For material changes we will give reasonable advance notice (site notice or email to subscribers) before the effective date; non-material changes take effect on posting. Continued use of the Services after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the amended Terms; if you do not accept them, your remedy is to stop using the Services and, for paid subscribers, cancel under Section 8.4.
19. Notice to California Users
Under California Civil Code § 1789.3, California users may file complaints regarding the Services with the Complaint Assistance Unit of the Division of Consumer Services of the California Department of Consumer Affairs, 1625 North Market Blvd., Suite N 112, Sacramento, CA 95834, or by telephone at (800) 952-5210.
20. General
If any provision of these Terms is unenforceable, the rest remain in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it. We may assign these Terms; you may not without our consent. Headings are for convenience only. Notices to you may be given by email or site posting; legal notices to us go to admin@thedefiant.io.