Set against the bloodbath of cryptocurrency price plunges of the last week there have been a couple of notable reputational risks to emerge for two ‘darlings’ of the crypto world. First up was a hack last week impacting some Crypto.com users. Crypto.com has grown staggeringly quickly in the last year and has dramatically boosted its brand profile with a sustained blitz on securing high profile sports partnerships, as well as that much discussed Matt Damon campaign. It won’t be pleased to see its transparency of how it handled the hack being questioned though. A company’s communication approach in the aftermath of hacking incidents is notoriously difficult as you have to strike a balance between rapid communications, factual accuracy (when full facts are rarely known quickly enough), and transparency. The real issue for Crypto.com, however, is likely to be increased scrutiny (and outsized levels of media interest) in any future incidents it may encounter. And then there was an equally well-publicised outage of the Solana network over the weekend. Solana has enjoyed a stratospheric rise in popularity over the last year in particular, but high profile and repeat network outages risk being embedded as enduring reputational issues. It will take a determined effort to address not only any technological issues but also to rebuild and maintain trust. Both Crypto.com and Solana are exceptional organisations and these incidents are flagged as examples of how an active approach to managing and re-building trust post crisis is critical. Failure to do this presents a very real threat to reputation longer-term. It will be interesting to see how they both bounce back from these recent setbacks.