is a Berlin-based journalist and entrepreneur building at the intersection of media, technology, and truth. She is driven by the belief that quality, independent journalism is essential societal infrastructure, not a luxury product.
With an educational background in engineering and psychology, Arikia approaches problems with systematic rigor and deep research while maintaining the creative flexibility to reimagine broken systems. As the founder and CEO of CTRL+X™️, she’s developing decentralized publishing tools to make attribution verifiable and truth harder to obscure in a world where information is increasingly mutable.
CTRL+X is building blockchain-based infrastructure that enables journalists to establish true ownership of their content and monetize via micropayment transactions.
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Closing out Day 2 of the Decentralized Media Summit, Arikia explains how decentralized publishing works and why the world needs it now.
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Arikia’s journey from documenting a deadly earthquake to building technology that could fortify the future of journalism itself.
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Having worked in various journalism roles since 2006, Arikia’s writing has been published in several legacy magazines and independent digital outlets.
Dive into Arikia's visions about where we’re going and how we get there and learn how decentralized technology is shaping the future of digital publishing — on the CTRL+X blog.
On building infrastructure before the agent inflection point
CTRL+X’s journey in the Solana ecosystem
Journalism is on life support. But there is a chance it could survive.
Just because journalism is often given away for free, doesn’t mean it’s worthless
They say journalists should never become the news, but when you’re continually pushing boundaries in the industry, the industry takes notice. Arikia’s statements and work have been featured in publications such as:
Before CTRL+X, Arikia began her entrepreneurial journey building publishing collectives: feminist literary voices at LadyBits; science communicators at Scientopia. Same lesson both times: creators need infrastructure, not intermediaries.
Founded in 2013, what began as a small literary collective of tech-savvy women quickly became a movement redefining women’s roles in digital publishing. With over 100 global contributors, publishing across five platforms, LadyBits reached millions of underserved readers with fresh perspectives and quality journalism and ceased operations in 2015.
Founded in 2009, Scientopia is a community-driven collective of science bloggers originally formed in the wake of the “Pepsigate” exodus from ScienceBlogs.com. With collectively-authored bylines dictating membership and operations, Scientopia was a pre-web3 construction of what is now commonly organized in contemporary DAOs. Scientopia is still operational but in transition.
Hear from collaborators, clients, and partners who’ve experienced the impact of my work—across media, technology, and live events.
![[headshot] image of customer (for a plumbing service)](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/694c1b04e0b2986dfcf9a316/695169b427aa97ef778e8de0_thumb_Icon_Bigger.avif){kind=icon}
Arikia Millikan and her LadyBits collection arguably did more than anyone else to turn Medium from the Thought-Catalog-for-the-Startup-Bro cringepile that it was a year ago into the home of some of the best and most diverse voices of any platisher.
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A generation of journalists has accustomed itself to the loss, disappearance or digital manipulation of their work when their outlets shut down or sell out to data brokers. Arikia Millikan, who lived through it, built CTRL+X to make sure that vital journalism can survive online.
![[headshot] image of customer (for a trucking company)](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/694c1b04e0b2986dfcf9a316/69517b73e0f01b0b9c8ad99a_Jack%20Donovan.jpg)
Arikia is an impressively sharp editor and writer with the proven ability to trump a workload fit for a small team on her own, in the office or halfway around the world.
![[headshot] image of customer (for a mosque)](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/694c1b04e0b2986dfcf9a316/695171bda2f98be34552f4f9_science%20stanley.jpeg)
Arikia Millikan... is IMHO one of the world’s most visionary thinkers at the intersections of technology and journalism.
