As reported Tuesday, Salon is now mining cryptocurrencies in browsers of visitors as an alternative to seeing ads. Does this latest effort by the 23-year-old progressive site reveal the tough market media companies find themselves or is it a gimmick by a small-cap company looking to lure investors with cryptocurrency cred? Modern Consensus spoke with Salon CEO Jordan Hoffner. He doesn’t have the easiest job in media. The company Hoffner has been running for the past couple of years is overshadowed by its own past as it struggles to shine. When it went public in June 1999, Salon raised $25 million and was valued at $107 million. That IPO shook up…