TIME Magazine has entered into a partnership with crypto investment firm Galaxy Digital, where it will buy Ether and produce metaverse-related content.
According to a statement from the media firm, the company will add Ether to its holdings for the first time and create a weekly newsletter titled, “Into the Metaverse”. The magazine will also run a compilation of TIME 100 companies for metaverse firms and have a new section on its website containing metaverse-related educational content.
Time revealed the partnership with Galaxy Media was conducted through Ether, which it plans to hold on its balance sheet. Prior to their partnership, Time had only held bitcoin.
Galaxy Digital CEO, Mike Novogratz said the partnership with TIME was a move to bring creators, readers and the curious into the metaverse world. It will be a way to demystify the massive transformation happening within.
Metaverse is a new virtual world that leverages virtual reality and is hosted on blockchain platforms like Ethereum. The virtual world will allow users to run different projects like trading, gaming and even hanging out virtually. It will also come with other financial incentives like GameFi.
TIME Magazine has been one of the most active media firms in crypto adoption. TIME in April 2021 partnered with crypto.com to offer crypto payment options for digital subscriptions. At that stage, they did not have ETH on their balance sheet, only receiving ETH through payments.
The magazine was also active in the booming non-fungible tokens (NFTs) world, where it sold three magazine covers in the form of NFTs on SuperRare, a crypto marketplace.
By partnering with Galaxy Digital, the company is embracing the metaverse, which is part of Web 3.0; the expected future of the internet. Galaxy Digital is one of the leading crypto companies having raised $455 million AUD in venture capital funding for gaming, NFTs and metaverse-related startup investments.
Other companies joining Metaverse
Other than TIME Magazine, other mostly tech-related companies are looking to venture into the promising world of the metaverse. Facebook is one of the leading companies with stakes in this future sector.
Facebook already launched a vision plan where it plans to lead the population into facilitating ownership and trading of NFTs within the metaverse. It has already changed its brand name to Meta and looks to invest more money into Metaverse development. At the same time, the company plans to hire more than 10,000 software developers from Europe to help in its charge towards metaverse adoption.
As companies look to dominate the metaverse, Epic Games CEO, Tim Sweeney believes no company can own the metaverse. He believes that metaverse is a broad concept that should not be controlled by a single entity. Instead, it is more like the internet that is not a closed software ecosystem.
As cryptocurrencies become mainstream with more companies looking to embrace digital currencies for transactions, they will be looking to embrace the metaverse. The partnership between TIME Magazine and Galaxy Digital is an example of how different companies will be approaching the space.