Century-old TIME magazine says it will start accepting cryptocurrencies as payment for its digital subscription
American magazine TIME announced yesterday that it has started accepting cryptocurrencies as payment for its digital subscription. This comes barely a month after agreeing to hold Bitcoin on its balance sheet.
According to the press release, the service will initially be available to subscribers in Canada and the United States. However, TIME will be expanding it to other parts of the world over the next few months.
TIME partnered with cryptocurrency trading platform Crypto.com to offer the payment feature to its subscribers. “Subscribers who elect to pay with cryptocurrency will receive unlimited access to content across Time.com for 18 months with their one-time purchase, as well as subscriber-only events and offerings,” TIME said.
Crypto.com, on its part, will offer Pay Rewards of up to 10% back for subscribers who pay for subscriptions using CRO, Crypto.com’s native coin. The deal generated excitement on both sides as TIME President Keith Grossman said they are excited to offer this new payment option to their community of 2.3 million subscribers.
Kris Marszalek, co-founder and CEO of Crypto.com, said, “We feel very fortunate to partner with TIME. Our mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to cryptocurrency, and together with TIME, we’ve just taken a major step forward towards reaching our goal.”
TIME Chief Technology Officer Bharat Krish believes the massive cryptocurrency adoption seen over the past year warrants the addition of digital currencies as payment options for its magazine. “We are thrilled to offer cryptocurrency as a payment option for our digital subscribers for the first time,” he added.
The 98-year old publication has been expanding its presence in the crypto space over the past few months. Last month, TIME sold an exclusive series of three of its most iconic TIME covers as non-fungible tokens at an auction. It followed this by partnering with Grayscale Investments to create a new educational cryptocurrency video series.
Grayscale will pay TIME in Bitcoin, and the publication said it intends to hold the cryptocurrency on its balance sheet.