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Time Magazine Releases First Ever NFT Magazine Issue, Featuring Vitalik Buterin
Time magazine is set to release its first issue in full non-fungible token (NFT) form, with Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin – dubbed the “Prince of Crypto” – on the cover.
The double issue, datelined March 28/April 4, will be launched in collaboration with the LITDAO, an NFT project launched in December 2021 about which little is known. No roadmap has been revealed, nor any use case; one of the very few concrete facts to have surfaced about LITDAO is that it operates with its own native currency, LIT.
LITDAO has reported that LIT Genesis holders will be eligible to receive an airdrop of Time‘s “historic NFT” alongside TIMEPiece Genesis holder. The latter is a Web3 community initiative created by Time, launched in September 2021 with a collection called “Build a Better Future”.
The airdrop will roll out with support from Circle, the company behind stablecoin USD Coin (USDC), with Transient Labs acting as the project’s technical partner.
According to Time, the Buterin issue will “live on the blockchain”, on a decentralised protocol. Holders of the NFT magazine will be able to read the content and interact with it.
Buterin Rails Against ‘$3 Million Monkeys’
Regarding said content, in the cover story interview with Andrew Chow, Buterin expresses concern about the dominance of DeFi and NFTs and the “shameless displays of wealth” driven by collections such as Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC). He also worries about the rise in transaction fees and “overeager investors”.
“The peril is you have these $3 million monkeys and it becomes a different kind of gambling,” Buterin says in reference to BAYC. “There definitely are lots of people that are just buying yachts and Lambos.”
Buterin tells Chow that his vision for the transformative power of Ethereum is at risk of being overtaken by greed:
If we don’t exercise our voice, the only things that get built are the things that are immediately profitable. And those are often far from what’s actually the best for the world.
Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin
Time Has Mixed History with Ethereum
Time‘s close association with Buterin and the Ethereum blockchain harks back to November last year, when the media giant revealed a deal with Galaxy Digital. As part of the deal, Time would hold ETH on its balance sheet.
Two months earlier, when Time announced a new collection of NFTs offering “unlimited access” to its website throughout 2023, all 4,676 tokens tied to the digital artworks sold out in minutes. But the sale rush also clogged the Ethereum blockchain, sending gas fees through the roof. So much so that buyers spent almost four times as much on transaction fees as they did on the NFTs themselves.
Author
Phil Stafford
Phil is a long-standing Australian journalist with specialised experience in business, finance, travel and popular culture.
