TL; DR
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Rug Radio and Decrypt (the Web3 media companies) are going to merge.
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Only a majority vote was needed (51/49), and it was easy to pass the vote since it was a merger and not an outright takeover.
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The takeaway? The future of media could be community owned.
Full story
Rug Radio (the decentralized media company) and Decrypt are merging.
This resulted in three major crypto media deals in the past month:
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The Block sold a majority stake to a Singaporean venture capital firm for $70 million
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CoinDesk was sold entirely to a crypto exchange run by former New York Stock Exchange president Tom Farley.
But hang in there! Pump the breaks.
What the heck is a ‘decentralized media company’?
In short, this means that the platform’s community (the listeners, readers, hosts, etc.) owns the platform itself.
It works something like this:
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You buy (or receive as a gift) one of the 20,000 Rug Radio genesis NFTs
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If you own one or more of these NFTs, you will receive monthly payouts of $RUG.
A token specifically designed for use within the Rug Radio ecosystem. (Presumably financed by Rug Radio’s advertising revenue)
So how does a decentralized platform “merge” with a centralized counterpart?
Did all 20,000 NFT holders vote unanimously to merge with Decrypt?
No, probably not.
Our estimate is:
Only a majority vote was needed (51/49), and it was easy to pass the vote since it was a merger and not an outright takeover.
Translation: Decryption would simply start with passing advertising deals to Rug Radio (and vice versa).
…ad deals that increase monthly $RUG token payouts to Rug Radio NFT holders.
(The promise of more money in the pockets of NFT owners = an easier majority vote).
The takeaway?
The future of media could be community owned.