What the Heck Is ‘Decentralized Media’ and How Does It Benefit Me?

TL;DR

• Rug Radio and Decrypt (the Web3 media companies) are merging.

• Only a majority vote was required (51/49), and it was an easy vote to pass seeings as it was a merger and not a straight buyout.

• The takeaway? The future of media could well be community owned.

Full Story

Rug Radio (the decentralized media company) and Decrypt are merging.

That makes three major crypto media deals in the past month:

• The Block sold a majority stake to a Singaporean VC firm for $70M

• CoinDesk sold entirely to a crypto exchange run by former New York Stock Exchange President Tom Farley.

But hold up! Pump the breaks.

What the heck is a ‘decentralized media’ company?

Basically, it means the platform’s community (its listeners, readers, hosts etc.) own the platform itself.

It works something like this:

1. You buy (or get gifted) one of the 20,000 Rug Radio genesis NFTs

2. By owning one or more of these NFTs, you get monthly payouts of $RUG.
   A token specifically designed to be used within the Rug Radio ecosystem. (Funded, presumably, by Rug Radio’s ad revenue)

So how does a decentralized platform ‘merge’ with a centralized counterpart?

Did all 20k NFT holders vote unanimously to merge with Decrypt?

No, probably not.

Our guess is:

Only a majority vote was required (51/49), and it was an easy vote to pass seeings as it was a merger and not a straight buyout.

Translation: Decrypt would just start passing ad deals on to Rug Radio (and vice versa).

…ad deals that increase the monthly $RUG token payouts to Rug Radio NFT holders.

(The promise of more money in NFT owners’ pockets = an easier majority vote).

The takeaway?

The future of media could well be community owned.