An announcement on their website revealed that now users could pay for digital subscriptions in cryptocurrency. A one-time purchase grants subscribers unlimited access to TIME’s content for 18 months. Plus invitations to events and other exclusives.

Furthermore, the announcement stated that Crypto.com “will offer Pay Rewards of up to 10% back for subscribers who elect to pay using CRO, the Crypto.org Coin.”

However, this is not a global rollout as yet. The option to pay with cryptocurrency is currently exclusive to subscribers in the United States and Canada. Users in other parts of the world will be open to the option from July 2021.

On their partnership with Crypto.com, TIME Magazine reportedly said that it would allow them to build on their pre-existing subscriber community. A community that is currently over 2 million strong.

TIME Magazine and Crypto

It is not the first foray into the crypto space that TIME Magazine has made this year. In March, they got on the NFT train, auctioning three exclusive covers in the digital format. The special edition covers included an NFT version of one of the magazine’s most iconic. A text-only cover (TIME’s first) from the issue originally published on April 8, 1966, which read “Is God Dead?” 

The other two NFT covers read “Is Truth Dead?” and “Is Fiat Dead?” respectively. The latter was the first magazine cover to be exclusively designed as an NFT.

Forbes ran a similar auction for an NFT cover on April 7. The NFT by Japanese artist Yoshi Sodeoka featured the original cover art of Michael Prince. The 24-hour event finished with a top bid of $333,000. The auction’s proceeds went to both the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF).

Furthermore, the music magazine SPIN also announced it would be releasing NFT magazine covers on April 4. Rare photography, videos, and signed limited-edition covers will reportedly comprise most of the collection. SPIN has been a digital-only publication since 2012. That year, they stopped production of their print version, which had run since 1985.