{"id":79099,"date":"2022-02-17T18:03:46","date_gmt":"2022-02-17T18:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rockcontent.com\/?p=79099"},"modified":"2025-09-06T04:39:31","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T07:39:31","slug":"binance-investing-forbes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pingback.com\/en\/resources\/binance-investing-forbes\/","title":{"rendered":"Why a Crypto Exchange Invested US$ 200 Million In Forbes?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance<\/a>, one of the largest crypto companies in the world, will take a $200 million stake in Forbes, one of the best-known American business, economics and technology magazines. The deal is expected to close by the end of March this year, thus making Binance one of the two biggest owners of the magazine.<\/p>\n

This move made by Binance is in line with a movement of brands acquiring publishers or investing internally in the diversification of produced content, such as news and podcasts. It’s been called brand publishing. Not of course, without any controversy, since the separation between Church and State, editorial and advertisers, has always been a bastion of journalism in the major vehicles.<\/p>\n

Fortune, another mainstream US economics magazine, for example, was acquired in 2018<\/a> by a non-media entrepreneur. Sports Illustrated, another American market gold title, was sold in 2019 to a company that owns the Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe brands.<\/p>\n

In both cases, the movement is similar: with circulations falling for years and prestige in decline (the same happened with Newsweek<\/a>), the brand of these publications is still of great value for the public, even if the business is far from being as profitable as before. In the case of Sports Illustrated, for example, the new owner, Authentic Brands Group, said it would like to use the brand to promote events and betting businesses<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What will happen with Forbes? There are doubts. The Nieman Lab, one of the most prestigious sites for journalism analysis in the world, sets the tone for the decline in quality at Forbes in recent years. To reduce costs, one of the most renowned publications in the market started to open space for external contributors, paying little. Unedited, these articles have attracted even scammers wanting to promote themselves, as the site highlights<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Forbes wading into the crypto swamp, so to speak, is definitely a strange twist when you think about what Forbes used to represent. A decade ago, no one would\u2019ve pictured this 100-year-old magazine being at the mercy of outside money, especially from a fast-moving tech player like Binance. There\u2019s a kind of irony in the fact that, while cryptocurrencies promise decentralization, these big corporate moves end up folding old institutions back into the hands of a few powerful interests anyway.<\/p>\n

For Forbes, which intends to go public this year, the acquisition by Binance could be a breather. But what about the publication’s editorial independence – which has been compromised for some time -, how is it? This Buzzfeed article<\/a> shows how the external contributors area was already being used as well for companies to promote themselves with low quality articles. Will this accelerate?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not as though Forbes is alone in these murky waters, either. If you take a step back, the bigger picture is that those once-mighty publishing brands\u2014think Time, Fortune, even Rolling Stone\u2014are all looking for lifelines. These publishing houses survived so long on old cachet and name recognition, but nothing really shields them from the same market pressures as a meme coin or start-up exchange these days. So, seeing Binance swoop in isn\u2019t totally shocking. It\u2019s more a sign of the times than an outlier event.<\/p>\n

According to the exchange’s founder, Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao, the media is \u201can essential element to build widespread consumer understanding and education\u201d, implying that he would use the magazine’s prestige to promote his own business. Soon after, via Twitter, he assured that he would maintain the publication’s independence.<\/p>\n

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1\/Had some questions in my DMs. Forbes editorial independence is and will always be sacrosanct. The strength of the Forbes brand and our investment depends on that continued independence.<\/p>\n

— CZ \ud83d\udd36 Binance (@cz_binance) February 10, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n