Coinbase, Digital Currency Group Make Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential Companies List Alongside Tesla, Amazon, Other Giants

Time Magazine has included two top crypto firms in its “top 100 most influential companies of 2021” list.

What Happened: Coinbase Global Inc COIN was included under the category “Titans” after its public debut on the Nasdaq turned out to be the largest direct listing in history with the company valued at $86 billion.

“It’s been a huge year for cryptocurrencies, but nothing’s been as validating as the April 14 direct listing of Coinbase, which operates an exchange where 56 million users buy and sell Bitcoin and more,” stated Time.

Time also named Digital Currency Group (DCG), the asset manager behind the world’s largest Bitcoin trust, in its most influential list.

Digital Currency Group was included under the category “Disruptors.” The magazine described the company as one that was "demystifying crypto for investors." 

DCG's Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, one of the most influential investment product, was also mentioned.

“In January 2020, Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust became the first financial product backed entirely by digital currency to report to the Securities and Exchange Commission,” said Time explaining that the SEC’ seal of approval has opened the trust to more potential investors.

04/27/21 UPDATE: Net Assets Under Management, Holdings per Share, and Market Price per Share for our Investment Products.

Total AUM: $45.5 billion$BTC $BCH $ETH $ETC $ZEN $LTC $XLM $ZEC $BAT $LINK $MANA $FIL $LPT pic.twitter.com/12Vcbb72zE

— Grayscale (@Grayscale) April 27, 2021

According to Grayscale’s most recent update, its total assets under management stand at over $45 billion as of today.

Why It Matters: Coinbase and DCG have joined the ranks of Facebook Inc FB, Microsoft Corporation MSFT, Amazon.com Inc AMZN, and Tesla Inc TSLA after being included in Time’s most influential list of 2021.

While this may have been hard to imagine a few years ago, it comes as no surprise to those who followed Time Magazine’s own foray into cryptocurrency earlier this year.

See also: You Can Now Pay For Time Magazine Subscription With Cryptocurrency

In March, the magazine auctioned a set of tokenized magazine covers as NFTs, and in April, it partnered with Crypto.com to accept cryptocurrency as a means of payment for digital subscriptions.

Time has also partnered with Grayscale to produce a video series explaining cryptocurrency.

The magazine said it does not plan to convert the Bitcoin it receives as payment into fiat currency but will instead hold the digital asset on its balance sheet.