Alameda Research Leads $3.25M Seed Round for Trustless Media

Web3 media company Trustless Media raised a $3.25 million in a seed funding round that was led by Sam Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research with participation from Ava Labs and Red DAO, according to a press release. Bankman-Fried is a billionaire who co-founded the FTX crypto exchange.

Trustless works with content creators and organizations to help them tokenize their TV shows using non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. Shows can use the NFT model partly to crowdfund productions with holders who receive access to watch the token-gated content and who can participate in productions with on-chain voting.

The New York-based company is testing its own mission statement with the release of “Coinage,” a Web3 TV show that critically examines the crypto industry.

Trustless calls its collection of "Coinage" NFTs an experiment in “building a governing community,” with token holders given access to an ad-free version of the show upon its eventual release.

“Despite all the data we have, it's never been harder for studios and networks to guess what will break through the noise and actually connect with subscribers old and new," Zack Guzman, co-founder of Trustless, said in the release.

The greater NFT television landscape remains in its infancy, though several companies and big-name celebrities have begun testing the new business model.

Actress Mila Kunis announced in March she would be producing an NFT-backed TV show called “The Gimmicks,” which follows her successful NFT show “Stoner Cats,” which was released last summer.

Read more: Vitalik Buterin Joins Cast of ‘Stoner Cats,’ Mila Kunis’ New Animated NFT Show

Along with individual shows, numerous companies are bidding for the title of being the next “decentralized Netflix,” allowing shows to not only crowdfund using NFTs but also use their platform as a streaming service. Notable companies in this group include artist Pplpleasr’s Shibuya and Ritestream.