Disney Acquires A16Z: Plans to Relaunch Classic Cryptos But With Trans Women of Color Founders
The Walt Disney Company is buying Andreessen Horowitz (A16z), a private American venture capital firm, it announced in a joint public statement Wednesday. Disney views A16z as a path to growth in tech and financial markets. CEO Bob Iger told The Bugle he is excited to expand Disney's brand reach into the digital realm but most importantly, by partnering with A16z, they can monetize the Disney digital metaverse.
"Disney pioneered the metaverse", Iger said. "That's what Disney World theme parks are. The original metaverse. Disney movies, television programming, and other related content is its own unique universe. When we saw Meta, A16z, and others begin sharing their vision for a digital blockchain metaverse we knew Disney had to be involved. The problem was money. When people flock to our theme parks in Florida and California each year, we can charge them absurd ticket prices to enter our parks. We needed a way to charge the public those same prices to enter the digital version of Disney World. Now we have it." Iger added. He is referring to NFTs, of course. Disney announced it plans to use NFTs to sell access to the digital Disney universe the plan to build with A16z.
The full scope of Disney's plans are not yet known however they did announce their first project will be to re-launch popular cryptocurrency projects from the previous decade. Disney said Dash, EOS, Stellar, and Peercoin will be re-branded and re-launched in 2025 with new features which will make them interoperable with the Disney metaverse. But there's another twist. The projects will no longer be associated with their original founding teams and communities. Disney is seeking trans women, women of color, and Palestinian women to become the founders of these revived tokens.
"We think the nostalgia of defunct crypto tokens coming back to life will be exciting for the OGs but the cryptocurrency space of ten years ago was very white and very male" a Disney marketing executive told the Bugle. "We want to make crypto and the metaverse more inclusive. By putting minorities, non-binary individuals, and women at the helm of these projects it signals to marginalized people that they are welcome in the Disney universe. All they need is $1400 to pay for the price of admission. Its very empowering." She concluded.
