Valkyrae announces release date for YouTube’s gifted memberships beta

Streaming star Valkyrae has broken the news that YouTube will be testing out gifted channel memberships as more and more broadcasters migrate from Twitch.

YouTube recently welcomed Sykkuno into its ranks, adding yet another major Twitch powerhouse to its numbers as more and more personalities appear to leave the purple platform for alternative sites.

The two companies are often at the center of conversations regarding which is the “best” streaming service… and it looks like this debate just got a tad more heated.

On May 10, 2022, YouTube streamer Valkyrae made a big announcement on her personal Twitter account, revealing the official release date for YouTube’s upcoming beta version of gifted channel memberships.

The beta is scheduled to start on May 11 and is, currently, seemingly exclusive for YouTube streamers Valkyrae, CouRage, and TimTheTatMan, who all made similar announcements.

That’s not all; Valkyrae also hinted at “many more changes to come,” signaling that the platform could be in for even more competitive adjustments in the near future.

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“Been streaming on YouTube for 2.5 years and just so happy to see the platform continue to focus working on improving the streaming side of it,” she said of the news.

YouTube’s gifted memberships aren’t anything new — the platform teased this forthcoming change back in February, after it announced that raids would also be coming to its site.

What are gifted memberships?

Gifted memberships appear to work in a similar vein to gifted Twitch subscriptions.

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Users can purchase a membership to a certain YouTube streamer’s channel and ‘gift’ it to another user — making for a unique gift for a friend’s birthday, as well as marking yet another way to support one’s favorite content creators.

If Rae’s announcement is any indication, YouTube users are in for a wild ride as the platform continues to pump out new features as it further breaks into the streaming sphere.