Miami Collabs With TIME, Mastercard, Salesforce to Sell 5K NFTs
Miami City’s four-way partnership to mint NFTs on Ethereum will see money flow to local artists and talent
Miami skyline | Source: Shutterstock
key takeaways
- A collection of 5,000 NFTs will be decided by 56 local artists
- Salesforce will handle mints, which will occur on Ethereum post-Merge
The City of Miami has announced a Web3 initiative backed by TIME, Mastercard and Salesforce to engage the community and drive additional revenue to local businesses.
Miami aims to create a collection of 5,000 NFTs designed by 56 local artists. The number 56 represents the city’s 56 square mile area.
NFT holders will be able to access Mastercard’s Priceless Miami program, which organizes unique culinary experiences and private events around the city.
Cloud provider Salesforce will handle the minting and selling via their newly unveiled NFT Cloud product. Launched in June and currently in closed pilot, the NFT Cloud is designed to aid its corporate clients in creating, managing and trading them.
The initiative is anticipated to launch in December, with tokens deployed to the Ethereum blockchain following its upcoming “Merge,” which will shift the network away from the energy-intensive Proof-of-Work and toward a Proof-of-Stake implementation.
City of Miami Mayor Francis X. Suarez stated in a press release:
“The City of Miami has been on the vanguard of the web3 revolution and we will continue to employ these new technologies to support our existing businesses while attracting new ones, raise capital and provide experiences for our citizens and those visiting this great City.”
Keith A. Grossman, president at TIME told Blockworks that Suarez has been “one of the most innovative leaders” in supporting blockchain technology and that they share the belief that “web3 is a long-term evolution enabling new relationships to be fostered between individuals and institutions.”
Miami can learn from TIME’s NFT success
Suarez launched MiamiCoin in August last year, a token intended to sustainably fund projects across the city to aid underprivileged communities. Around the same time, the mayor signaled support for bitcoin by pledging to take some of his salaries in the cryptocurrency.
MiamiCoin has since bombed, now trading 98% below its price peak recorded just after its launch. Token sales have generated more than $5 million for the city.
As for TIME, the prominent magazine brand entered the Web3 world in March 2021, and has since established its own NFT community called TIMEPieces. The company has reportedly sold more than 20,000 NFTs for $10 million profit.
TIME also published its first full magazine issue as an NFT, with Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin on the cover, and even bought land in The Sandbox to build a version of Times Square in the metaverse, among other initiatives.
TIME’s Grossman added that this four-way partnership is “our first move in a new venture for TIME to bring other brands and organizations successfully and authentically into Web3,” going on to say that additional partners will be announced in the coming months.
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