It’s no secret that Web3’s relationship with mainstream media is sometimes controversial. But he is one of the media’s most respected legacy organizations, time Magazine has been at the forefront of Web3 integration for two years. His NFT effort in the media, which officially launched the Genesis collection of TIMEPieces, a publication Web3 community initiative last September, $10 million in NFT Sales have increased in 2021 and we have collaborated with hundreds of artists to date.
Keith Grossman, President of Time, spoke today at nft now and Mana Common’s panel at The Gateway: A Web3 Metropolis. media veteran, recently announced After accepting the role of MoonPay’s Enterprise President, he left the organization and touched on Time’s role as a leader in the media landscape on Web3, the future of journalism, the origins and success of TIMEPieces, and more.
“It’s easy to come here today and talk about that success. time Grossman spoke about the impact the publication has had on the field. “It is very important to remember that I was ridiculed when I said I was going to enter Web3 properly in March 2021. But what really matters is what is driving this? It’s not the market, right?What’s actually driving Web3?What I saw was people’s digital identities. [Before] In 2020, when we were all in isolation, our digital personas were a great add-on to our bodies. In 2020, we realized that our digital personas are on par with our physical lives. ”
Grossman told the audience the story of the first Web3 survey at the Clubhouse in April 2020. Nyan Cat Meme, who sold his work for 300 ETH (around $600,000) on the blockchain just two months ago, was with Grossman when he began to collect his thoughts on the possibilities of blockchain-based technology. “[I told people,] Do you know how a rainbow-farting cat with a pop-tart body made $500,000?” Grossman recalled. “Everyone looked at me like I was crazy.”
Spending more time in the clubhouse, Grossman slowly began to piece together the basics of NFTs, including how Web3 communities operate and how token gated access works.
Time Magazine’s First Blockchain Experiment
Grossman also talks about how he discovered the power of Web3, in a way.after contacting Guy OsearyBored Ape Yacht Club and Madonna’s manager Oseary arranged a kind of Web3 speed dating instead. time Find people who may be interested in partnering with your publication. Grossman eventually met “the only two people who finally get my call” on what. time I was aiming to
“No one answered my calls,” Grossman explained. “I called everyone. Every platform. No one would take it seriously. time I was doing it to get into Web3. One person who took Grossman seriously was Super Rare John CraneCrain then loaned Grossman some ETH to explain how to create SuperRare. Grossman’s knowledge of blockchain was still in its infancy at the time, and he believed that minting something meant that it was confined only to his account and that no one else could see it. rice field.
“You can be a greed-based community, or you can be a value-based community.”
Keith Grossman
With this in mind, Grossman cast three iconic ones. time Magazine covers: “Is God Dead?” April 1966, “Is Truth Dead?” April 2017, “Is Fiat Dead?” March 2021. Shortly after, he received a bid for “Is God Dead” for $15,000. Crane advised Grossman to cancel the bid as he believed the cover was worth far more. Grossman did it, and after enduring several days of no cover bid (followed by ridicule from Web3 onlookers and skeptics watching the magazine’s experiment in real time), he submitted a cover bid. Received for $440,000.
“I’ve come to understand how one-to-one markets work,” says Grossman. “[I saw that] It’s a lot like temporary advertising in the media. A few months later, Grossman learned that SuperRare launched his DAO, and in the process he released DAO’s native token, He RARE. After combing through his inbox, Grossman found an email from SuperRare instructing him to get a token.
“claimed [them], and my jaw hit the ground,” Grossman recalled. “We have done so much business [on the platform] that time Won $1.4 million worth of RARE tokens. I immediately converted to Ethereum. […] I exchanged it for cash. sent $1 million in cash time, and I kept $400,000. And that actually went into launching TIMEPieces. So I never had a conversation with a client, never had a meeting with anyone. I literally funded all TIMEPieces from this DAO convergence. ”
Web3 and the future of media
Grossman also commented on the current state of Web3. Specifically, which communities are thriving and which are not.
“You can be a greed-based community, or you can be a value-based community,” Grossman emphasizes. “In a bull market, greed-based communities emerge. In a bear market, value-based markets tend to survive.” time The president’s ideas about the future of journalism were similarly based on the distinction between the good guys and the bad guys in the field. In a seemingly post-truth environment, both citizen journalism and mob journalism are seeing a steep rise, explained Grossman.
“Citizen journalism is individuals who use EtherScan and present an objective perspective on what happened. You can see,” Grossman said. “One of her most beautiful aspects is her transparency. Mob his journalism is, ‘How many people can you get in the room and how sensational can you make this?’ It might be fun, it might be interesting, but it’s not journalism. Citizen journalism is incredibly powerful. you see it in Iran. […] I’m just worried about the frustration going on between the incoherent coverage of mainstream journalism and the citizen journalism that has elevated mob journalism. ”
“This is not a cryptocurrency problem, it is a villain problem.”
Keith Grossman
Grossman drew an analogy between the evolution of media and the use of horses in transportation over the last few hundred years in the United States. In the early days of expansionism on the continent, horses were a means of mass transportation, Grossman elaborated. But with the advent of cars, horses did not disappear, they were simply relegated to a few particular sectors of society. Seeing that so many publications now require paywalls for readers to access their content, Grossman said that very good media would likewise become available only to the wealthy. I pointed out that there is
“It will be very interesting to see where the media goes in the next few years, depending on the law,” Grossman said.
Grossman admitted he was baffled as to why many traditional news outlets were relatively soft on Sam Bankman-Fried and the recent dramatic decline. Crypto exchange FTXHowever, conspiracy theories regarding the SBF’s relationship with journalists or politicians are largely unfounded in his view.
“There is no scenario where all the journalists are sitting in a room and making decisions,” explained Grossman, citing years of experience in the media industry. “Just because he was a big donor to politicians, there is no scenario where politicians disrespect him because he has nothing to give them. [in the future]I think [the media] We don’t understand space well enough to understand what really happened. The effective altruistic approach he took was so welcoming and heartwarming, it’s hard to believe that someone who spent his money on such good things could do something so bad. . […] This is not a cryptocurrency problem, it is a villain problem. ”
Grossman’s move to MoonPay will be compelling.Exit time The president certainly has the passion and experience to help the online exchange become a major onboarding force for Web3.
