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It\u2019s no secret that Web3\u2019s relationship with mainstream media has been, at times, contentious. But one of media\u2019s most well-respected legacy organizations, Time <\/em>magazine, has been at the forefront of Web3 integration for two years. Having officially launched The Genesis Collection for TIMEPieces, the publications Web3 community initiative, in September last year, the media\u2019s NFT endeavor did $10 million in NFT<\/a> sales in 2021 and has collaborated with hundreds of artists to date.<\/p>\n Time President Keith Grossman, spoke today at a panel during nft now and Mana Common\u2019s The Gateway: A Web3 Metropolis. The media veteran, who recently announced<\/a> he\u2019d be leaving the organization after having accepted the role of President of Enterprise at MoonPay, touched on Time\u2019s role as a leader in the media landscape regarding Web3, the future of journalism, the origin story and success of TIMEPieces, and more.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s easy today to be up here and talk about the success that TIME<\/em> has had in the last two years in Web3,\u201d Grossman said of the publication\u2019s impact on the space. \u201cIt\u2019s really important to remember in March 2021 when we said we were going to enter Web3 properly, we were ridiculed. But what\u2019s really important is what\u2019s fueling this. Not the market, right? What\u2019s actually fueling Web3? What I saw was people\u2019s digital identities. [Before] 2020, when we were all isolated, our digital personas were nice add-ons to our physical bodies. In 2020, we realized our digital personas are equal to our physical lives.\u201d<\/p>\n Grossman told the audience the story of his initial Web3 explorations on Clubhouse in April 2020. The fact that Chris Torres, the creator of the Nyan Cat meme<\/a>, had sold his creation on the blockchain for 300 ETH (nearly $600,000) just a couple of months prior, stayed with Grossman as he began formulating his thoughts on the potential of blockchain-based tech. \u201c[I told people,] do you understand why a cat with the body of pop tart farting a rainbow just went for 500,000 dollars?\u201d Grossman recalled. \u201cEveryone just looked at me like I was crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n Spending more time on Clubhouse, Grossman slowly began to piece together the basics of NFTs, including how Web3 communities operated and how token-gated access worked.<\/p>\n Grossman also told the story of how he, in some senses, stumbled upon the discovery of the power of Web3. After being put in touch with Guy Oseary<\/a>, the manager of Bored Ape Yacht Club and Madonna, among many others, Oseary arranged a kind of Web3 speed dating on behalf of Time<\/em> to feel out who might be interested in partnering with the publication. Grossman eventually met\u00a0 \u201cthe only two people who would ultimately take my call\u201d regarding what Time<\/em> was aiming to do.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody would take my call,\u201d Grossman explained. \u201cI called everyone. Every platform. Nobody would take seriously what Time<\/em> was doing to enter Web3.\u201d One of the people who did take Grossman seriously was John Crain at SuperRare<\/a>, who offered the publication the ability to mint on their platform. Crain then lent Grossman some ETH and walked him through how to mint something SuperRare. Grossman\u2019s knowledge of the blockchain still being somewhat nascent at the time, he believed that minting something meant that it was private to his own account and unable to be viewed by anyone else.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can either be a greed-based community or you can be a values-based community.\u201d<\/p>\n Keith Grossman<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n With this in mind, Grossman then minted three iconic Time<\/em> magazine covers: April 1966\u2019s \u201cIs God Dead?\u201d, April 2017\u2019s \u201cIs Truth Dead?\u201d, and March 2021\u2019s \u201cIs Fiat Dead?\u201d. Shortly after, he received a bid for \u201cIs God Dead\u201d for $15,000. Crain advised Grossman to cancel the bid as he believed the cover was worth far more. Grossman did so, and after enduring a few days of no bids on the cover (followed by ridicule from Web3 onlookers and skeptics watching the magazine\u2019s experiment play out in real-time), received a bid for the cover for $440,000.<\/p>\n \u201cI started to understand more how the one-of-one market worked,\u201d Grossman said. \u201c[I saw that] it\u2019s a lot like episodic advertising in media.\u201d A few months later, Grossman saw that SuperRare had launched a DAO, releasing RARE, the DAO\u2019s native token, in the process. After combing through his inbox, Grossman found an email from SuperRare telling him to claim his tokens.<\/p>\n \u201cI claimed [them], and my jaw hit the ground,\u201d Grossman recalled. \u201cWe\u2019d done so much business [on the platform] that Time<\/em> had earned $1.4 million worth of RARE tokens. I converted it to Ethereum immediately. [\u2026] I converted that into cash. I sent a million dollars in cash to Time<\/em>, and I held on to $400,000. And that actually paid for the launch of TIMEPieces. So, I never had a conversation with a business partner or a single meeting with anyone. I literally funded all of TIMEPieces from this DAO convergence.\u201d<\/p>\n Grossman also commented on the current state of Web3 \u2014 specifically, which communities thrive and which ones don\u2019t.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can either be a greed-based community or you can be a values-based community,\u201d Grossman underscored. \u201cIn bull markets, greed-based communities emerge; in bear markets, value-based ones tend to be the ones that survive.\u201d The exiting Time<\/em> President\u2019s thoughts on the future of journalism similarly drew on a distinction between good and bad actors in the space. In a seemingly post-truth environment, both citizen journalism and mob journalism have seen a precipitous rise, Grossman explained.<\/p>\n \u201cCitizen journalism is individuals using Etherscan and presenting an objective perspective on what happened. You can see it,\u201d said Grossman. \u201cOne of the most beautiful aspects is its transparency. Mob journalism is, \u2018How many people can I get in a room and how sensationalized can I make this?\u2019 It might be fun, it might be entertaining \u2014 it\u2019s not journalism. Citizen journalism is unbelievably powerful. You see it in Iran. [\u2026] I just worry about the frustration that\u2019s taking place between disjointed coverage in mainstream journalism and citizen journalism that has elevated mob journalism.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not a crypto issue \u2014 it\u2019s a bad actor issue.\u201d<\/p>\n Keith Grossman<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Grossman drew an analogy between the evolution of the media and the use of horses in transportation in the past several hundred years in the United States. During the early days of expansionism on the continent, horses were mass transportation, Grossman elaborated. With the advent of the train, they became localized transportation. But when cars came along, horses didn\u2019t vanish, they simply became relegated to a few particular sectors of society \u2014 one of which was available only to the affluent. Seeing as so many publications now require paywalls for their readers to access their content, Grossman noted that exceptionally great media is now similarly becoming available only to the affluent.<\/p>\n \u201cOver the coming years, depending on legislation, it will be very interesting to see where media goes,\u201d Grossman noted.<\/p>\n Grossman admitted that he was perplexed as to why many legacy media outlets have been relatively soft on Sam Bankman-Fried and the recent and spectacular fall of crypto exchange FTX<\/a>. Conspiracy theories regarding SBF\u2019s relationship with either journalists or politicians, however, hold little water in his view.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no scenario where journalists all talk in a room and decide something,\u201d Grossman explained, citing his many years in the media landscape. \u201cThere\u2019s no scenario where just because he was a big donor to politicians means politicians will go lightly on him because he\u2019ll not have something to give them [in the future]. I think [the media] doesn\u2019t understand the space well enough to understand what really happened. The effective altruism approach he took is so welcomed and warming that it\u2019s hard to believe in someone who used money for so much good could also do something that\u2019s so bad. [\u2026] It\u2019s not a crypto issue \u2014 it\u2019s a bad actor issue.\u201d<\/p>\n Grossman\u2019s transition to MoonPay will be a fascinating one. The exiting Time<\/em> President certainly has the enthusiasm and the experience to help the online exchange become a major onboarding force in Web3.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nTime Magazine\u2019s first blockchain experiment<\/h2>\n
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The future of Web3 and media<\/h2>\n
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