On Thursday, the mayor of Miami Francis Suarez announced that the city would be releasing 5,000 Ethereum-based NFTs later in the year. For the project, the city is partnering with TIME magazine publisher Time USA, Salesforce, and Mastercard.
According to the press release, the NFTs will be created by 56 Miami artists to represent the city’s 56 square mile area.
The city’s NFT strategy will be assisted by Time USA, and Mastercard will be offering benefits to holders of the Miami NFTs — such as access to special events, restaurants, and cultural tours of the city. Lastly, Salesforce will take care of the NFT minting and the primary sales using its NFT Cloud platform, a new product that has yet to be released.
Keith Grossman, the President of TIME, said that the Miami NFT project was the first instance that TIME had helped another entity create an NFT project, hinting there could be more collaborations to come.
The NFTs will let holders unlock experiences as they show off some of the best artists in the city. The drop is planned for some time in December after Ethereum switches to a proof-of-stake protocol.
Despite the drop in crypto prices, the Miami mayor is bullish on Web3 and said he would continue to employ nascent technologies to support businesses in Miami and attract new ones.
Not Miami’s First Dance with Crypto
The launch of Miami NFTs should be no surprise to anyone paying attention to the city and the mayor’s attitude towards cryptocurrency and Web3. At Rarity Sniper, we’ve written about several interesting Web3 events being launched from Florida’s sunny shores.
A few of those projects include Miami Swim Week using Web3 technology at its festival, a real-world mansion that was auctioned as an NFT, and Crypto.com dropping a series of NFTs linked to the 2022 Grand Prix held in Miami. But perhaps no one in Miami is as bullish on Web3 and NFTs as the mayor himself.
In August of last year, Suarez launched MiamiCoin (MIA), an altcoin that people could buy and stake to earn rewards. The coin saw rapid success, generating $8 million for “the magic city” in only two months. The city has staked most of its $MIA tokens to earn a yield in Bitcoin and plans to share some of that yield with Miami residents.
We’ll have to wait until December to see if the Miami NFT Drop will be successful. But in the past, the mayor stated publicly that he hopes to turn the city into a “cryptocurrency innovation hop.” The move to drop a Miami NFT collection looks like another step in that direction.