99 year-old publisher Time is leading legacy media into the NFT future

TIMEPieces token holders can connect their digital wallets to TIME’s website, which gives them unlimited access to TIME content, as well as exclusive invitations to both virtual and in-person events. Some of the more popular tokens within the TIMEPieces collection include photography and other forms of digital art from 89 emerging Web3 artists, including Farokh Sarmad, Joanne Hollings and Julie Pacino, daughter of actor Al Pacino, among others. It’s also attracted many well-known celebrity collectors, from Anthony Hopkins to Eva Longoria and Miguel.

In addition to auctioning off original renderings of their most famous cover stories, TIME adds its iconic red-frame to each NFT created by these emerging artists — a group curated by the media giant’s creative director, D.W. Pine. Grossman describes it as highlighting the “next generation of artists,” as the brand prepares to celebrate a century of publishing the news-related cover art it’s known for today.

Since September, TIME has created, or “dropped” as it’s known in the space, more than 20,000 TIMEPieces NFTs that are owned by roughly 12,000 digital wallets, approximately half of which are connected to Time.com, according to Grossman — that’s translated into $10 million in profit for TIME, as well as $600,000 generated for various charities.

TIME recently partnered with ethereum-based gaming platform The Sandbox to create a virtual space in the metaverse dubbed TIME Square, which will serve as a central location for the brand to host virtual art and commerce events.

With its $1.5 billion market cap, according to CoinGecko, The Sandbox is among the largest metaverse projects, due in large part to its early adoption of blockchain technology. In November, a virtual plot in The Sandbox set the record for the highest-valued digital land sale when metaverse developer Republic Realm paid $4.3 million to purchase a digital parcel from Atari.

Investors have been quick to assert that long-term value in digital assets will come from their utility. It’s a message that’s been difficult for institutional investors to digest as collectible artwork, such as the prominent Bored Ape Yacht Club, took center stage in the early days of NFTs and alongside equally-hyped Crypto Punks, recently saw prices fall precipitously.

“As this new technology was getting adapted, one camp emerged around the notion of building a community that had a set of values and principles,” Grossman said. “And another emerged around what I would call ‘greed-based communities.'”