Francis X. Suarez, the mayor of Miami, announced plans for the future delivery of 5,000 Ethereum NFTs on Thursday. Miami is working with Salesforce, Mastercard, and Time USA, the publisher of TIME magazine, to make it happen. The NFTs will be created by 56 various Miami artists, “representing the 56 square mile area of the city.”
Mastercard will give Miami NFT holders exclusive privileges including exclusive event access at restaurants and VIP cultural excursions in the city, while Time USA will assist in defining the city’s NFT strategy and carrying out the project.
With its new NFT Cloud platform, a yet-to-be-released Salesforce product that enables brands to mint and sell NFTs, Salesforce will oversee the NFTs’ primary sales process and minting.
The Miami NFT project is TIME’s first venture into assisting other entities to deploy NFT projects, according to TIME President Keith Grossman, who is also a member of Salesforce’s Web3 Advisory Board. He hinted that there may be more on the way. He claimed that the main goal of the Miami NFTs is to enable access to holders to capitalize on special opportunities.
“The artwork will reflect the tremendous diversity represented within the city of Miami. We will continue to employ these new technologies to support our existing businesses while attracting new ones,” Suarez said on crypto and NFTs in a statement.
Mayor Suarez has the same outlook as El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele about the present bear market of crypto. Due to the current market conditions, some bitcoin businesses have decreased their workforce and have declared bankruptcy.
The rollout of Miami’s Ethereum NFTs in December, which follows Ethereum’s switch to proof of stake, is not the city’s first excursion into cryptocurrencies and Web 3. In August of last year, Suarez introduced MiamiCoin (MIA), an alternative cryptocurrency that the city would store in a wallet and allow others to purchase. In just two months, it brought in approximately $8 million for the city, but it is now down roughly 98.9 per cent from its peak.