
"As we start to speak to more and more big brands, they want to see how it actually works. "He was able to offer a better experience for some of the most loyal customers and fans of the Time brand," Soto-Wright added. "Every single week you hear of another major brand announcing that they're dipping their toes into Web3 and trying to implement a strategy."Īs MoonPay was researching the reasons behind brand adoption of the concept and early use cases, "Keith's name would come up a lot around what he was able to accomplish with TIMEPieces," Soto-Wright said. "It's incredibly timely to bring Keith on board," Soto-Wright said. While the downturn has signaled to many that NFTs are a passing fad, Grossman is among a small cohort of evangelists who remain bullish on what's been dubbed "Web3" - a hypothetical, future version of the internet based on blockchain technology. NFT sales have plummeted in lockstep, declining every month since April, according to data from CryptoSlam. In the 12 months since bitcoin topped out at over $68,000, the crypto industry, once valued at roughly $3 trillion, has fallen to around $900 billion.

MPC technology has become vital to securing digital assets like crypto, because it ensures that no one person has access to an individual's data by splitting it into multiple pieces. "But ultimately, if you are an actor in the space that's going to be holding onto client funds, you should fall under regulation." "We're starting to see some really great advancements around MPC (multi-party computation) technology to make that safer," Soto-Wright said. But he added that comes with its own set of challenges. Soto-Wright says that MoonPay's platform is non-custodial and that it does not hold onto customer funds as part of its business model. MoonPay co-founder and CEO Ivan Soto-Wright said that his company has no meaningful exposure to FTX, though he added that this is an inflection point for the industry with an impact on all the players.īefore filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection amid allegations of misuse of customer assets, FTX offered trading on its exchange by storing digital assets in what are called custodial wallets, which allowed it to serve as a middleman holding customer funds. "But some of the positives that come out of it will probably be some responsible regulation that will provide clarity for large companies that want to get into the space."

"If you look at the energy industry you had Enron if you look at the health industry you had Theranos if you look at the financial industry, you had Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, so it's not surprising that the crypto industry will have its bad actors as well," he said. "I think it's important to separate a bad actor from an industry," Grossman said of the FTX fallout. But the collapse of FTX and its ongoing ripple effect throughout the industry, coupled with this year's market volatility and risk-off investor environment, hasn't been kind to crypto trading. For now, that includes bitcoin, ether, and other digital tokens like NFTs. MoonPay's pitch to investors is that it offers a "gateway" to digital assets. Jessica Sibley, who was most recently the chief operating officer at Forbes, is now Time CEO. Grossman began transitioning out of his role as president in January to focus on the publisher's NFT business when Ian Orefice was named president and chief operating officer, according to a Time spokesperson.Įarlier this month, Time CEO Edward Felsenthal announced he was stepping down from that role, though he retains his editor-in-chief position and is taking on the additional role of executive chairman. Maya Draisin, Time's chief brand officer, will lead TIMEPieces.

"I think that the transition will be scary in one sense, because it's something new and different, but at the same time stable in another sense because we've consistently said that TIMEPieces was a community led by stewards, not founders."īefore his three-plus years at Time, Grossman had held leadership posts at major publishers including Bloomberg and Condé Nast-owned Wired.

"I've spent the past year operationalizing it," Grossman told CNBC in an exclusive interview. Personal Loans for 670 Credit Score or Lowerĭuring his tenure at Time, Grossman has become a staunch advocate of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, pioneering the media company's NFT business, TIMEPieces, and generating more than $10 million in profit along the way. Personal Loans for 580 Credit Score or Lower Best Debt Consolidation Loans for Bad Credit
