Writing: 0x22D, Cookie, BlockBeats
Recently, the news of Amazon's upcoming NFT Marketplace has sparked a lot of discussion in the market.
Amazon will launch its NFT platform on April 24, according to a person familiar with the matter. With more than 300 million users worldwide, how will Amazon's entry into NFT affect the overall market? Is it a sign that Web3 is finally ready for mass adoption?
Amazon's decision is not a whim, they started to release interest in Crypto and Web3 in 2021.
Amazon is looking for employees with DEFI-related work experience, according to a job Posting for blockchain product Leader on June 8, 2021. "Candidates should have a track record of delivering great products at scale in emerging fields, a passion for blockchain, distributed systems and cloud-scale software, and experience in delivering products or innovations in the blockchain space, particularly DeFi or traditional financial services," the job Posting reads.
A month later, Amazon posted another job Posting, seeking a digital currency and blockchain product lead to develop Amazon's digital currency and blockchain strategy, as well as a product roadmap "to bring the company's payments system into the crypto era." The position requires a "deep understanding of digital currency ecology and related field technologies" and will be based in Seattle, Washington.
On July 26, 2021, the London business newspaper CityAM reported that Amazon plans to accept Bitcoin payments by the end of 2021, according to sources within the company. However, an Amazon spokesperson was quick to clarify that the company has no plans to accept bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies as payment.
Perhaps feeling the impact of this rumor-debunking event, Amazon tightened its stance on Web3, which also made their views on NFT and Crypto ambiguous in the public eye. It wasn't until April 14, 2022 that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy finally said in an interview on CNBC's Squawk Box that individuals don't own bitcoin and that Amazon won't add cryptocurrency as a payment method, but may sell NFT in the future. We believe that over time, we will see the crypto market grow even larger.
CEO's statement, let the crypto community began to expect Amazon will enter the posture of Web3. Crypto players often discuss which project might become the Amazon of Web3. Is this coming? But who knew it would be a year.
Amazon will launch its NFT platform on April 24, 2023, according to a person familiar with the matter. At that time, users will not need to remember the new domain name, and will be able to jump to the Amazon Digital Marketplace page. About 15 NFT series will be available for users to choose from.
When we talk about Amazon and Web3, we often think of AWS, which has a monopoly on blockchain infrastructure, yet Amazon's own NFT market will not run on AWS, but on Amazon's local servers.
In particular, the source said that the NFT Amazon will launch will be linked to physical objects, and users will have the opportunity to purchase NFT delivered to their homes. Amazon's eyes are not limited to NFT. At present, another focus of Amazon is blockchain games, and it is also trying to invest in Layer1 public chain, chain game developers and encrypted trading platform.
The NFT community is generally optimistic about the upcoming Amazon NFT market: the Amazon NFT market is likely to bring huge user growth to the NFT community.
According to PROOF Research director NFTstatistics.eth in a podcast, the number of unique NFT buyers on the ETH main network is currently only around 20,000 per day. Amazon, meanwhile, has more than 310 million users worldwide. As @waleswoosh said, if even 1% of Amazon users show interest in Amazon NFT market, it will bring several times or even tens of times new customers to ETH NFT.
Amazon is likely to build the long-delayed bridge between the huge Web2 user base and the Web3 world:
1. Amazon's credit endorsement lets Web2 users down their guard against NFT. Today, Web2 users are not unaware of NFT, but more likely to "distrust" NFT -- how much is a picture worth? Is it really not a scam? Strong trust endorsement not only attracts more people to understand what makes NFT disarming, but can even eliminate this "distrust". Just as many NFT players still stick with OpenSea, they feel reassured by the familiar consumption experience. Similarly, buying NFT directly from Amazon can also give Web2 users this down-to-earth feeling and make them feel that NFT is becoming more and more a part of "living consumption".
2. Amazon's products are more in line with Web2 users' habits. A UI design that is closer to Web2 users' habits, a credit card purchase that is easier for Web2 users to complete their payments, and a more proven security guarantee will not only remove the learning threshold for Web2 users to enter the NFT world, but also provide a "seamless" consumption experience with traditional consumption.
3. Strengthen "virtual and real" experience and create consumption scenes with real demands. The Amazon NFT Marketplace will offer digital products related to real-life products, the sources said. For example, a new jacket could be bound to an NFT that verifies ownership, thus giving the jacket additional applications in the metaverse. In addition, another focus for Amazon at this stage is blockchain gaming, which could lead to wider acceptance of on-chain gaming assets. In any case, it's reasonable to expect Amazon's NFT marketplace to make a major effort to attract more Web2 users in the ubiquitous consumer scenario, with little chance of creating a "trading Bayc-like NFT assets" marketplace.
Of course, there are some voices that are not optimistic or even boycott Amazon's NFT market. The biggest doubt is that the Amazon NFT market may be quite closed and the goal is just to build a "private chain", like a "walled garden" that does not form any value input into ETH. In addition, some people think that the failure of Coinbase NFT to see Amazon NFT market development prospects, that Web2 company in the expansion of Web3 business is likely to be "not fit". Centralization issues such as private key hosting also worry some Web3 users.
The entry of a giant is always exciting for the NFT community -- we are really hungry for new blood. So what if either Starbucks last time or Amazon this time, even though they may be more closed or may not add much direct value to the Web3 world in the short term? What matters is that NFT needs to be more widely understood, or quietly become a part of everyday life. The giants are likely to redefine the value logic of NFT -- NFT is just a technology. Previously, it was expensive to take on spillover liquidity, expensive in the many applications of this technology. Now, we may be getting closer to the "materialization" of NFT. What can NFT do to make life easier and more fun? There will come a time when we won't say, "I'm an NFT player."
There are still a lot of details about Amazon's NFT marketplace that have yet to be revealed. Only time will tell if Amazon will end up like Coinbase NFT or rewrite the NFT landscape.
