Starbucks halts Odyssey plan: its NFT is seriously broken, Polygon once sponsored US$4 million

2024-03-21 17:00

Read this article in 8 Minutes

AI summary

View the summary

Original title: "Starbucks suddenly halts Odyssey plan: its NFT is seriously broken, Polygon once sponsored US$4 million"

Original author: Nancy, PANews

When the NFT market fell to freezing point, Starbucks announced that the Odyssey NFT plan, launched less than two years ago, would be terminated. Meanwhile, Polygon Labs was revealed to have paid Starbucks $4 million to fund the loyalty rewards program, beating out other competitors to become a Starbucks partner. The sudden end of Starbucks' NFT program may be related to many reasons such as low user participation and the sluggish NFT market.

Planning to launch a new member experience, most Odyssey NFTs are seriously broken

Last week, Starbucks announced will terminate its Odyssey NFT program in beta on March 31 and will soon close its Discord community. After the closure of the Odyssey NFT program, users will still be able to trade on Nifty Gateway.

Although Starbucks officials did not provide a specific explanation for the closure of Odyssey, Odyssey community leader Steve Kaczynski seemed to reveal the reason for the planned closure in an interview with TechCrunch , "The NFT field may have declined sharply from historical highs. The Odyssey NFT project has only received more than 58,000 active user participation, but most of them are non-Web3 natives."

As a rewards program launched in the second half of 2022, Starbucks Odyssey aims to combine the company's loyalty reward program with NFTs to enhance customer experience, and has launched multiple themed NFTs in the past, many of which sold out quickly after being launched online. However, as the NFT market took a turn for the worse, Starbucks' 27 Odyssey NFTs experienced widespread and serious breaches, and the transaction volume within the month was only hundreds and thousands of dollars.

Nifty Gateway data display, As of March 21, for example, the floor price of "The First Store Collection Stamp" has dropped by more than 82% from the issue price of US$100, "The Starbucks® Green Apron Stamp" has dropped by 86% from the issue price, and "The First Store Collection Stamp" has dropped by more than 82% from the issue price of US$100. ” dropped by 82%, “Holiday Cheer Stamp” dropped by more than 72.6% from the historical average price, and “Going Places Journey Stamp” dropped by more than 98% from the issue price. However, there are still some series of NFTs that have not yet broken through. For example, "The Siren Collection Stamp" still has a 30% increase from the issue price.

However, Starbucks also revealed that it will launch a new membership experience in April. At the same time, Steve Kaczynski also said that Starbucks is looking for new ways to unlock the value of its brand and loyalty programs and will expand its rewards program in 2024.

Polygon Labs has provided US$4 million in sponsorship and invested in matchmakers

Polygon Labs has Cooperating with Starbucks has greatly expanded its popularity. Regarding the reason for the cooperation between the two parties, Starbucks has publicly stated that it mainly depends on Polygon’s advantages such as low transaction fees and scalability.

It is reported that Polygon’s cooperation with Starbucks was brought together through the digital collectibles company Forum3. The company’s co-founder Adam Brotman is the former chief digital officer of Starbucks and later Become an Odyssey Special Advisor. CoinDesk quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that Adam Brotman talked with Polygon, Solana and others in early 2022, and finally selected Polygon for technical reasons.

But unlike most companies that pay technology companies for services, Polygon Labs was required to pay Starbucks $4 million to build Starbucks Odyssey. Part of the fee, this fee also allowed Polygon to win cooperation with three other blockchains. Regarding the reasons for sponsorship, the market also speculates that if large brands such as Starbucks choose Polygon as their launch platform to participate in the encryption field, it may attract more customer groups to follow suit.

It is worth mentioning that Polygon Ventures also participated in the US$10 million seed round of financing announced by Forum3 in 2022. Currently, Forum3’s official website shows that this company, which once focused on branded digital collectibles, has transformed into the artificial intelligence track.

Separately, Polygon Labs’ big deals forging high-profile partnerships with companies like Nike and Starbucks are in the past, according to a person familiar with the matter. Remains of the previous leadership’s strategy. It is reported that Ryan Wyatt, the former president of Polygon Labs, led the cooperation with Starbucks, but he left after the senior management reshuffle of Polygon Labs in 2023. As the members involved in these collaborations leave and Polygon turns to the ZK track, the future focus will be more on technology than on brand marketing.

Large traditional platforms such as Starbucks are not alone in leaving NFT. In the past, GameStop, Meta, eBay, etc. have closed or laid off their teams due to factors such as NFT development prospects and regulation. This also means that NFT still faces great challenges if it wants to reach a wider market in a long-term way.