Starbucks bids farewell to NFT, why it halted the Odyssey project when the market picked up

Source: Yuan Universe Daily Explosion

Recently, Starbucks announced that it will suspend its NFT product Starbucks Odyssey plan. The official website shows that the plan will end at the end of March, and holders can still purchase it on the Nifty Gateway platform. Continue trading.

Coming from the depths of the crypto-asset market, Starbucks is a successful example of a physical brand entering the Web3 field. It has successfully implemented Web3 digital marketing. Why did it suddenly stop when the crypto-asset market was about to pick up? Got Odyssey NFTs?

Starbucks officials did not give a specific explanation, but gave a vague answer on the FAQ page of the official website: "Starbucks Odyssey Beta must be ended to prepare for the next step of our continued development plan. ." 

In 2022, Starbucks Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Brady Brewer  is full of confidence in the Odyssey plan, saying, "Utilizing Web3 technology will allow our members to obtain experiences and ownership that were previously unavailable. ". At that time, the crypto asset market was in a bear market, but the floor price and sales of Odyssey NFT were rising all the way, and the experiential activities in conjunction with the plan were constantly being introduced.

After only one year of implementation, this plan dedicated to improving Starbucks user loyalty system has come to an end. Inquiring about the relevant NFT prices, we found that the vast majority of the Odyssey NFT series are in a broken state, which may be one of the reasons why Starbucks has pressed the pause button.

Starbucks is not the first traditional brand to withdraw from the NFT market. Game retailer GameStop and Korean telecom company KT have also recently shrunk their NFT product offerings.

01 Odyssey NFT majority breakout

Last Friday, Starbucks announced that it would end its Odyssey Beta customer loyalty program.

Open Starbucks Odyssey. If you still plan to join this program, a farewell message will pop up on the page: "Starbucks Odyssey Beta will end on March 31, 2024." Then, the page will guide you to Starbucks Starbucks Rewards registration page.

The Odyssey official page notifies that the plan will end at the end of March

This means that Starbucks Odyssey, a Web3 product that was once designed to improve member loyalty, will be terminated, and the Web2 membership system "Starbucks Rewards" that has been built for many years will be terminated. "Club" took off its Web3 coat and returned to its original appearance.

As for the reason, Starbucks explained on the Starbucks Odyssey FAQ page: "The Odyssey Beta must end to prepare for the next step in our continued development plan." This explanation seems to include some foreshadowing, saying that Starbucks is "working hard to provide members with a place to connect in the future."

It is still unclear what this future place will be. Some netizens joked on social networks, "Could it be the Metaverse?" Others speculated that it might mean a "game system." Starbucks did not respond clearly to outside speculation.

For users who already hold Starbucks Odyssey NFTs, Starbucks said that you can still continue trading on the NFT trading platform Nifty Gateway.

This well-known coffee brand’s test of NFT began at the end of 2022. The Odyssey program is claimed to be an expanded version of the existing Starbucks reward system, providing discounts and increasing interaction for users who purchase coffee and other products in the store. Rewards including  NFT stamps, drink making courses, etc. will be given, and lucky winners can also visit a coffee farm in Costa Rica.

At that time, the Odyssey project launched a closed beta version on the Polygon blockchain. As soon as the news came out, it attracted the attention of the Web3 market. So far, the Odyssey plan has launched 27 series of NFTs with different themes. Among them, the total sales of stamp NFTs at Nifty Gateway were US$3.4 million.

In March 2023, the Odyssey Project released its first limited edition  NFT stamps. The 2,000 Siren Collection pieces were sold out in less than 20 minutes. The official website even closed due to excessive traffic. Inaccessible; In August 2023, the "Green Apron" NFT series was launched and rose 23% within 15 hours. You know, the NFT market at that time was still in a "deep bear" of various declines.

Traditional industries and the Web3 field are all watching to see whether this traditional brand can use Web3 technology and related products to improve physical business links. Starbucks Chief Marketing Officer Brady Brewer also confidently stated that the plan will bring a "revolutionary Web3 experience" to Starbucks members.

Now that the encryption market is picking up, Starbucks has chosen to stop the Odyssey project at this time?

According to overseas media Techcrunch, Starbucks community leader Steve Kaczynski once said that the NFT market may drop significantly from its historical high, so it hopes to attract fans in new ways, and brands and loyalty programs can still exert their value. .

Indeed, the floor price of Starbucks’ more popular NFT series is now facing a market decline.

Most of the floor prices of Odyssey series NFTs have fallen below the offering price

It is not difficult to find out when combing Odyssey NFTs that except for the Siren series, other series of NFTs have fallen below the offering price. Most of them have fallen below the offering price. The price has shrunk by more than 90%. This means that users who originally purchased and held the Odyssey series of NFTs are likely to have lost money.

As for the NFTs that users get for free by completing tasks, the floor price has also dropped to single digits, which cannot cover the cost that users spent to complete the tasks, and some are not even enough to buy a cup of coffee.

02 Starbucks is not the only traditional brand that has suspended NFT

It is undeniable that the Starbucks Odyssey NFT plan has It is regarded as a textbook for Web2 brands to enter Web3. Now the plan is suddenly terminated, which has brought quite a shock to the industry. The withdrawal of Starbucks has a lot to do with the overall downturn in the NFT market.

Since February 2024, the crypto asset market has generally risen. BTC (Bitcoin) has hit a record high, ETH (Ethereum) is close to its previous high, and the Meme and AI sectors have also risen. It has brought returns to many crypto asset investors, but the NFT market seems to be stuck in a "cold winter."

The CoinGecko report shows that NFT transaction volume in 2023 will be less than half of 2022, falling from US$26.3 billion to US$11.8 billion, a month-on-month decrease of US$14.5 billion. In addition, NFT sales for the full year of 2023 will be approximately US$8.7 billion, a decrease of 63.35% from US$23.74 billion in 2022.

Real-time data from the NFT trading platform Blur shows that blue-chip NFT floor prices have generally fallen, and the leading NFT series "Boring Ape" BAYC has continued to fall, with a decline of 7% in the past 7 days; Pudgy Penguins, LilPudgys, Azuki  There has also been a drop of 10%-20%; DeGods floor prices have fallen by more than 40% daily.

The NFT market has been falling for half a year. The "leader" BAYC has fallen from 75 ETH to around 13 ETH, and the decline continues. KOL Bunny, who once firmly held BAYC, once said, "The BAYC trend chart makes me want to commit suicide."

The overall sluggish background of the NFT market has also shaken many traditional brands that were originally optimistic about NFT and deployed NFT. In addition to Starbucks,  GameStop, Social Media X, Nike and many other traditional brands began to shrink the layout of its NFT products.

In February 2024, game retailer GameStop announced on its official website that due to regulatory uncertainty, the company would begin to gradually close its NFT market on February 2. By then, customers will no longer be able to purchase , sell or create NFTs. Prior to this, GameStop had removed support for NFT wallets in November 2023.

GameStop is a US-listed company with more than 6,000 offline stores around the world. It eventually showed weakness under the impact of the epidemic and suffered losses for two consecutive years in 2020 and 2021. In 2022, GameStop began to shift its attention to the encryption market. In July, it launched its NFT platform of the same name. On the day of launch, the trading volume of GameStop NFT reached US$2 million.

The enthusiasm of crypto players pushed GameStop NFT into the top 10 in the market rankings, but this record did not last long. In the past month, the GameStop NFT website has only seen about $40,000 in trading volume.

In addition, South Korean telecom giant KT will also close its NFT platform MINCL on March 4, citing "changes in business conditions." According to the notice, relevant NFT holders can transfer NFTs to electronic wallets outside of MINCL, and users will not be able to view any remaining NFTs after the service end date.

In January this year, X, the social media platform helmed by Musk, also stopped supporting NFT avatars; Meta, the metaverse concept giant, ended its NFT plan as early as early 2023.

The suspension of the Odyssey project cannot be ruled out as being related to the sharp drop in NFT prices. It has been less than a year since the project officially started selling NFTs, which is roughly in line with the meaning of "Beta (test)". This Web3 marketing method may only be a one-year trial for Starbucks, and it does not break Starbucks' inherent "Starbucks Club" membership system.

Traditional brands have withdrawn, and Web3’s native blue-chip NFT project has collapsed. The objective reality makes people have to admit that NFT, the darling of the last round of crypto asset bull market, has fallen into a sluggish market environment. This product can carry visual information and can Blockchain applications that confirm authority on the chain are in urgent need of new scenarios.