Starbucks Brews Exit from NFT Loyalty Program Odyssey

Coffee giant ends blockchain experiment, transfers NFTs

Starbucks will terminate its NFT-based loyalty program Odyssey on March 31st after a six-month beta run. The collectible "Stamps" NFTs earned by customers will migrate to NFT marketplace Nifty Gateway for continued trading.

The move marks another retreat from NFTs by mainstream brands like GameStop, Twitter, and Meta that jumped on the Web3 bandwagon in 2022's speculative frenzy. Regulatory uncertainty likely fueled these firms' cooled blockchain ambitions.

However, Starbucks' Odyssey exit doesn't doom enterprise NFT use cases. The Polygon-powered program simply concluded its pilot in preparation for "what comes next" as Starbucks "continues to evolve" such initiatives.

Meanwhile, the memecoin mania resurfaced this week as Solana-based dogwifhat pumped over 30% amid a $700,000 crowdfund for a Las Vegas Sphere ad. The token's founders auctioned an NFT depicting the meme, reaching bids over 30 ETH ($113,000).

Solana itself jumped 22% as an influx of ironic, misspelled politician tokens flooded its ecosystem. Investment manager Franklin Templeton published crypto analysis correlating memecoin prices with their native networks.

The frenzy highlighted memecoins' persistent, if not increasingly self-aware, capacity to captivate speculative appetites. Whether sustainable utility emerges alongside the hype remains uncertain.

One interesting data: The price floor of Pudgy Penguins fell around $17,000 in the past week, from roughly $56,700 to roughly $39,700, according to NFT Price Floor.

Also of note:

The NFT project Sappy Seals let some users into a playtest of its open world game.

The massive multiplayer online game MapleStory is bringing a “Web3 enhanced extension” to the Avalanche blockchain.A trading bot on the popular-in-crypto messaging app Telegram saw more revenue than Arbitrum this week.