Why Starbucks Odyssey can Handle the Tall Order of Mainstream NFT Adoption

On September 12, 2022, Starbucks announced it would be entering the NFT space by introducing its Web3 loyalty program Odyssey.

With a history of top quality rewards and digital payment services, Starbucks is an ideal candidate to bring NFTs to the masses. Starbucks’ “coffee, connection, and community” focus is capable of changing the Web3 space forever.

The Web Third Place

From early Mecca, to post Boston Tea Party and beyond, coffee has a strong history of bringing people together to share culture and intellectual thought. The meaning of “connection” evolved with the implementation of WiFi. The connection to the coffee shop, as a meeting ground outside of home and work allows patrons to experience society in a stimulating and comforting manner. From this comfort often comes innovation.

Everyone Understands Coffee Roughly 50% of America, or 150 million Americans drink coffee. Another source estimated [62% of Americans](https://www.ncausa.org/Newsroom/NCA-releases-Atlas-of-American-Coffee) drink coffee. It is estimated over 1 billion people drink coffee worldwide. But how many people own a NFT? Well statistics say a meager 360,000 people own an NFT. The problem for mass adoption of Web3, much like the internet in its early stage, is people do not understand its use.

By taking crypto, blockchain, Web3, NFTs, and the endless branches of each of those, and calling it a coffee rewards program, Starbucks has an opportunity that has yet to be seen in crypto. Sip by sip, cup by cup, the familiarity of coffee presents a tremendous opportunity to get consumers to warm up to the idea of NFTs.

Starbucks Fintech Advantage Starbucks is not new to monetary technology. Starbucks mobile payments have been reported to be second only to Apple Pay as the most used digital payment system. However, when considering Chinese AliPay and WeChat Pay, Apple is third and Starbucks is fourth.

• Click here to see how China skipped the whole debit and credit card thing.
• Mobile payments revenue reached $1.7 trillion in 2021 but is expected to slow down in 2022. Most of the revenue is generated from the small interchange fees that each vendor charges per transaction.

Every year, as convenience and comfort grows, mobile payment usage grows with it. As the chart suggests, people are willing to pay a little for convenience. Starbucks has solidified its place in this trend with its mobile payment and rewards system. The market and infrastructure are already there for Starbucks to gamify, or story-ify, a Web3 rewards system.

Web3 Simplified

Starbucks and the special advisory team Forum3, led by Adam Brotman, designed the NFT sales to be simple. Participants can go on Journeys to earn Stamps or simply purchase limited-edition Stamps using a credit or debit card. The stamps have rarities and can be resold.

NFTs will also act as membership into the digital community but the typical Web3 NFT process has been removed to allow convenience for the 100 million Starbucks customers who have never purchased a NFT. You can read more on the experience and rewards in the Starbucks Stories and News Article or the TechCrunch Starbucks NFT Article. The emphasis of this blog is on convenience and mass adoption.

“It happens to be built on blockchain and web3 technologies, but the customer — to be honest — may very well not even know that what they’re doing is interacting with blockchain technology. It’s just the enabler,” Brewer explains." source

Today (9/23/22), in a Twitter Space hosted by [Laura Rod, The Miami Ape, Adam Brotman echoed Brewer’s statement. Brotman reinforced the commitment to Web3 technology delivered with a Web2 feel. And that, my friends, is the future of Web3.

Trust and Sustainability

Last December or January I purchased decentralizedcaffeine.com. My goal was to create an easy-to-use Starbucks-like Web3 payment app, open a coffee shop in Miami, and build a culture around crypto and coffee. I picked a spot one block from a Starbucks.

The idea was to grab a niche market and wage a Web3 war (in a fun way) from Miami to Seattle, essentially the reverse of the American Starbucks spread. Let’s ignore the change in market and difficulty in moving to Miami to open a coffee shop.

The venture most likely would have failed and I’d be another bad name for crypto. Why? Because of trust. Starbucks has generated a level of consumer trust where consumers are paying for coffee before they even order it.

The average consumer is not going to offer that level of trust to a new shop, or even more extreme, some random JPEG on the internet. Because of trust, alternative terminology, and the ease of use Starbucks is promising, Odyssey has the potential to pull off what very few ventures can, change the mind of masses.

Currently, if you start typing “NFTs are” in Google, it is obvious that the people searching NFTs don’t trust them. “Nfts are the future” is barely on the horizon. But people will buy stamps from Starbucks. Starbucks has the chance to completely shatter the market limitations that currently exist for Web3 ventures.

One Small Step for Web3, One Giant Leap for NFTs

Starbucks product design and target market illustrates an interesting paradigm in the current crypto space. Currently, the hype of the Web3 buzzword seems to draw unjustified attention. There seems to be underlying consensus that any project launched on the blockchain can bring insurmountable wealth

This was most recently seen with the Ethereum merge. People invested not understanding it was a development achievement and not a price changing event. These misconceptions, paired with lack of regulation, make crypto and NFT projects susceptible to being scams.

There are also too many cases where the project teams have good intentions, but poor execution. It is sometimes rather difficult to tell the two apart and in the end, either way, people lose money.

The NFT economy is limited, and for good reason. So, while the news that Starbucks is adding a Web3 rewards program may feel like the dagger in the heart of those that love DeFi, it is exactly what is needed to broaden the NFT market and bring the world closer to mass adoption of Web3.

If you know crypto, the technology is not all that advanced, but the impact it will have on the advancement of Web3 adoption, success or failure, will be a game changer.

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