How Web2 Brands Are Winning Web3

TL;DR

• Initial buyers of Starbucks’ Odyssey NFTs are still in profit across the board, even after the NFT market has tanked.

• This might be because Starbucks NFT holders are also customers of its coffee business.

• Their regular patronage of Starbucks encourages holders to continue buying/selling/acquiring the underlying NFT collection.

• Propping it up as a result, throughout the down market.

Full Story

Things we’ve said before and will say again:

1. Web2 and legacy brands have the biggest opportunities in Web3.

2. Web3 tech needs to become invisible to the end user.

3. Reading books is weird. (You’re gonna go stare at symbols printed on tree shavings, and hallucinate? Get a grip).

On that first point…we just found a new signal that backs up the argument.

Remember a few months back when we reported that minters of Starbucks’ Odyssey NFTs were in profit across the board?

Well, since then, the NFT market has tanked even lower (not great).

Yet all Odyssey holders are still in profit!

Why? We can’t be certain, but we have a sneaking suspicion that it’s all to do with their established business.

Here’s the idea:

When a Web3 native NFT project launches, the NFT collection is pretty much the entire product offering. There’s no other existing businesses to prop it up. So when the NFT market tanks, the collection often goes with it.

Whereas Starbucks NFT holders are also customers of its coffee business (which is the core of its brand).

And their regular patronage of Starbucks encourages holders to continue buying/selling/acquiring the underlying NFT collection (propping it up throughout the hard times).

Think of it like Apple AirTags and Tile (a similar/competing product).

If tomorrow broad interest in tracking tags waned, Apple’s AirTag business would be more resilient (because it has other products bringing users into its ecosystem).

But Tile would be at a much higher risk of collapsing (tracking products is their whole business).

Point is: The opportunity to capitalize on Web3 tech is open to both Web2/legacy brands and Web3 native brands.

The difference is, Web2 brands have a better chance of weathering market storms.