#83 | SONY Playstation Announces New NFT Framework

Estimated Read Time: 7 minutes

Hey friends,

Welcome back to this Morning NFTea! Today we have curated a jam-packed edition of big-hitting stories from Microsoft’s Web3 wallet, Playstation’s NFT gaming, and Polygon’s latest industry partnership. Let’s jump into it!

When it comes to the population's current access to our digital world, it’s no surprise to see Google Chrome dominating internet browsers with its 62% market share and Apple-native Safari in second spot with 24%. In third thouhg is Microsoft Edge (previously Internet Explorer) with its 5% share; but don't slouch on its 230 million users, because they are about to have a jump start into Web3 and NFTs.

Leaked by software documenter Albacore, the world has gotten early pictures of Microsoft’s Web3 Ethereum wallet and interface which will be natively built into their Edge internet browser. By building a crypto wallet directly into the Windows native browser, users won't need to rely on 3rd party applications like MetaMask to get started with Web3, thus simplifying the entire onboarding process and bringing us that step closer to mainstream adoption.

Apart from an additional focus on NFTs which we will get to, some other notable features were an explicit warning that the wallet is non-custodial. Non-custodial means users are forced to have full control of their blockchain assets where Microsoft doesn't have access to private keys or authority over transactions, truly keeping the “freedom to transact” decentralized nature of Web3 alive and well. Other features for Edge wallet users will include performance graphs of wallet assets, and Web3 news and headlines amongst every other typical wallet transaction history and transfer interface you would expect. However, let's look at their NFT tab.

From the leaked screenshots, the dedicated NFT tab looks to be an aggregator of multiple NFT marketplaces similar to sites like Blur that have been dominating recently. Microsoft’s interface says: “Browse different marketplaces to find your first NFT. As you build your collection of NFTs, we’ll organize them here”, which hints towards a gallery view for your assets right inside your browser. It's also easy to expect other NFT benefits like the ability to mint, sign, and access token-gated content natively through your browser.

On our journey to foster mainstream adoption of Web3s inclusion of both crypto and NFTs, a trustable user-friendly interface built straight into your default browser is a pretty monumental step. With news like this, it truly feels like we're getting closer to a Web3 future every single day.

The relationship between NFTs and gaming has long been foretold as a perfect match, allowing gamers to provably own their digital items. Well, it turns out that the industry has been listening; because SONY Playstation's recently published patent hints at a major disruption to this $300 billion industry.

Titled ‘NFT Framework For Transferring And Using Digital Assets Between Game Platforms’, the summary of the patent explains how “Current systems are technologically inadequate for the owner to use the asset across different games and platforms… Accordingly, as further recognized herein, the functionality of the game may be enhanced by enabling gamers and/or spectators to exclusively use the asset and possibly transfer its rights to others via NFT”, and so the new proposed framework from SONY aims to provide the infrastructure for seamless trading of digital assets between game platforms.

Apart from the monumental prospect of cross-platform NFTs, the patent also gives additional information for a digital “ledger-powered” marketplace that supports players buying, selling and trading NFTs with others. Although the NFTs that come to mind may be assets, art or access passes, it's important to remember the scope of SONY’S patent will encompass almost any Non-Fungible-Thing like characters, weapons and inventory to name a few. Players having true ownership of their digital content through NFTs and the ability to trade them freely through a universal marketplace would be a pretty revolutionary step for gaming.

Although this is very much still just a patent with no technology basis as of yet, a gaming goliath like Playstation showing any signs of incorporating NFTs would be a huge boost for Web3, and exemplifies how the blockchain infrastructure has benefits past just lucrative investments. The prospect that any “player-owned” digital item may soon be cross-platform compatible and tradable through open marketplaces. Hmm… that sounds awfully like the “inevitable” metaverse everyone keeps suggesting.

Polygon has been making waves in Web2 recently with their partnerships with top brands like Starbucks, Meta, Adidas, eBay, and Disney, but next in line in an effort to continue Web2’s transition to Web3 will be through their newly announced plan with Salesforce. For some quick context, Salesforce is the world's #1 ranked Customer Relationship Management (CRM) provider, which is a fancy way of saying they help manage the customer side for their 150,000 industry partners including the likes of Spotify, Amazon and American Express.

The news in question has Salesforce partnering with Polygon to help facilitate an NFT-based loyalty program, with Polygon Labs president Ryan Wyatt saying “Salesforce will help their clients onboard to Polygon with its management platform to help its clients create token-based loyalty programs”. Salesforce comes in with its industry-leading analytics platform that will give businesses easy and holistic views of how their customers are interacting with Web3 products, where Salesforce says you can “Monitor real-time blockchain data from collections launched on Ethereum and Polygon within your CRM”.

NFT loyalty programs are an intriguing use case, best exemplified by Starbucks’ flagship Odyssey programs. These NFT loyalty cards put ownership in the hands of the consumer while opening up brand new possibilities in Web3 to engage rewards and content. But it's not just this “hopeful” prospect that fuels Salesforce’s new Web3 pivot, because they had cold hard evidence to back it up where their recent survey found about 45% of consumers are open to buying an NFT from their favorite brand, and three out of four people who have purchased an NFT believe it deepens their loyalty to the brand. It's always exciting to see another Web2 brand embrace NFTs and Web3, and this will be great to see playout as Salesforce puts NFTs into the hands of everyday people through everyday brands.

Thanks for joining us today, we hope you have a great couple of days and we will be back soon with the next round-up, take care!

Notable digital artist XCOPY is releasing a new mint this Friday.

As a result, his iconic MAX PAIN collection saw an immediate influx in sales.

That being said — it may not be the friendliest market to launch something in right now.

As the creation of new NFT collections slows down and others (cough Doodles cough) shoot themselves in the foot, the attention has shifted towards macro economic trends (FOMC meeting, rate hikes), token drops (Arbitrum token airdrop) and innovations in artificial intelligence (which has nothing to do with web3 at all).

Perhaps we’ll see a bit more excitement on web3 and the metaverse as we close in on Yuga Labs’ Otherside 2nd Trip this Saturday.

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DISCLAIMER:

None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.