Should NFTs be hidden on the blockchain???

Hey friends,

First off, a massive warm welcome to all the new followers from our MetaSilk Breakdown and Ledger giveaway. Also, a big congrats to @cryptomaniac9_0 who is now living in a safer Web3 world!

In this edition, we have a range of the latest stories from Starbucks to stealth NFTs, so let's just jump into it!

Starbucks To Upgrade Loyalty Program With NFTs

Starbucks has become a crucial part of many people's daily routines, and now this daily routine is set to involve NFTs as interim CEO Howard Schulz has said there is a big Web3 announcement coming next month. Starbucks Rewards through the Starbucks app is undoubtedly one of the most successful loyalty programs in the industry due to its daily use by an army of repeat customers, and it's about to be revamped with new NFT features. Starbucks chief marketing officer Brady Brewer, said "We plan to create a series of branded NFT collections, the ownership of which initiates community membership, and allows for access to exclusive experiences and perks. The themes of these collections will be born of Starbucks artistic expressions, both heritage and newly created, as well as through world-class collaborations with other innovators and like-minded brands". It may not seem like much on the surface, but a $29 billion revenue company with over 40 million daily customers (Statista, 2021) preparing to incorporate NFTs into people's daily lives, could be a massive catalyst for the entire NFT world.

Instagram Doubling Down On NFTs

Back in May we covered Instagram's launch of NFT support in the U.S. Well now, a recent announcement from Meta has set to expand the digital collectibles feature to 100 more countries in Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and the Americas. The new feature will let Instagram users share any NFTs they own by directly connecting their digital wallet to the app. By connecting a digital wallet (initial support to MetaMask, Trust Wallet, Coinbase Wallet, and Dapper Wallet), Instagram will be able to verify ownership of a user's digital collectibles, and then users will be able to display their NFTs on their account, with automatic tagging of the collection and creator. At this moment, support has initially been added to Ethereum and Polygon, with Flow (up 44% in 24hrs) blockchain being announced alongside this recent update. The announcement came with Mark Zuckerberg saying “We’re not just building technology. We’re trying to also help foster this ecosystem, because at the end of the day, we’re not going to build most of the content – by a long shot. The vast majority of it is going to get created by creators in the ecosystem”. Instagram has roughly 1 billion monthly active users (Statista, 2021), and with only 28.6 million wallets currently holding NFTs (Findstack 2022), it puts into scope the potential growth that this added NFT support could bring to the industry.

Vitalik Buterin Announces Idea for Potential “Stealth” addresses

Ethereum is clearly the current home for NFTs when we saw it surpass $25 billion in all-time sales back in June, and now the co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, has released his thoughts on adding stealth addresses for ERC-721 NFT tokens. ERC-721 is a standard for non-fungible tokens, and its what's used in most of the collections out there from BAYC to GoblinTown. Although the blockchain poses the advantage of complete transparency on transactions, finding the balance between semi-anonymity and transparency on the blockchain has been a challenge for many as the crypto space continues to grow. This complete traceability has poised problems to phishing scams where in January, Cointelegraph reported there were cases of users swiping IP addresses from NFT marketplace OpenSea as well as MetaMask. Vitalik Buterin proposes “A low-tech approach to add a significant amount of privacy to the NFT ecosystem. So you would be able to eg. send an NFT to vitalik.eth without anyone except me (the new owner) being able to see who the new owner is”. On a low level, Vitalik suggests smart contract wallets could include a method that would allow the sender to essentially mask their address to third parties. Will this even end up happening? Should NFT ownership be hidden? Who knows, but in these early adoption days of NFTs, it's important we are all aware of the advancements happening that could impact the wider NFT community.

NFTs.com Domain Name Sells For $15 million

To finish off with a quick story, the domain name NFTs.com has just sold for $15 million. Making it the second-largest public domain deal ever, the first was Voice.com, which sold for $30 million in 2019 to a blockchain company, making the two biggest domain acquisitions crypto-related, hmm coincidence? Both parties in the NFTs.com sale are anonymous, but the landing page gives us some clues as it has one line simply reading “Powered by DigitalArtists.com Marketplace” which is a Web3 art platform that offers curated NFT drops and services to artists. Someone out there is betting big on the continued growth of NFTs.

Thanks for reading this edition of Morning NFTea. Have a great couple of days and we will see you next time!

Connect with us on socials for a more personal experience! 👇

Twitter + Discord

Recent Articles

American Express Backing NFTs??

MetaMask Security Update!

Gatorade Enters The NFT Game & Loyalty Programs?

Snapchat To Experiment With NFTs?

NFT Gaming Consoles?

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.