Starbucks' Move To Web3 Begins

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Here is the breakdown of today's newsletter:

☕️ Starbucks NFT Odessey🙌 OpenSea becoming more decentralized👀 Metaplex drama rages on

• The Starbucks Odyssey beta is now available for select users. This loyalty-based Web 3 program will earn users special experiences and perks. (TC)

• Legendary artist Kaws is releasing a "tap-to-own" technology in which a chip will be inserted into each artwork that ties the physical artwork to a digital token. See here.

• A 420.69 ETH BAYC sold yesterday that has holders buzzing (@beast_eth)

• Atari opens up Atari X Printing Press, allowing holders to print their NFTs as posters fit for a frame. (@AtariX)

• Artist pplpleasr has received massive backing for their new blockchain-based video platform. Investors include Paris Hilton and Kevin Durant. (@pplpleasr)

• The minds behind the platform Open Sea have shifted their stance on royalties once again. (DC)

• ENS domain metaverse.eth sold recently for a whopping 99ETH. (EV)

• Wormholed punks announce that punk#7148 is now available on Solana in 1/1000 Editions. (@wormholedpunks)

• Claynosaurz is working on creating animated profile pictures. (@dayvough_sol)

Starbucks Beta Testing NFTs 🏗️

Starbucks has now launched its NFT loyalty program to its first group of beta testers. This new endeavor from Starbucks is aimed at being an extension of their already successful loyalty program while leveraging Web3 elements and blockchain technology.

The company’s vision is to offer Starbucks Odyssey, their new Web3 venture, to be a new platform where customers take part in “Journeys” to earn “Stamps”, which come in the form of NFTs. These “Journeys” will highlight the coffee giant’s history and teach customers about the brown liquid they drink every day. The “Stamps” will be collected by users and used to redeem rewards; ones that are not available to users of the current royalty program. These rewards range from online classes that teach you how to make coffee-inspired cocktails all the way to paid trips to see their coffee farm in Costa Rica. Starbucks has recognized the range of possibilities when integrating Web3 within your business, and the ways that you can interact with your most loyal customers.

💡 The Drop Integrating Web3 into an already successfully functioning business is a hard pill to swallow. But when approaching it with a sense of fluidity instead of trying to slap NFTs into your business, customers take kindly to that. Starbucks has come out and said that the interest they’ve gotten for this platform has far exceeded their expectations. In our opinion, it’s because they’ve created a cult of coffee enthusiasts that pride themselves on the Medusa-inscribed cup, while also formulating a proper and seamless integration of Web3 that functions “behind the curtains”. WAGMI.

OpenSea Giving Power To The People 🙌

... and they’ve joined forces with some other big players, something right out of a Marvel movie. For the past months, we’ve seen various markets attack the web3 principle of ensuring creator royalties. OpenSea has released an on-chain enforcement tool called the Operator Filter that lets creators bake in their creator royalty into the project contract; thereby making creators independent insofar as they don’t have to care whether or not a particular marketplace does the royalty enforcement.

• Operator Filter is now in the hands of many… They’re now decentralizing management and governance of the Operator Filter so that it can truly be a community-owned tool. By moving the tool over to Creator Ownership Research Institute the tool is cooperatively sustained.

• ZORA Opensea Manfiold Foundation SuperRare and Nifty Gateway… are the big players involved with jointly maintaining CORI.

• What is CORI’s stated mission?Transparency over the governance of the Operator Filter registry and a future-oriented mission of R&D that will continue to improve on the existing Operator Filter

💡 The Drop OpenSea has really revealed its nature in the past few months and it's clear that they listening to the community and making decisions in favor of artists. Additionally, they are making resources and tools available for artists to be able to protect themselves regardless of where they choose to sell their work. This open-source project is emblematic of the Web3 dream and ethos, it gives power to the creators and ensures that predatory efforts are curtailed.

Metaplex Drama Grows 👀

Metaplex, one of the protocols which have been working on protocol-level solutions on royalties dropped an update on how creators can add royalty protection to their existing collection. This allows creators to deny NFT transfers on certain marketplaces with programmable NFTs. But this appears to have sparked controversy within the ecosystem as notable people like Jprince.sol of B+J studios calls it an unethical move since holders didn't to these terms when they minted. Plus, the token metadata program is upgradeable, and metaplex has control over it via a multi-sig, an idea people label as bad as Metaplex a single entity shouldn’t have this power to define standards in the ecosystem.

Yesterday morning Metaplex updated its community with claims; stating there has been a coordinated pressure campaign led by Magic Eden and Jprince.sol in order to gain control over the multi-sig for token metadata and give it to themselves and a few close allies. “We'll be publishing our plans to decentralize token metadata soon, but wanted to make a quick statement to clarify that we agree with the root need to decentralize the program, but will not be pressured into doing so haphazardly to appease a group that is acting in bad faith.”

The marketplace responded with a Twitter thread, claiming the protocol wrongly accused them, and further invited Metaplex to a twitter space to speak on its decentralized metadata plans. The protocol rejected the invitation, saying they’d rather spend their time fleshing out the proposal.

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