Starbucks has announced that it will be ending its Odyssey Beta program on March 31. The program allowed customers to earn and buy digital collectible stamps in the form of nonfungible tokens (NFTs). The Odyssey marketplace, where users could trade their digital stamps, will also shut down, as will the community Discord server.
Starbucks did not provide a reason for ending the program, but said that it is “preparing for what comes next” as it continues to “evolve the program.” However, users will be able to buy, sell and trade stamps on the Nifty Gateway marketplace.
According to the website, Starbucks said: “We are excited for you to see what comes next and are grateful for your consistent engagement and feedback. We are thankful to have had this opportunity to test into these different ways of driving community and loyalty at Starbucks and we look forward to bringing these learnings to a broader audience.”
Starbucks launched Odyssey Beta in September 2022, during a challenging period for the crypto industry. The program was built on the Polygon network, which uses a more energy-efficient “proof-of-stake” consensus mechanism than proof-of-work blockchains.
Starbucks’ decision to end its NFT program follows similar moves by other major companies. In January, GameStop announced that it was closing its NFT marketplace after a series of cutbacks in its crypto services. Meta also pulled the plug on its NFT features across Facebook and Instagram in 2022.
This article was originally published on Yahoo Finance on 18 March 2024. View original.
Photo by Angelica Reyes on Unsplash
