Prime (NFT) Delivery

In his latest blog, crypto lawyer Will Charlesworth discusses an exciting, rumoured development in the NFT space.

At the start of this year, I wrote in a blog that whilst the crypto crash of 2022 had dented market confidence, there were still reasons to be optimistic about the digital assets marketplace: NFTs are technically innovative and too many large brands had invested too much for it to fail.

My New Year optimism has been somewhat validated therefore by a recent report by DappRadar, showing the trading volume in NFTs in January 2023 stood at $946m, an increase of 38% from December 2022.

Notwithstanding, my previous blog also predicted that in order to gain new NFT customers, changes would have to be made in the way that NFTs were packaged, marketed, and sold; a subtle move from the volatility of the fully decentralized, to a more controlled and regulated space.

It is interesting to note that rumours are gathering pace that the world's largest retailer will soon launch its own NFT marketplace in April 2023: the “Amazon Digital Marketplace”. It is predicted to be a more ‘user friendly’ environment in which to purchase NFTs, bought via your Amazon account, with no need for cryptocurrency. It is also a more controlled space, operating on its own private blockchain. It will be initially offered to its US customers: whereby you purchase a physical piece of clothing and accompanying it is an NFT.

This is not the first foray into fashion for NFTs however; in the last couple of years we have seen many luxury and sports brands embrace digital assets, including Nike’s Cryptokicks offering. However, the significance of Amazon’s move is that it presents a more mainstream retail offering of digital assets and services for Web 3.0.

Rumours also circulate that there are plans for Amazon’s venture to rapidly grow outside of fashion, with commercial partners lined up including blockchain based game start-ups and digital asset exchanges. This all makes sense commercially.

For consumers, it opens up a new world of possibilities and for brands, new opportunities for greater customer engagement. Notwithstanding, the devil will be in the detail. With any such project, there will need to be sufficient consumer protections in place, particularly around personal data, to reassure wary consumers that they should be making a leap into this still evolving space.

I will comment further on this latest venture when more details are released, however until then, we (particularly those outside the US) will have to wait for our Prime™ delivery of NFTs.

Will Charlesworth