The wind direction of the industry always moves with the giant companies.
Since the news of Amazon's launch of the NFT market, the public's attention has been locked on Amazon. As a technology giant, Amazon's entry into NFT is of great significance to the entire industry.
Affected by the collapse of FTX, the launch of Amazon's NFT market has undergone several twists and turns. According to Web3 enthusiast Moritz, Amazon's NFT platform "Amazon Digital Marketplace", which was originally scheduled to go live on April 24, was postponed to May 15.
Source: Xinhua News Agency
The platform will launch first in the U.S. and is expected to eventually roll out globally.
Back in January, Blockworks first revealed details of Amazon’s NFT marketplace — a platform that will focus on blockchain games and related in-game NFT collectibles. Yahoo Finance (YF) also later mentioned that Amazon will link NFTs to physical products, and Amazon accounts can be used as NFT wallets, thereby bypassing the need for dedicated encrypted wallets like MetaMask.
The world's largest online retailer has been tight-lipped on the matter, with no official statement.
Judging from the current unconfirmed news, what is worthy of attention on Amazon's NFT platform?
Features of Amazon's NFT platform
Digital Asset Ownership
Amazon plans to issue NFTs corresponding to real assets, rather than being limited to the virtual world like ordinary NFT platforms, adding ownership of digital assets to the experience of owning physical assets.
Improve user experience
Ordinary NFT market transactions need to be traded through virtual currency, and users need to have technical knowledge of blockchain or self-hosted wallets. According to Moritz, the "Amazon Digital Marketplace" aims to simplify the NFT purchase process and provide users with a seamless experience. It allows users to use credit cards to pay for fiat currency to purchase NFT, and only needs an Amazon platform account to complete the NFT transaction, and its NFT can be stored in the user's Amazon account.
Huge user base
There are as many as 197 million Amazon users, and the groups of these users are very different. If these users join, the NFT market will inject more fresh blood. Unlike the conventional single market, the market activity of diversified users will be much higher. At the same time, because it lowers the transaction threshold and allows more non-encrypted users to participate, user expansion will be easier.
Amazon's market plan has taken shape as early as a few years ago. In 2021, according to CNBC reports, Amazon confirmed that it is recruiting a head of cryptocurrency. A company spokesperson said in a statement:
“We are inspired by innovations in the cryptocurrency space and are exploring what it might look like on Amazon. We believe the future will be built on new technologies that enable advanced, fast and cheap payment experiences and hope to available to Amazon customers as quickly as possible.”
Other areas
Since launching the NFT platform project, Amazon has been in contact with various digital asset projects such as Layer 1 blockchain and blockchain game companies, and has also reached cooperation with AVAX and Chainlink.
Moritz also said Amazon will launch its own private blockchain that is interoperable with Ethereum, Avalanche and Chainlink — with plans to integrate more blockchains in the future. In the future, Amazon may be deeply involved in the blockchain field.
Amazon has participated in the fields of Web3 and AI. On the official website of Amazon's cloud service company AWS, there is a dedicated page to provide services for blockchain enterprises. Whether it is a distributed blockchain network or a centralized database, AWS can provide Web3 Enterprise provides the solution. According to AWS employees, in 2022, the revenue brought by its blockchain business is expected to account for more than half of AWS's overseas revenue.
Amazon is building a team to work on AI tools designed to generate photos and videos for merchants to use in advertising campaigns on its platform, which brought in $38 billion in advertising revenue last year. For now, Amazon's advertising business is focused on empowering merchants in search results and building a broader advertising business. An Amazon spokesperson said the company is investing in generative AI and is "excited about the potential benefits to customers and advertisers."
E-commerce platforms set foot in NFT. Our country was one step ahead a few years ago.
2021年5月20日，中国最大的电商巨头阿里巴巴旗下淘宝阿里拍卖推出了全国首个数字艺术品专场，用户可以在其平台中直接购买数字藏品。2021年12月18日，京东正式上线灵稀数字藏品平台，开始售卖数字藏品。
不过国内平台与亚马逊还是有较大差异的，虚拟商品仅仅是借助之前的平台，并没有将实体与虚拟真正联系到一起，更多的是扮演营销的角色，多数 IP 入局也仅仅是发行独立的虚拟商品，拓展宣发渠道。
相较于以往的 NFT 市场 OpenSea、Blur 等，亚马逊展现出更多的新意，而这些创新与优势能否成为赶超这些平台的利器，还需看上线后用户的反馈。亚马逊通过修建 NFT 与实体产品的桥梁，打通 Web2 与 Web3 世界。从这个角度来看，电商与 NFT 又像是物理与数字一样相辅相成的存在。或许， NFT 的路可以让亚马逊换个起点开始。
来源丨cryptoslate
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