Amazon’s NFT plans were teased in a receipt sent Friday afternoon
On Friday afternoon, CoinDesk’s managing editor for global policy and regulation, Nikhilesh De, received an email from an official Amazon account that appears to confirm the existence of digital tokens and a gallery on the e-commerce platform.
The email was sent to you as a confirmation after an Amazon Prime Video channel subscription was automatically renewed. They had not purchased a non-fungible token (NFT) from Amazon and had no prior knowledge of the platform’s integration of NFTs.
The email offers new insight into Amazon’s plans for Web3 expansion and hints at where these new tools might live on the platform.
Rumors have been swirling for weeks that Amazon plans to launch its own NFT marketplace soon, although Amazon has yet to publicly comment on the reports.
Crypto news site Blockworks first claimed the idea in January, citing anonymous sources. According to the report, the new “digital assets enterprise” will focus on “blockchain-based games and related NFT applications”. Crypto site The Big Whale then followed up with a report earlier this month that gave the feature an April 24 launch date. The story, which also cited anonymous sources, said the NFT platform will be available on the website through a tab that says “Amazon Digital Marketplace.”
In January, Amazon’s cloud platform Amazon Web Services announced it would partner with Ava Labs to expand its enterprise blockchain offerings, although there was no mention of plans for NFTs or a marketplace for digital collectibles.
According to the email sent to you, a digital token was inserted into a gallery located on the official Amazon website. However, the link in the email doesn’t seem to be working yet.
The email also mentions resale opportunities, noting that the NFT will not be eligible for resale “until unlocked.” The email also said you had to “register as a dealer” before the NFT was listed. But the link to the resale site also appeared to be broken.
They did not get access to the digital tokens. It is unclear how NFTs are connected to this subscription renewal, although both the email and the transaction confirmation were received around the same time.
A representative for Amazon did not immediately respond to CoinDesk for comment.
Amazon’s embrace of NFTs could be a big step towards mass adoption of Web3 for its millions of global users. Amazon CEO Andy Jassey has expressed an openness to blockchain technology CNBC in April 2022 that he expects NFTs “to continue to grow very significantly” and said crypto integration could be “possible down the road.”
