Will Sony and Amazon start the big wave of adoption soon?

NFTs are now a critically eyed niche market. The big hype is over. Trading volume remains bottomed after the 2022 crash. On the other hand, mistrust of the blockchain trend seems all the greater. But the situation could change soon. Because with Sony and Amazon, two of the largest tech companies in the world are preparing to enter the space.

Sony filed a patent for NFTs last Friday, March 24th. The Playstation manufacturer wants to use this for video games – a highly controversial project in the industry. Meanwhile, Amazon’s push into NFT space is expected in April 2023. Last Friday, CoinDesk reported an email from an Amazon account confirming the existence of NFTs and an art gallery on the trading platform.

Rumors about Amazon’s plans have been circulating for some time. Blockworks first reported on it in January 2023. The website “The Big Whale” followed up at the beginning of March: An NFT platform called “Amazon Digital Marketplace” was in the works. Both reports rely on insiders.

NFT advances between success and failure

For several months, more and more big players have ventured into the NFT space. They often cooperate with Polygon, the layer 2 network for Ethereum. Two particularly successful projects: Starbucks launched “Stamps”, a special royalty program with NFTs. Reddit made unique digital avatars tradable as NFTs. Both projects sold out almost immediately. Their prices have multiplied. Reddit CEO Steve Huffmann told BTC-ECHO in an interview: “We have a journey ahead of us and want to continue scaling the project. Millions of people are expected to sell digital goods to consumers.”

But not every project is promising: Meta just discontinued its NFT integration for Instagram and Facebook. Last summer, the advance into Web3 was announced with great enthusiasm.

Sony has a tough road ahead of them

Central to the success of the initiatives will be whether Sony and Amazon also find a use case for their NFT offerings that goes beyond mere speculation. Starbucks, for example, offers its users access to a variety of exclusive content with its “Stamps”.

Sony in particular has a difficult journey ahead of it. NFTs are frowned upon in gaming circles as a scam. Several well-known companies such as Electronic Arts or Ubisoft have already burned their fingers with their NFT advances and had to row back.