Since the rise of Metaverse, major brands have announced the decline of non-fungible tokens (NFT), Mass adoption of cryptocurrencies is underway. Especially Americans are becoming more and more interested in cryptocurrency, because recently discover The Pew Research Center found that nearly a quarter of the 10,371 adults in the United States are Familiar with cryptocurrency, And only one-eighth (13%) are completely unfamiliar with this concept. Additional research from the online brokerage firm BrokerChooser, discover The United States is the third largest county interested in NFT, after Canada and Australia.

Given the American curiosity about crypto, the price of Bitcoin (Bitcoin), NFT and cryptocurrency are generally topics that may be discussed at the Thanksgiving table this year. In particular, the holiday theme of Black Friday NFT and cryptocurrency trading may be of particular interest.

The most interesting mainstream Thanksgiving NFT

With this in mind, a fascinating topic might be the number of mainstream brands and retailers that have begun to incorporate holiday-themed NFTs into their products.For example, Macy’s—one of the largest department stores in the United States—will emission Its “Macy’s Parade NFT” series will be held on November 25th or Thanksgiving.

Dave Torres, vice president of digital marketing at Macy’s, told Cointelegraph that for ninety years, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade reflected the best in popular culture. Torres explained that through the Thanksgiving Parade, Macy’s created art in the sky and on the ground with iconic balloons and floats. In light of this, Torres mentioned that part of the goal behind the Parade NFT project is to better understand emerging trends, while ensuring that Macy’s is ready for the next frontier of digital brand experience. “When we were immersed in this project, we saw an opportunity to combine brand innovation with our charitable work for the Make-A-Wish Foundation in a way we never imagined,” he said.

Macy’s NFT is built on Polygon blockchain and supported by Enterprise NFT solution provider Sweet. Tom Mizzone, CEO of the consumer brand NFT platform Sweet, told Cointelegraph that the Macy’s NFT series featured the 95-year-old Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade:

“Each parade balloon has been carefully selected to represent a specific decade from the 1920s to the present. Each balloon has been captured and transplanted into a series of 9,510 generative NFTs designed by the very talented NFT artist REOMETRY.”

According to Mizzone, there are many unique features of the Macy’s Parade NFT series, one of which is that only 10 NFTs can actually be purchased. “These ten can only be obtained through auctions that are now live on Sweet and ended in November. 30. The other 9,500 NFTs will be provided free of charge on Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 2021, on a first-come, first-served basis,” he said on the official website Said.

Mizzone further stated that all proceeds from the 10 NFTs available for auction will be donated to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, an American non-profit organization that helps children with serious illnesses. Regarding the 9,500 free NFTs donated by Macy’s, Mizzone shared that Macy’s is going beyond traditional charitable donations and setting an example by deploying permanent donation plans using NFT technology and smart contracts:

“Whenever the owner of Macy’s NFT decides to sell his or her NFT in a compatible aftermarket, 10% of the sale price will be donated to Make-A-Wish. Essentially, you will have 9,500 NFTs Owner, when all this is said, and an open future donation, in this case-Make-A-Wish. As more and more retail brands begin to see opportunities for NFTs, Macy’s It is setting a precedent in the field of feedback.”

In addition to Macy’s NFT series, American businesswoman and TV personality Martha Stewart also launched a Thanksgiving-themed irreplaceable token on her website MarthaFRESHMint.With her fall NFT series inspired by Halloween, The Thanksgiving theme series will be Stewart’s second NFT launch this year, and will include recordings of Stewart’s Thanksgiving memories.

Stewart’s licensed “Storytelling” Thanksgiving theme series was produced in collaboration with Tokns Commerce, a provider of NFT solutions for iconic brands and creators. Jamie Tedford, CEO of Tokns, NFT Business Solutions, told Cointelegraph that the series contains more than 100 NFT collections, showing a new perspective on the iconic photos of Martha Stewart Living magazine:

“Through our feature drop, Martha invented a new category, which we call the’Storytelling NFT’.” This one-on-one NFT played an exclusive audio of Martha’s memories of family Thanksgiving traditions and told her The story of the first Thanksgiving dinner-turkey and so on. “

According to Tedford, Stewart believes that storytelling has become a lost art, which has become particularly challenging in the social distancing of the past few years. “We set out to establish NFT as a medium to reintroduce storytelling and re-present this little-known story about Martha’s first disastrous Thanksgiving in her new home. Her iconic The soundtrack and accompanying original music set a new standard for creating rare and beautiful one-to-one NFTs,” Tedford added.

Black Friday trading and the way to use cryptocurrency this holiday

Although Macy’s and Martha Stewart’s Turkey Day NFT emphasized the growth of cryptocurrencies, retailers, merchants and major brands have also begun to support crypto payments in time before the holidays.

For example, on November 23 Regal-a movie operator with more than 500 locations and 7,000 screens in 42 states in the United States- Announce It will work with digital payment network Flexa Allow customers to use encryption Buy movie tickets, food and drinks. It is worth noting that Regal will accept a variety of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (Ethereum), Litecoin (LTC), Governor (dog), dollar coins (USDC), DAI (DAI), Gemini Dollar (GUSD), Chainlink (LINK), Cosmos (atom), Basic Attention Token (BAT), etc.

Trevor Filter, co-founder of payment platform Flexa, told Cointelegraph that the demand for digital currency payment methods continues to grow, and Regal is about to experience the busiest period of the year. This news is very timely:

“We are very happy to launch this partnership before the holidays and look forward to providing Regal customers and merchants with simple, reliable and secure digital currency payment options.”

In addition to Regal, Bitcoin payment provider BitPay also cooperates with several suppliers to provide Black Friday discounts for consumers who pay with cryptocurrencies. Merrick Theobald, vice president of marketing at BitPay, told Cointelegraph that Ace Jewelers, Newegg, precious metals retailer APMEX and many other companies will offer consumers discounts or prices that do not include additional fees. “Consumers must use cryptocurrency or BitPay cards to pay to enjoy these benefits,” Theobald pointed out.

Bitcoin rewards app Lolli also offers users double the Bitcoin reward rate on Black Friday. Lolli provides bitcoin rebates to shoppers who shop in stores such as Sephora, Groupon, Macy’s, Nike and other major retailers. Alex Adelman, Lolli’s CEO and co-founder, told Cointelegraph that during Black Friday, the average reward rate for BTC will double to 14%.

How will consumers deal with NFT and crypto transactions?

Although Thanksgiving NFTs and crypto payments seem to be more popular than at any time before this holiday, it is still questionable whether consumers are willing to use their digital currency for purchases or collect holiday-specific NFTs from mainstream brands.

For example, Theobald pointed out that although consumers may use cryptocurrency this holiday, it may not be more than in previous years:

“This year’s Black Friday has been held for many merchants in early November, so it may not be easy to determine whether Black Friday spending will increase in particular. However, I do think that the increase in cryptocurrency prices will make people spend more on luxury goods. “

Theobald added that although BitPay Established Bitcoin is its most widely used payment cryptocurrency, and other coins, such as Dogecoin and Litecoin, as well as stable coins, are being favored by consumers and merchants. “The fare of stablecoins is actually higher than that of traditional cryptocurrencies. This may be that merchants want to accept encrypted payments, so they require customers to use stablecoins to purchase because of all the benefits of blockchain payments,” he commented.

For holiday-themed NFTs, there are still some problems, such as environmental impact and ease of use, especially for those who are not familiar with obtaining non-fungible tokens.

related: Beyond the NFT hype: creating a lasting business model for artists

With these challenges in mind, Tedford explained that Tokns aims to make NFTs more accessible by eliminating reliance on crypto wallets. “That’s why we chose to build our platform on top of Shopify, and use Shopify Payments to support credit card transactions, and use Coinbase Commerce to welcome encrypted transactions.” He added: “Once consumers buy their NFT, we will It will guide them through the entire process and transfer it to their encrypted wallet.” Tedford said that more than 90% of transactions on MarthaFRESHMint are made through credit cards, and most of the purchases come from NFT first-time buyers.

At once NFT’s possible environmental impact, Mizzone said that Sweet uses the Polygon blockchain for many reasons, one of which is that Polygon is an apBenefit roof (PoS) Blockchain. Therefore, Mizzone points out that Polygon consumes several orders of magnitude less energy than other chains. “If our goal is to remove barriers-and it is true-then removing potential environmental barriers is huge.”