Starbucks fails to sell out NFT collection celebrating original Seattle store

Starbucks failed to sell out its latest NFT collection, which was modeled on the first coffeehouse it opened in Seattle 52 years ago. 

Out of the 5,000 NFTs in the Starbucks First Store Collection that were on offer for $100 each this week, only 4,579 sold, according to data from Starbucks’ NFT marketplace partner Nifty Gateway. The performance is starkly different from the coffee giant’s previous Siren collection, which paid homage to the company’s logo and reportedly sold out in under 20 minutes.

It is unclear what particularly led to the disappointing results, but NFT activity has generally declined over the past few months. NFT trading volume across blockchains has dropped lately, according to The Block’s Data Dashboard.

Starbucks didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Floor prices — the lowest likely purchase price — of blue-chip NFT collections, have also plunged recently. The floor price of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), for instance, has fallen below 50 ETH for the first time since last November, according to The Block’s Data Dashboard. Floor prices of CryptoPunks and Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) have also declined.

The Starbucks First Store Collection

The First Store collection was Starbucks’ second paid collection. Minted on the Polygon blockchain, it features art that recalls the company’s first location, which opened in 1971 in Seattle’s Pike Place Market. The collection opened for sale on Wednesday and closed on Thursday. There was a limit of one NFT per person.

Armani Ferrante, co-founder of web3 developer Coral, told The Scoop podcast this week he has doubts about traditional companies succeeding with NFTs.

“It’s very unlikely that they’ll find something that sticks because they’re pattern-matching things that already exist and putting it onto a blockchain rather than like recreating totally new things that have never been done before from scratch,” Ferrante said. “It’s not really something that you can just impose on a preexisting institution, it’s all about culture, right?”

While the world’s largest coffeehouse chain could not sell all 5,000 First Store NFTs, the pieces are doing better in the secondary market. The current floor price of the NFT stands at around $150, according to Nifty Gateway data.

The current floor price of the Siren NFTs is also sharply higher at $450, up from its minting price of $100. Meanwhile, the floor prices of Starbucks’ Journey Stamps, which were offered for free as rewards, are also trading higher in the range of $40-$1,300 each.

Update: story updated to add comments from Armani Ferrante.

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