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After 11 days of playing quiz challenges and mini-games, entering a contest to win "Coffee for Life," visiting a virtual coffee farm in Costa Rica, and making regular real-life trips to my local Starbucks, I finally won a Monday afternoon Starbucks NFT.

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Starbucks Holiday Edition 1 NFT on Nifty Gateway Marketplace.

The NFT sold for $89 on the Nifty Gateway NFT marketplace, netting me $79 after fees — just enough for the gift cards and coffee I bought on another trip to the Starbucks Odyssey.

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Transaction history of the Starbucks Holiday Edition NFT on the Nifty marketplace, with my transaction history at the top.

If I can stick around for another two weeks of coffee, I can complete my next journey and get a Starbucks Coffee Classic NFT.

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What is Starbucks Odyssey

Starbucks Odyssey is an upgraded version of Starbucks Rewards loyalty program. Announced last September, Odyssey launched in beta on December 8 to a small group of Starbucks Honors members who signed up for a waiting list. Starbucks said it will begin offering the Odyssey to more people on its waiting list in January.

This is actually the coffee giant's first step into Web3. Users do not need to know anything about NFTs to participate (this is effectively Web2.5 NFTs). Starbucks doesn’t even use the jargon, the company refers to its NFTs as stamps (for ease of understanding, this article collectively refers to them as NFTs).

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A landing page for the Starbucks Odyssey, and a page for the holiday event.

Starbucks Odyssey is primarily a series of journeys, each involving a series of missions of varying difficulty. There have been two journeys in the test so far.

1. For example, completing the Holiday Joy Tour requires:

2. Correctly answer a series of Starbucks questions;

3. Match Starbucks' festive mugs to the year they were released;

4. Participate in the Starbucks Lifetime Challenge and have a chance to win free coffee for life;

• Spread the holiday cheer by saying "good wishes" in one of three ways:

• convey happiness;

• send a thank you letter;

Or compliment others.

5. Buy a Starbucks gift card (any amount) and give it to someone else.

Each mission you complete takes you an extra step on your journey and increases your total points. There are three score tiers in the beta (1000 to 2999 points, 3000 to 5999 points, 6000+ points) which will unlock future benefits. Starbucks has not disclosed those future benefits, but said they could include virtual classes, purchases of limited-edition merchandise, and invitations to exclusive events or travel. It's unclear, however, whether people will get free items or just the privilege of paying for other people's restricted items.

I spoke to a barista at a nearby Starbucks, who compared the Odysse to "Coffee's version of Pokémon GO." It's not a perfect metaphor, but there are similarities to how Odysse blends and communicates between the real and virtual worlds.

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It's part of a set of downloadable images that Starbucks Odyssey owners get after completing a virtual tour of the Alsacia coffee farm.

1. In addition to a quiz challenge and a picture puzzle featuring the original Starbucks store, the Coffee Classic Tour includes two missions that showcase the potential of the Starbucks Odyssey.

2. Visit Costa Rica's Alsacia Estate, Starbucks Coffee Farm, and Global Agronomy Headquarters through interactive videos;

Even though the Starbucks Odyssey beta is a standalone mobile web app and not integrated into the Starbucks Rewards app, every time I buy coffee in the Starbucks Odyssey, I can be tracked whenever I scan the code at checkout or pay with the rewards app.

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The Starbucks NFT is an example where the commercial potential of NFTs is starting to become clear. In September of this year, Starbucks Chief Marketing Officer Brady Brewer said: "As many brands have entered the NFT field directly, we see the long-term potential of this technology. It can not only enhance our customer experience, but also enhance our core business. Rather than doing something 'one off'."

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Starbucks Chief Marketing Officer Brady Brewer

Currently missing from the beta experience is a sense of community, including the ability to interact and participate with other members. Starbucks says this is coming soon.