Wow Bao, the digitally nimble Asian meals startup that’s expanded nationwide lately by way of an asset-light digital restaurant mannequin, introduced the launch of its NFT program final week. The brand new NFTs, known as Digital CollectaBaos, might be proof of membership in a brand new super-fan tier known as the Sizzling Buns Membership inside the firm’s Bao Bucks loyalty program.
Wow Bao laid out a web3 imaginative and prescient final November that can ultimately embrace such far-out ideas as metaverse merchandising machines, however earlier than they take their steamed buns absolutely into the digital realm, it’ll begin onboarding devoted prospects by way of its NFT-powered subscription program for $99 bucks a yr.
The preliminary advantages for Wow Bao NFT holders embrace 10% off supply orders, double Bao Bucks factors on purchases, 10% off merch orders, and contest giveaways.
The Wow Bao NFT program is constructed on the Polygon community, a Proof of Stake consensus algorithm blockchain that proponents say is extra environmentally pleasant than many different Ethereum-based digital currencies. Regardless of the blockchain underpinnings of its new loyalty supertier, Wow Bao is – at the very least in the interim – downplaying the crypto angle given all of the unhealthy press the expertise has gotten over the previous yr, positioning it as a substitute as a digital collectible with related member advantages.
“We’re staying away from the NFT title,” Wow Bao CEO Geoff Alexander advised Restaurant Dive. “The crypto house and NFTs have taken a adverse connotation within the final 12 months. We like specializing in making a collectible, we would like it to be one thing that you just personal.”
The corporate selected Devour, a Web3 restaurant platform startup, as its companion to energy the brand new program’s web3 ordering. Devour’s DevourGO will allow the supply of automated promotions for holders of the Wow Bao collectibles when ordering from Wow Bao eating places within the DevourGO market.
Wow Bao’s entry into web3 is on model for a corporation that has seemingly embraced almost each new expertise to enter the restaurant house lately. The corporate was the primary chain to signal on to make use of Eatsa’s automated kiosks (earlier than Eatsa dropped the expertise and pivoted to loyalty applications) and has been one of the vital aggressive (and profitable) firms leveraging enlargement by way of digital eating places, opening up near 700 areas throughout the US lately. The corporate has additionally embraced automated merchandising (of the non-metaverse selection) to dispense bao and dumplings.
