From the rise of the Metaverse to major brands announcing nonfungible token (NFT) drops, cryptocurrency mass adoption is well underway. Americans in detail have taken a growing interest in crypto, every bit recent findings from the Pew Research Centre found that nearly a quarter of 10,371 adults in the United States were familiar with cryptocurrency, while only one-eighth (13%) were entirely unfamiliar with the concept. Additional research from online broker firm, BrokerChooser, discovered that the U.S. is the tertiary well-nigh interested county in NFTs, falling behind Canada and Australia.

Given America'south curiosity for crypto, it shouldn't come every bit a surprise that the price of Bitcoin (BTC), NFTs and cryptocurrency in general are topics probable to be discussed at the Thanksgiving table this year. In item, holiday-themed NFTs and cryptocurrency deals for Black Fri may be of particular interest.

The most interesting mainstream Thanksgiving NFTs

This in heed, a captivating chat starter may be about the number of mainstream brands and retailers that take begun incorporating vacation-themed NFTs into their product offerings. For instance, Macy'due south — 1 of the largest department stores in America — will launch its "Macy'due south Parade NFT" serial on Nov. 25, or Thanksgiving Day.

Dave Torres, vice president of digital marketing at Macy's, told Cointelegraph that for more than than nine decades, the Macy's Thanksgiving Twenty-four hours Parade has reflected the very best of pop culture. Torres explained that through the Thanksgiving parade, Macy'southward has created fine art in the sky and on the ground with signature balloons and floats. Given this, Torres mentioned that office of the goal behind the parade NFT project was to amend understand emerging trends while ensuring that Macy's is prepared to embrace the next frontier of digital brand experiences. "Equally we immersed ourselves in this project, we saw an opportunity to align make innovation with our charitable work for the Brand-A-Wish Foundation in a way we've never imagined possible," he said.

The Macy's NFTs are congenital upon the Polygon blockchain and are powered by Sweet, an enterprise NFT solutions provider. Tom Mizzone, CEO of Sweet, a consumer brand NFT platform, told Cointelegraph that the Macy's Parade NFT serial features parade balloons from the 95-year history of the Macy's Thanksgiving 24-hour interval Parade:

"Each parade balloon has been carefully selected to correspond a specific decade from the 1920s to the nowadays, and each balloon has been captured and grafted into a series of ix,510 generative NFTs designed by the very talented NFT artist REOMETRY."
Macy'southward Parade 1970'due south Star Ballon, Source: Sweet

According to Mizzone, the Macy's Parade NFT series is unique for a number of reasons, 1 being that but ten of the NFTs tin can really be purchased. "Those ten are only bachelor via an auction that is alive on Sweet now and ends on Nov. xxx. The other 9,500 NFTs volition be available for free on Thanksgiving 24-hour interval, November 25, 2022, on a get-go-come up, get-go-served footing," he stated from an official website.

Macy'south Parade 1930'southward Dachshund Ballon, Source: Sweet

Mizzone further remarked that all the proceeds generated from the ten NFTs bachelor for auction will go to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, an American non-profit organisation that helps children with critical illnesses. In terms of the 9,500 gratis NFTs Macy'due south is giving away, Mizzone shared that Macy'due south is moving across traditional methods of charitable giving by setting an example in terms of leveraging NFT technology and smart contracts to deploy a perpetual giving initiative:

"Every fourth dimension an owner of a Macy'south Parade 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'll have 9,500 NFT owners, when this is all said and done, and an open-ended future of donations to, in this example- Make-A-Wish. Every bit more than retail brands begin to see the opportunity that exists with NFTs, Macy's is setting a precedent of what's possible in the realm of giving back."

In addition to the NFT collection from Macy'south, American businesswoman and television personality Martha Stewart has also launched Thanksgiving-themed nonfungible tokens on her website, MarthaFRESHMint. Following the drop of her Halloween-inspired NFT collection, the Thanksgiving-themed drove volition be Stewart'southward second NFT drop this year and will feature audio recordings of Stewart's Thanksgiving memories.

Macy'southward Parade 2022'due south Tiptoe Ballon, Source: Sweet

Stewart's licensed "story-telling" Thanksgiving-themed collection has been produced in collaboration with Tokns Commerce, an NFT solutions provider for iconic brands and creators. Jamie Tedford, CEO of Tokns, a concern solution for NFTs, told Cointelegraph that the drove features over 100 NFT collectibles that demonstrate a new take on iconic photos from the magazine Martha Stewart Living:

"With our featured drop, Martha has invented a new category nosotros're calling 'Storytelling NFTs.' This one-of-one NFT features sectional sound of Martha recalling family Thanksgiving traditions and recounting the story of her first try at hosting Thanksgiving dinner — burnt Turkey and all."
"Horn of Enough" an Iconic image from the pages of Thanksgiving issues of Martha Stewart Living, Source: Tokns

According to Tedford, Stewart believes that storytelling has become a lost fine art, which has become especially challenging in the by few years of social distancing. "We set out to establish NFTs as a medium to re-introduce storytelling and resurface this picayune-known story of Martha's disastrous first Thanksgiving in her new domicile. Her iconic voice rail and accompanying original music set up a new standard for creating a rare, beautifully composed one-of-i NFT," added Tedford.

Black Friday deals and ways to spend crypto this vacation

While Turkey Day NFTs from Macy'due south and Martha Stewart highlight the growth of cryptocurrency, retailers, merchants and major brands accept also started to support crypto payments in time for the holidays.

For instance, on Nov. 23 Regal — a movie operator of more than 500 locations and 7,000 screens in 42 U.S. states — announced that it would be partnering with digital payment network Flexa to let customers to employ crypto to purchase movie tickets, nutrient and beverages. It'due south been noted that Regal will accept a wide diversity of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Doge (DOGE), USD Coin (USDC), DAI (DAI), Gemini Dollar (GUSD), Chainlink (LINK), Cosmos (Atom), Basic Attending Token (BAT) and more.

Trevor Filter, co-founder of payments platform Flexa, told Cointelegraph that the rising need for digital currency payment options, coupled with the fact that Majestic is virtually to experience its busiest time of the twelvemonth, makes this declaration extremely timely:

"We couldn't be more than thrilled to launch this partnership alee of the holidays and look forward to providing Regal'due south customers and merchants with piece of cake, reliable and safe digital currency payment options."

In addition to Regal, Bitcoin payments provider BitPay has partnered with a number of its vendors to offer Blackness Fri deals to consumers paying with crypto. Merrick Theobald, vice president of marketing at BitPay, told Cointelegraph that Ace Jewelers, Newegg, precious metal retailer APMEX and many others will be offering consumers discounts or prices that include no additional fees. "Consumers must pay with crypto or the BitPay card to relish these deals," noted Theobald.

Bitcoin rewards app Lolli is also offering users double Bitcoin reward rates for shopping on Black Friday. Lolli provides shoppers with Bitcoin back on purchases fabricated at stores like Sephora, Groupon, Macy's, Nike and other major retailers. Alex Adelman, CEO and co-constitute of Lolli, told Cointelegraph that the average BTC reward rate will double to xiv% during Black Friday.

How will consumers react to NFTs and crypto deals?

Although Thanksgiving NFTs and crypto payments seem to be more pop than e'er before this vacation season, it's still questionable whether or non consumers volition want to spend their digital currencies on purchases or collect holiday-specific NFTs from mainstream brands.

For example, Theobald noted that while consumers volition probable spend crypto this holiday season, information technology may non be more than previous years:

"Black Friday this year already started happening for many merchants at the beginning of November, so it may not be like shooting fish in a barrel to place if spending volition increase on Black Friday specifically. Nonetheless, I exercise recall that the rising prices of cryptocurrencies will get people to spend more than on luxury items."

Theobald added that while BitPay constitute that Bitcoin to be its about widely used crypto for payments, other coins like Dogecoin and Litecoin, along with stablecoins, are gaining traction with consumers and merchants. "The ticket value on stablecoins is actually higher than traditional cryptocurrencies. This could be that merchants want to accept payments with crypto, then they are asking customers to purchase with stablecoins because of all the benefits of blockchain payments," he remarked.

In regards to holiday-themed NFTs, some concerns remain such as environmental impacts and ease of use, peculiarly for those non as familiar with obtaining nonfungible tokens.

Related: Beyond the NFT hype: Creating lasting business models for artists

With these challenges in listen, Tedford explained Tokns aims to make NFTs more accessible by removing the dependency on a crypto wallet. "That's why we chose to build our platform on top of Shopify and to leverage Shopify Payments to enable credit card transactions, and Coinbase Commerce to welcome crypto transactions." He added: "Once consumers purchase their NFTs, we guide them through the process of transferring it to their crypto wallet." Tedford says that over ninety% of the transactions on MarthaFRESHMint were with credit cards, with the majority of these purchases coming from offset-fourth dimension NFT buyers.

In terms of the touch NFTs may accept on the environs, Mizzone remarked that Sugariness leverages the Polygon blockchain for a number of reasons, one beingness that Polygon is a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain. As such, Mizzone noted that the energy Polygon consumes is several orders of magnitude below that of other chains. "If our goal is to remove the barrier to — and information technology is — so removing that potential ecology barrier is huge."

Given the maturity and importance of the NFT space for brands, Torres further shared that Macy's has been hyper focused on launching their parade NFTs, noting, "it's probable not going to be Macy's last foray into NFTs."