American Express gives travelers a new kind of souvenir. With NFT passport stamps, American cardholders can collect digital souvenirs of their journeys, automatically beaten on the basic network of Ethereum. They are simple, private and designed to reduce the feeling of old passport stamps – without the hype that has been surrounded earlier NFTs.
Important collection restaurants
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Stamps appear automatically when Amex card holders spend abroad in 130+ countries.
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They are beaten as ERC-721 NFTs on the base, an Ethereum layer-2.
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Only countries, date and description appear on-chain-not personal information.
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They cannot be traded or sold and only live in the Amex mobile app.
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Stamps have been returned for two years, so collections start with travel history in the past.
What are Amex NFT -passport stamps?
Every international personal purchase with an Amex-consumer card now comes with a digital passport stamp. It shows the country or region, the date and a short description. Card holders can each personalize with notes such as “Tapas in Madrid” or “Surf on Bali”, to convert simple transactions into lasting memories.
Behind the scenes, every stamp is one ERC-721 NFT based, Coinbase’s Ethereum Layer-2 blockchain. The design holds privacy and in the middle: none of your personal or account details will ever appear in the chain.
Why Amex introduced them
Physical passport stamps disappear as the boundaries to digital input systems move. Amex saw the chance to breathe new life into a new form in a new form – digital souvenirs who feel modern, but still wear the nostalgia to browse stamped pages. Instead of fading ink, travelers get a permanent, Blockchain-stunned version of their travels.
There is also a bigger game here. By keeping the stamps non-transferable and only app, Amex bypasses the hype that previously sank NFT projects while still leaving the door open for more creative use. Nowadays they are collecting objects bound to moments, not to markets.
This is not the first NFT project from Amex. In 2021, the Released digital art Bound by a SZA performance and NFT -Badges issued at events such as Austin City Limits. Those inspections were aimed at exclusivity and promotion; The new passport stamps shift to private, memory-based use-less hype, more personal value.
How travelers can use their stamps
The stamps appear automatically. Pay for coffee in Paris? A France stamp appears. Turn on the position and Amex even adds stamps for the past two years of international journeys.
In the app, cardholders can:
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See travel on an interactive map.
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Add personal notes to stamps.
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Share collections with friends or on social media.
The effect is closer to one digital journey Journal than a wallet of assets – well -kept memories that can easily be visited and share again.
Bottom Line
The NFT -Hype from 2021 faded quickly – but some brands try again, this time with a focus on utility about speculation. With cheaper, faster block chains such as Base And tighter regulations, companies investigate NFTs as a tool for involvement instead of assets to act. By keeping his stamps private and non-transferable, Amex tests what NFTs can offer when the focus shifts from hype to experience.
