NFT Sales Cratered In 2022. Here’s Why Amazon Still May Dive Into The Volatile Market – Yahoo Finance

Jeff Bezos’s tech giant is omnivorous. Originally an online retailer, Amazon has expanded into web hosting, groceries, and—most surprisingly—health care. And as of last Thursday, the trillion-dollar behemoth was rumored to be making a play for the NFT market.

The details are fuzzy, but Amazon plans to launch an NFT initiative in the spring, per four anonymous sources who spoke to Blockworks. A spokesperson for Amazon declined to comment, and Fortune was unable to independently confirm the report.

Given the prolonged crypto winter, FTX’s collapse, and even the White House’s recent hostility toward crypto, why is one of the tech industry’s biggest players reportedly now interested in non-fungible tokens?

What’s the plan?

Two sources from the Blockworks report said Amazon is purportedly focusing on blockchain gaming and related NFT implementations, with one saying that the company will focus on encouraging users to play Web3 games that award free NFTs.

The tech giant has already planted its flag firmly in media, creating its own streaming service and television and film studio. “I can easily see them saying, ‘Yeah, we should get into gaming, too,’” Brian Fitizgerald, an Amazon analyst at Wells Fargo, told Fortune.

Amazon does already have its own small gaming studio, and there were rumors in 2022 that it would buy Electronic Arts, one of the largest companies in the space. Its potential entrance into the NFT market may be one more step in expanding its influence in gaming.

But why NFTs?

In 2022, there was no shortage of proclamations about the death of NFTs—and for good reason. By September, trading volume had collapsed by 97% from its peak roughly eight months earlier.

The bottom of the NFT market undoubtedly fell out, but that doesn’t mean it still isn’t worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Sales have creeped upw