Just when you thought the metaverse mania was dead and buried…

Along comes McDonald’s Singapore to shoot it a few more times just to make sure.

But more on McDonald’s “My Happy Place” in a moment. What’s more interesting about this story is the hidden driving force behind it.

As inflation bites, corporate giants are scrambling for new ways to squeeze out growth.

This is evident in the actions of companies like Wendy's, which is toying with dynamic pricing to boost sales.

The plan, which isn’t a terrible one (despite pushback), is to use digital menu boards to change the menu and prices in real-time, potentially offering discounts during slower hours.

There’s also the recent near-desperate sprint into AI.

A few years back, you’ll recall, McDonald’s went on a shopping spree, gobbling up AI startups left and right.

They even had their own secret AI lab, cooking up voice bots and "suggestive selling" screens to convince you to supersize that order.

Unfortunately, the tech didn’t quite live up to the hype.

In 2021, they suddenly sold off their AI lab, Apprente, to IBM. Then, in late 2021, they sold their predictive ordering tech, called Dynamic Yield, to Mastercard.

Rumor has it the tech was causing all sorts of headaches, from sky-high software costs to wonky peak-time performance. A new TikTok trend took shots at the AI bot.

Word on the street is McDonald's might be cozying up to Google Cloud to give their AI dreams another shot… 

But now, they’re pivoting, banking on Web3 to give them a boost.

Purple Milkshake Death

You might remember the purple milkshake trend where TikTokers filmed themselves drinking McDonald’s Grimace shake and then dying.

Well, McDonald’s parlayed that viral trend into a Grimace NFT collection last year.

Around that time, McDonald’s also set their sights on 250 million loyalty users by 2027 (up from 150 million).

And it looks like they're still betting big on crypto to help get them there.

Last week, as part of this, they launched “My Happy Place,” a McDonald’s metaverse.

This virtual world, developed in partnership with Bandwagon Labs, offers games and in-store rewards, particularly for holders of Grimace NFTs.

Looking ahead, this model could represent the future of NFTs as a loyalty tool.

But that’s not the real investment opportunity happening behind the scenes in NFTs.

The REAL opportunity is in tackling a $485 billion worldwide problem: fraud.

And the same forces pushing companies into purple milkshake NFTs will also push them to use this technology, too.

Three letters: DPPs.

More tomorrow.