American Express has started offering digital memorabilia to customers in the form of non-fungible token stamps issued on the Base blockchain.
Summary
- American Express is issuing NFT travel stamps on the Ethereum Layer-2 Base for U.S. cardholders.
- The NFT stamps cannot be transferred or sold on the open market.
- Stamps are ERC-721 tokens that show the country or region visited, description, and date, without storing personal data.
As of Sep. 16, American Express has officially unveiled the Amex Passport initiative, via which the payments giant will issue NFT travel stamps for customers who hold the US Amex consumer card and link it to their online account.
Every stamp is an ERC-721 token that is issued on the Ethereum layer-2 Base, and has been designed to capture a traveler’s journey by showing the country or region visited, along with a short description and the date it was earned. No personal information or details of the trip would be recorded on the blockchain.
However, unlike most commercially available NFTs, Amex stamps have no monetary value and cannot be traded on the open market. It is only accessible via the Amex Passport section on the official Amex Travel App and won’t incur any additional charges.
“As physical passport stamps continue to disappear, Amex Passport creates an opportunity for Card Members to celebrate their travels,” said Luke Gebb, Executive Vice President at Amex Digital Labs, the subsidiary that developed the initiative.
According to the company’s website, stamps would be automatically visible in the Amex Passport section after a customer makes an “in-person purchase,” during their travels, to any of the 130 qualifying countries and regions using either the physical Card or a digital wallet like Apple Pay or Google Pay.
Data from Base Explorer shows that the Amex travel stamp smart contract was created 25 days ago, and over 20,000 NFTs have been issued to date.
Over the past years, NFTs have moved beyond being just speculative assets, evolving into collectible digital rewards that offer an immutable way to mark experiences, build loyalty, and give travelers a lasting record of their journeys, among many other use cases.
Back in 2023, German aviation company Lufthansa Group started offering passengers NFTs issued on the Polygon blockchain as rewards. More recently, the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation has issued NFT tickets on multiple occasions for certain special trains.
Earlier this year, South Korea’s Jeju Island was mulling the launch of an NFT-based digital tourism resident card sometime in the second half of 2025, which would offer exclusive benefits such as travel subsidies, membership perks, and discounts at local attractions.
American Express and Coinbase launch Bitcoin card
For American Express, this is not the first time it has worked closely with a crypto-native firm. The launch of Amex Passports comes just months after Coinbase unveiled the Coinbase One Card in partnership with American Express.
The card is slated for release this fall and will offer Bitcoin as a cashback reward for transactions, starting at 2% and scaling up to 4% depending on the user’s asset holdings on Coinbase.