Papa John's Plans NFT Drop Despite Prior Warning From UK Advertising Regulator

Pizza take-out chain Papa John's (PZZA) is planning to give away nearly 20,000 non-fungible tokens (NFT) to customers in the U.K., shrugging off a previous warning from the country's advertising regulator about its dalliances in the crypto world.

The collection of 19,840 NFTs has been minted on Tezos and takes the form of nine different pizza delivery hot bag designs.
The NFTs will be dropped on several dates in early March.

This is not Papa John's first foray into the world of crypto and blockchains. The take-out chain last year launched a promotion in which customers could win £10 ($13) worth of bitcoin (BTC) when they spent more than £30 ($39).

The campaign fell afoul of the UK's Advertising Standards Authority, who deemed it "irresponsible" as it "took advantage of consumers’ inexperience or credulity and trivialized investment in cryptocurrency." The pizza chain subsequently removed the ads for the campaign.

Papa John's has a long-standing association with cryptocurrency owing to the infamous occurrence of an early bitcoin user spending 10,000 BTC on two Papa John's pizzas in 2010. The bitcoin, worth $41 at the time, would be worth nearly $400 million at today's prices.