Lolli and Kard tap Bitcoin cashback in push to dominate booming crypto card payment sector

Lolli, the Bitcoin rewards platform that is part of Thesis*’s growing portfolio of Bitcoin-native products, has partnered with Kard, an independent commerce media network, to offer card-linked Bitcoin cashback rewards to its users.

The integration is supposed to allow Lolli’s more than 600,000 account holders to earn Bitcoin automatically on qualifying purchases across Kard’s network of merchants, including Dropbox, Hydro Flask, and Stanley 1913, among others.

The deal is reportedly Lolli’s biggest product upgrade since joining the Thesis* portfolio and expands its merchant offer catalog by thousands of listings without adding more operational overhead on Lolli’s side.

“Most people don’t want to think about earning Bitcoin. They want to live their lives and have it happen,” Thesis*’s cofounder Matt Luongo shared in a statement, explaining how its partner, Kard, lets them deliver that service. “Our users link a card once, and Bitcoin shows up in their wallet from spending they were already going to do,” he stated.

How can users link cards to Lolli?

The Bitcoin cashback program comes with popular demand as users have pushed their card providers and platforms to launch similar products in the past. 

The only difference is that these platforms are the ones providing the cards, with some offering debit cards while others offer credit cards that give users cashback when they transact with the cards. Lolli and Kard’s partnership does not involve issuing cards; it leverages existing cards such as Visa and Mastercard.

Users can link their Visa or Mastercard to the Lolli app. Purchases that qualify for cashback at participating merchants automatically trigger Bitcoin rewards that are posted directly to the user’s Lolli wallet. 

The rewards can be withdrawn from the wallet via Lightning Network or routed into other products within the Thesis* stack, one of which is Mezo, its Bitcoin borrowing and yield layer, that offers a fixed 1% APR.

Kard’s infrastructure runs the merchant side as it utilizes first-party transaction data drawn from tens of millions of cardholders. Its predictive AI layer personalizes offers at scale, and this gives merchant partners access to a Bitcoin-native consumer base that they wouldn’t have been able to reach via conventional rewards programs.

According to Kard’s CEO Ben Mackinnon, “Lolli’s audience is one of the most distinctive consumer cohorts in the rewards space.” He added that they are excited to power infrastructure that lets them earn Bitcoin in the background of their everyday spending.

What does this mean for the Thesis* ecosystem?

For Thesis*, Lolli is functioning as the consumer entry point to what it calls a circular Bitcoin economy, which is a closed-loop system where users accumulate Bitcoin through Lolli, borrow against it on Mezo, and spend it through integrations, including Bitrefill, all without liquidating their holdings, and this partnership is a way to get more users into that loop. 

The partnership with Kard is expected to help them achieve this at a larger scale.

Lolli and Kard leverage simple Bitcoin cashback for mass adoption

Cashbacks have long been used as user acquisition and retention tools, and in Lolli’s case, card-link rewards make it easier for people who were likely to be turned off from the whole process of engaging in crypto loyalty programs. 

Lolli and Kard are also banking on the straightforwardness of their passive accumulation model to differentiate their Bitcoin cashback program from earlier models that required users to activate offers individually, install browser extensions, alter purchasing habits to capture rewards, or perform a series of actions before activating the reward.

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