Bitcoin rewards and NFTs can help expand the blockchain

Image credit: Andriy Onufriyenko/Getty Images

Welcome back to Chain Reaction, a podcast that dives deep into the stories, background and latest news of the biggest names in crypto.

For this week’s episode, I interviewed Alex Adelman, co-founder and CEO of Lolli. Founded in 2018, Lolli is a bitcoin rewards app that allows people to earn bitcoin or cash back when they shop online or in person at over 10,000 stores such as McDonald’s, Starbucks, Dunkin’, CVS, Costco and so on. Adelman was previously on the team that built commerce gateway Cosmic, which was acquired by PopSugar in 2015 before eventually folding into Ebates (now Rakuten) in 2017.

“I’ve been selling bitcoin to merchants since 2013,” Adelman said. “So it wasn’t a new sale — for better or worse, I was the bitcoin guy for a lot of Fortune 500 buyers.”

Lolli has grown significantly in recent years, from working with less than 500 stores in the first few months to more than 10,000 stores to date. Adelman delved into the reward system in the crypto ecosystem and how it has evolved over the years – and what the future holds for Lolli.

“We’ve been talking about the future of loyalty and its involvement in crypto for a very long time,” Adelman said. “Now it is coming true.”

The episode also delved deep into the topic of Bitcoin NFTs and Ordinals, the latest craze for the community. We discussed whether Bitcoin NFTs are good for the ecosystem, how the technology can grow in the long term and the possibilities of these digital inscriptions potentially fitting into Lolli’s business model.

“I’m a big believer that the best NFTs are memes that are going to last forever and art that’s going to last forever,” Adelman said. “When things are useful, they have a limited value, as opposed to an infinite belief, they can become the next Mona Lisa. That’s the difference: We have been aware of what has value.”

In the future, Adelman also believes that more artists and projects will be launched on Bitcoin. “I think you’ll start to see Lightning marketplaces popping up where you can buy and sell Bitcoin NFTs probably in the next few months,” Adelman added. “Artists want to build ecosystems where there is liquidity, where there are people to buy, and there is no better ecosystem than Bitcoin.”

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