NFTs and Bitcoin: We are pleased to welcome you returning here to Chain Reaction, a podcast that dives deep into the details, background, and most recent news from the top names in the world of crypto.
In this week’s episode, I talked to Alex Adelman, the co-founder, and CEO of Lolli. Lolli was founded in the year 2018. Lolli is an app that rewards bitcoin which allows people to earn cashback or bitcoin by shopping on the internet, or in person at more than 10,000 retail stores such as McDonald’s, Starbucks, Dunkin’, CVS, Costco, and more. Adelman was previously on the team responsible for developing commerce gateway Cosmic which was purchased by PopSugar in 2015. The company then ended up merging with Ebates (now Rakuten) in 2017.
“I’ve been selling bitcoin to merchants since 2013,” Adelman declared. “So it wasn’t a new sell — for better or for worse, I was the bitcoin guy for a lot of Fortune 500 merchants.”
Lolli has seen significant growth in the last few years since it began partnering with fewer than 500 stores in the initial months, to over 10,000 stores today. Adelman went into the rewards system of the crypto community and explained how it has changed over time — as well as what the next chapter is in store for Lolli.
NFTs and Bitcoin may help Grow the blockchain
“We’ve been talking about the future of loyalty and its involvement in crypto for a very long time,” Adelman declared. “Now it’s coming to fruition.”
The show also delves into the subject of Ordinals and Bitcoin NFTs the newest trend for the community. We debated whether Bitcoin NFTs are beneficial to the community, how the technology will develop in the future, and the possibilities for digital inscriptions to integrate into the Lolli business model.
“I’m a big believer the best NFTs are memes that are going to last forever and art that’s going to last forever,” Adelman stated. “When things are useful, they have a finite value that it has, in contrast to an infinity belief that it will turn out to be the following Mona Lisa. That’s why we’ve taken care to identify what’s of significance.”
In the near future, Adelman also thinks more projects and artists will be launched on Bitcoin. “I think you’ll start to see Lightning marketplaces emerge where you can buy and sell Bitcoin NFTs probably within the next few months,” Adelman said. “Artists want to build in ecosystems where there’s liquidity, where there are people to buy, and there’s no better ecosystem than Bitcoin.”
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