Which Industries Are Revolutionizing Crypto with Cutting-Edge Incentives?
Crypto isn't just digital gold—it's the new loyalty punchcard. From gaming to finance, industries are betting big on blockchain to hook users. Here's who's leading the charge.
Gaming: Play-to-earn isn't a fad—it's a $3B industry turning gamers into stakeholders. Axie Infinity proved it; now everyone's copying the blueprint.
Finance: DeFi protocols are paying yields that'd make your traditional banker blush—if they understood how it works. Compound's liquidity mining? Just the start.
Retail: Starbucks' Odyssey program lets you earn NFTs with your latte. Because nothing says 'premium experience' like JPEGs with your caffeine fix.
Social Media: Reddit's Moons turned shitposting into a revenue stream. Twitter's next—because Elon loves a good meme economy.
Close: While Wall Street still debates 'blockchain, not Bitcoin,' these industries are quietly building the incentive structures that'll onboard the next 100M users. (And yes, your bank still charges $25 for wire transfers.)
Recent signs suggest that cryptocurrencies are slowly but surely moving towards mainstream use. By looking at how they’re used with incentives in some industries, we can get a clearer idea of how this trend is progressing.
Bigger Casino Bonuses
It’s common for online casinos to give a welcome offer to new players, letting them try out some games with bonus funds and free spins. The competitive nature of the gambling scene means that each casino has to catch the eye of potential players by offering bigger bonuses than others. This means that newcomers get to try games for free and can withdraw their winnings after meeting the bonus terms & conditions.
This list of crypto-friendly casino sites reveals the bonuses offered to players who use digital assets to fund their accounts. Sites like Mirax and Funbet are mentioned, with welcome bonuses of 100% in some cases. These bonuses are often higher for crypto deposits than for fiat deposits, meaning that there’s an incentive to make the first deposit using Bitcoin or other tokens.
Bike Sharing and Hiring to Earn Crypto
We’ve seen attempts in the past to combine bike sharing and hiring with cryptocurrencies. Perhaps the most adventurous came from Singapore-based oBike, which created a short-lived token called OCoin that riders earned while using their bikes. While this project has now been closed, it’s just one of many attempts to harness the power of crypto in the cycling world.
German developer Matthias Steinig created a system that allows the rider to pay for an electric bike power boost over the Lightning Network, although it doesn’t appear to be in commercial use yet. In China, Meituan created a system to let customers hire bikes using a crypto wallet, so there are signs around the world that this approach is something that we will see more of in the future.
Cashback on Shopping
Shopping using bitcoin and other tokens isn’t something new. Ever since the famous day in 2010 when Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 BTC for a couple of pizzas, retailers have been looking for ways to attract crypto users to buy from them. One approach that’s seen some success is the idea of giving cashback and other rewards when people pay using digital cash.
Lolli is one of the leading names in this area, although they’ve taken the opposite approach of giving Bitcoin rewards when customers pay for goods using fiat money. The Bitcoin rewards card offered by Fold shows how this type of service can cover a range of areas, with 600,000 customers using their app to make payments and earn rewards in BTC.
Source: Pexels
What Should We Expect Next?
These examples reveal how the crypto market has grown, partly by taking classic types of incentives and adapting them to the demands of this new market, We can look forward to seeing more innovative ways of getting crypto rewards in different industries, which should help to introduce more people to this way of handling their cash and spending wisely.
