Lolli is giving US users another way to spend rewards already held in its app: retailer gift cards that generate a new bitcoin rebate. Announced on September 17, the offer links balance redemption to another purchase incentive, putting the rewards platform between accumulated customer earnings and the next shopping trip. [S01]

The commercial question is whether that extra spending option gives people a reason to return. A reward balance can be an endpoint for a cashback programme; a gift-card catalogue can turn it into the starting point for another transaction. That is the potential business benefit of the design, rather than a result Lolli has yet demonstrated.

What the September announcement changes

Customers pay from their Lolli balance and receive 1.5% back in bitcoin. A second gift-card purchase qualifies for 3% during the 24 hours after the first purchase clears. The catalogue includes Kroger, Instacart, Xbox, Home Depot and other brands. Availability is limited to the United States. [S01]

Lolli had already promoted gift cards before this launch. A February 13 company post linked to physical and digital gift cards with advertised rewards of up to 0.7%. September brings the newly announced in-app proposition and its specified reward structure. The different catalogues and offers make a blanket before-and-after rate comparison unreliable. [S04]

From earning bitcoin to putting balances back to work

Lolli began in 2018 as a bitcoin rewards business. It announced its acquisition by bitcoin-focused venture studio Thesis in July 2025, describing a strategy to connect earning rewards with using them across a wider set of financial applications. At that time, Lolli reported more than 600,000 US users and over $20 million in bitcoin rewards distributed. Those are historical company-reported figures, not September 2026 user or revenue totals. [S02]

The gift-card announcement fits that stated direction by adding an everyday use for money accumulated in the platform. For Lolli, the potential gain is another customer interaction within its own app. For a participating retailer, the commercial opportunity is access to that spending through a familiar gift-card product. Neither proposition proves that the programme will create incremental sales rather than redirect purchases customers would have made anyway.

There is also a behavioural distinction between a standard rebate and the second-purchase offer. A reward that expires after a short interval can encourage another transaction sooner. In this case, that is an interpretation of the incentive's structure, not evidence that Lolli has measured a retention uplift or disclosed it as management's objective.

A different reward trigger from card-linked offers

The company had already announced live card-linked offers in May. That product rewards eligible spending on a linked payment card, with merchant-specific rates and online or in-store availability. Lolli said those rewards were separate from the benefits provided by a customer's card issuer. [S03]

The September gift-card offer instead awards the rebate when the gift card is purchased. Spending that card does not earn another Lolli reward at the retailer. Refunds remain available only before the customer selects Redeem. [S01]

For the industry, the distinction matters: selling prepaid value and rewarding a completed retail transaction are different places to influence a purchase. A company running both mechanisms can offer customers more than one route through its service, but the rates cannot simply be added together as if both apply to the same transaction.

The economics still need evidence

The announcement does not identify a gift-card distribution partner or disclose wholesale discounts, fees, funding arrangements or Lolli's margin. The advertised cashback percentage therefore says little about profitability. It is also not evidence that the named retailers accept bitcoin directly.

The next useful measures would be repeat purchasing, actual card redemption and the cost of funding rewards. Until those are available, this is a concrete extension of Lolli's spending proposition with a plausible engagement benefit, not proof of a profitable new revenue stream.