Key Takeaways
- Lolli’s 600,000 users can now earn bitcoin automatically via Kard’s card-linked offer network as of May 19, 2026.
- Kard’s first-party transaction data from tens of millions of cardholders gives Lolli merchants a new bitcoin-native consumer channel.
- Thesis* plans to connect Lolli earnings to Mezo’s 1% APR borrowing layer, deepening its circular bitcoin economy stack.
Lolli Drops Checkout Friction as Kard Deal Turns Linked Cards Into Bitcoin Earning Tools
The announcement, revealed May 19, 2026, and shared with Bitcoin.com News, connects Lolli’s user base to Kard’s independent commerce media network, which processes first-party transaction data from tens of millions of cardholders. Users who link a Visa or Mastercard inside the Lolli app now earn bitcoin on qualifying purchases at participating merchants. The rewards post directly to the user’s Lolli wallet.
The launch is described as Lolli’s biggest product update since joining Thesis*, the bitcoin-focused venture studio. It gives the platform access to thousands of additional merchant offers without requiring users to activate each one individually.
Merchants currently in the Kard network include Dropbox, Hydro Flask, and Stanley 1913, among dozens of others. Lolli users gain exposure to that catalog through a single card-linking step, and new merchants are added on an ongoing basis.
“Most people don’t want to think about earning bitcoin. They want to live their lives and have it happen,” said Matt Luongo, co-founder of Thesis*. “Kard lets us deliver that. Our users link a card once, and bitcoin shows up in their wallet from spending they were already going to do.”
Once rewards accumulate, users can withdraw bitcoin via the Lightning Network or route funds into other products in the Thesis* stack. That includes Mezo, a borrowing platform where users can take out loans against their BTC at a fixed 1% annual percentage rate without selling their BTC.
The structure reflects a broader strategy at Thesis* to build what the company calls a circular bitcoin economy, where users earn, borrow, and spend bitcoin across a connected set of products. Lolli serves as the entry point for earning.
Kard’s role in the arrangement is infrastructure. The company uses predictive artificial intelligence (AI) alongside first-party transaction data to generate personalized offers at scale. Its API-driven platform is designed to allow fintechs and financial institutions to build competitive rewards programs without the operational overhead of managing merchant relationships directly.
“Lolli’s audience is one of the most distinctive consumer cohorts in the rewards space,” Ben Mackinnon, CEO of Kard remarked. “We’re excited to power infrastructure that lets them earn bitcoin in the background of their everyday spending, and to give our merchants a meaningful new channel into that audience.”
For Kard’s merchant partners, the deal opens access to a bitcoin-native consumer base. Mackinnon noted that this audience is difficult to reach through traditional rewards programs, making the Lolli channel a distinct acquisition path.
The card-linked offer model is not new in consumer fintech, but applying it to bitcoin rewards at this scale marks a notable shift in how retail crypto rewards platforms operate. Until now, Lolli’s release says that most bitcoin cashback programs required users to shop through dedicated portals or activate deals manually.
Lolli first launched as a browser extension that paid bitcoin on online purchases. The Kard integration moves the earn mechanism deeper into daily spending behavior by tying it to physical and digital card use rather than a specific shopping flow.
The broader Thesis* portfolio also includes integrations with Bitrefill, which lets users spend bitcoin on gift cards and mobile top-ups. Together, the products are designed to let a user move through an earn, borrow, and spend cycle without converting bitcoin to U.S. dollars at any point.
