Ripe for Disruption: The $126 Billion Loyalty Market Opportunity

5 min readAug 27, 2021

The popularity of blockchain technology shows no signs of slowing, as more individuals and companies realize how technology can drastically change everything from investing to business development and, for the focus of this article: loyalty programs.

As enterprises scramble to meet customer retention goals, they are beginning to reimagine the customer experience and customer engagement strategies.

If you are a marketer or business owner who wants to ensure your company is prepared for the inevitable disruption, then get yourself up to speed and keep reading because being a first mover on emergent tech can be the difference between keeping ahead or losing out to the innovators.

The time is now to understand how the future of loyalty programs is about to change.

Loyalty Programs 101

Without loyal customers and return business a company cannot succeed. Having a good product isn’t enough, you must lock-in repeat customers with approaches from all angels.

Companies are changing the way they treat customers. It is more expensive to get customers than to keep them. This change is good for consumers. Loyalty rewards are focused on keeping customers more engaged.

Loyalty programs typically offer rewards to customers who make frequent purchases, they can also qualify a customer for upgraded experiences.

Customers are rewarded for desired behavior with points that they can redeem for products. Based on their activities, customers also gain status elements that provides benefits, such as, special deals, free upgrades, elite services and more.

Is it “coincidence” that those who embrace blockchain expanded AGGRESSIVELY during COVID-19 — even as most companies were casting about helplessly like a tugboat in a typhoon?

Loyalty programs tend to drive sales and help grow a business because even the simplest of loyalty programs increase the chance a customer is going to return, points incentivize a pattern of behavior, providing extra encouragement for a customer to purchase again.

Blockchain: An Emerging Tech Trend or New Reality?

“We view it [crypto] as a technological transformation. There’s a fundamental technological breakthrough that has happened. It’s an area of computer science called distributed consensus […] Money is one application […], but it’s only one of many.” — Marc Andreessen

Brand builders who aren’t already planning for technological shifts in business development and growth risk being left behind by their savvier competitors.

Optimistic proponents of the technology are evangelical because they believe that blockchain can help with the creation of a new society; disruptive blockchain technology is a force for positive change in a world where values are changing in the wake of a health crisis.

Blockchain is a technology that will change many industries. The blockchain is changing the way we think about wealth and will change the way we do business. Everything from predictive analytics to machine learning and blockchain-enabled smart contracts is changing the future of business.

The core of the technology is a decentralized network that enables secure peer-to-peer transactions. The technology is gaining traction in the financial services industry as a secure way to transfer funds instantly and can be applied to loyalty and rewards programs.

From the headlines of coin pumps to breakthroughs in computer science, distributed ledger technology cannot be ignored its more than a tech trend but we are still in the early stages as this technology is just beginning it’s integration into mainstream use. The time to get involved is now.

A Blockchain-powered Loyalty Network Can Fix All the Problems with Loyalty Programs

For enterprises that benefit from repeat sales and ongoing subscriptions, loyalty programs are a no brainer.

The challenge for enterprises to quickly deploy rewards programs has been on ensuring trust and incentivizing the consumer to join the program. What blockchains allow is for inoperability across point programs while also making it simple for companies to track and verify points.

For customers, there are many problems with rewards programs. Challenges arise from restrictions and rules, reward options, and loss of points — users often lose track of rewards points.

“For consumers juggling an array of loyalty programs, blockchain could provide instant redemption and exchange for multiple loyalty point currencies on a single platform. With only one “wallet” for points, consumers would not have to hunt up each program’s options, limitations, and redemption rules.” — Oliver Wyman

Another advantage of loyalty on the blockchain for consumers is privacy. Blockchain technology can allow people to exchange tokens for rewards without compromising their private data.

Rewards programs are great but short expiration dates are not. To help with this issue, blockchain technology can help keep track of rewards and allow redemption at any point in time or, on newer systems being developed, users can swap their expiring points for cryptocurrency.

Blockchain Innovation is Happening and Brands Need to Prepare

Blockchain technology is changing how loyalty programs are being developed.

The technology’s distributed ledger technology can help enterprises improve the end-to-end customer experience, from onboarding to loyalty, by enabling companies to better understand their customers and provide them with a better experience, ultimately driving retention and loyalty.

Blockchain technology has the potential to improve loyalty programs for both the companies and their customers.

Blockchain provides a way for companies to offer rewards and recognition to customers beyond just points and miles. Rewards programs that are built on Blockchain technology offer flexible and secure solutions that improve brand engagement, loyalty and satisfaction.

One of the most promising ways blockchain can improve loyalty programs is by increasing the speed, security and flexibility of the programs.

This flexibility is particularly important in the loyalty space because it allows brands to offer their customers a greater variety of rewards and benefits.

Blockchain presents a way for consumers to hold the data they generate and creates a market for them to share it with the brands they trust.

Ready to experience the future of loyalty points, then check out what DragonBite is up to….

DragonBite is a fully integrated ecosystem of decentralized financial services built on interoperable technologies, and with many aspects of the ecosystem collectively controlled by its members. Its governance mechanism is predicated upon two digital tokens called $BITE and BITE Point.