Lolli is the first bitcoin rewards application that lets you earn bitcoin when you shop online.
How does it work?
Basically, you shop online as you always do, only now you're getting a small amount of Bitcoin credited to your account after you check out.
Imagine! These are literally free Bitcoins, because you would spend that money anyway.
It's the most convenient way to get your hands on Bitcoin, because you don’t even have to register with an exchange! All you need is a safe wallet, to cash out your Bitcoins to.
I first learned about Lolli in this interview with co-founder Alex Adelman on the Crypto Trader channel. You can see him talk about it for about 3min at 23:38 min in:
Sadly, Lolli is only available in the U.S. at this time, so I haven’t been able to test it myself yet. If it really does what it says, I can’t wait to use it, too!
I have been able to install it in my browser, though, and noticed that it works very similarly to Honey, if you’re familiar with that.
Both are Chrome extensions (which work in the much more private Brave Browser as well) and alert you of financial benefits before you hit the buy button on any web page.
Honey spots discounts and allows you to apply them before you check out, but Lolli will pay you rewards in Bitcoin when you shop on their partners' sites.
Those Bitcoin rewards can be substantial! Just look at the over 500 partners they already have, and the rewards percentages.
While most of them are around 3-5%, some are as high as 30%!
Imagine buying something for $100 and receiving $30 back in Bitcoin.
In a few months the value of those Bitcoins may have risen way beyond $100, so you’re actually getting more than 100% back, if you’re patient (and if you trust that Bitcoin will rise. If it doesn’t - nothing lost!).
How does Lolli work?
Super simple: Download the Lolli extension and install it in your browser.
Afterwards, whenever you find yourself on a partner website of Lolli, it will alert you to activate your savings. I was on Godaddy today when Lolli suddenly popped up, so this is what it looks like:
Once activated, Lolli will track your purchase and send Bitcoin to your Lolli wallet a few days later (first Lolli needs to get paid by the retailer, and then they’ll share their rewards with you).
Private Keys?
Nope. Lolli gives you a user name and password - so your funds are in Lolli’s control, not your own.
However you can link your own BTC address (and also a bank account) and cash out whenever you have reached a balance over $15.
Mainstream adoption? Depends...
I do believe this will help mainstream adoption. But only a little.
It will attract the people, who are already interested in crypto, but couldn't be bothered to learn how it all works so far. Lolli will allow them to get involved without having to deal with the whole buying process (i.e. signing up to exchanges, verifying yourself, etc.)
Lolli meats people where they are at. They are shopping! And that’s where Lolli hands out Bitcoins - at the end of their shopping experience, something regular consumers are very familiar with.
Once those consumers hold those Bitcoins in their wallets and watch their value grow, they might become a lot more interested in the whole subject of cryptocurrencies.
Imagine seeing the value of your money grow at immense speed - especially now that our fiat money will be losing its value with immense speed. Wouldn’t you become interested in how to accumulate more of this new money and learn how to store it safely, how to transact with it and possibly even accept it in your own business?
What’s missing...
Mainstream adoption could be way faster, if every single one of those 500 "partner businesses" had a big purple pop-up alert on their site, that tells people SIGN UP WITH LOLLI BEFORE YOU SHOP TO EARN FREE BITCOIN!!
Because how are people supposed to know? If I hadn’t have the extension installed, I would have never known that I can get free Bitcoin rewards on Godaddy’s site.
The slightly misleading part here is that Lolli is an affiliate partner of those stores, but I believe it's a one-sided partnership. I don't think all those businesses are partnering with Lolli specifically to further the mainstream adoption of Bitcoin. They might not even be aware of Lolli. To them, Lolli may just be an affiliate sending traffic (of course there might be exceptions).
Now, that doesn't diminish the value Lolli offers at all. They are sharing their reward with the consumers. In Bitcoin!! That's a total win for consumers, and it's a win-win for Lolli and the retailers as well. A great example of the sharing economy.
However, since Godaddy and all those other businesses don’t advertise this Bitcoin reward visibly on their sites, this will just be another secret that will remain inside the crypto community bubble and make very little difference out there.
Still...
The idea of Lolli is really really great. Also so simple! Why didn't anyone think of this before? :) Maybe someone did, but very few people like to part with their Bitcoins... So this right there makes me like Lolli a LOT.
Lolli took both the "fin" and the "tech" part out of the "Invest-in-Bitcoin" equation, which is exactly what's holding most potential adopters back.
I know many people, who’ve been saying, “Yeah, I should really look into this Bitcoin thing, too, at some point…” But they keep putting it off, because they're afraid of the idea of “learning how to invest” and the idea of “learning the tech”.
But they all know how to shop.
This could be huge if we all share it.
About the author:
Anja Schuetz helps absolute beginners to become confident crypto investors. She also consults as a Customer Communication & Operations Manager for blockchain start-ups.
Anja offers a Free Bitcoin Beginner's Course when you sign up to her Conscious Crypto Museletter here: http://anjaschuetz.net and has also written a Beginner's Guide to Steemit