Remy Blaire: Traditional airline and hotel loyalty programs represent hundreds of billions of dollars in balances, but consumers are increasingly frustrated by point devaluations, expiration dates, as well as walled-garden restrictions.
At the same time, stablecoin settlement is penetrating enterprise fintech at a record pace.
And following Superlogic’s recent acquisition of Entravel’s crypto travel platform and a strategic investment from Animoca Brands, major exchanges and fintech platforms, including Kraken and Crypto.com, are plugging directly into on-chain rewards networks to power in-app travel bookings.
Well, joining us to discuss the future of programmable rewards infrastructure is Lin Dai, CEO of Superlogic and Co-Creator of Bookit.
Lin, great to have you on the show. Thank you so much for joining us.
So Superlogic recently acquired Entravel’s crypto travel business and brought on a strategic investor, which is Animoca Brands.
So what does this consolidation tell you about the demand for white-label travel infrastructure, and why are institutional investors betting on this space right now?
Lin Dai: Yeah. Thank you for having me.
As you mentioned before, you know, travel and experiential travel is hotter than ever. Consumers heavily demand this.
The crypto fintech companies have done a great job basically launching credit card and debit card products backed by crypto.
This is kind of the minimum viable product, right?
Like, if you want to have a competitive consumer credit-debit product, you need to offer very competitive travel and rewards.
And with the consolidation, we acquired Entravel Group’s crypto white-label platform business, as well as the Spree network, which is kind of a leader in building on-chain tokenized rewards technology.
So combining all the stacks together, we are able to be kind of a one-stop shop for all the blockchain-powered crypto fintech companies, having out-of-the-box white-label travel solutions and rewards solutions.
Remy Blaire: Yeah. And Lin, 2026 has been the year of volatility.
And with geopolitics as well as energy prices taking center stage, we’ve been watching airline ticket prices rise, and legacy airline as well as hotel rewards do suffer from regular devaluations as well as balance-sheet liabilities.
So can you walk us through how a stablecoin-backed reward model actually preserves purchasing power for consumers without destroying operating margins for travel providers out there?
Lin Dai: Yeah, absolutely.
You know, one thing that is a constant in the air for airline and hotel miles is that you can purchase less with it next year than you can this year, right?
But consumers are getting very savvy. They’re earning lots of points and miles.
That becomes a liability on a major corporation’s balance sheet.
So in order to get rid of these liabilities, oftentimes what they do is this thing called devaluation.
So for the same hotel room that you could have booked with 40,000 points last year, you know, it’s going to cost 60,000 points next year.
So essentially, it’s incredible inflation for consumers.
So what we think, and what we kind of pioneered together with Spree, is this technology that, like, your 100 points is always backed by $1 of USDC, right?
So it’s a USD-denominated stablecoin, or it can be any other USD-denominated stablecoin.
So the purchasing power of that 100 points is always guaranteed.
And also, the second innovation is we allow you to earn that from any number of purchases and redeem that across our network of 2 million travel merchants.
So you can essentially book a hotel, earn a ton of points, and immediately spend those points on an airline purchase, without restriction.
So essentially, a stablecoin-backed, blockchain-enabled point is superior because it’s interoperable. It’s guaranteed value for consumers.
And we think that’s the future of rewards.
Remy Blaire: Yeah. And while I have you here, I do want to get your take on infrastructure.
So major fintech platforms out there, including Kraken, Crypto.com and MetaMask, are plugging into your network rather than building travel portals in-house.
So tell us about the financial as well as regulatory case for exchanges outsourcing travel as well as rewards infrastructure rather than building it themselves.
Lin Dai: Yes, absolutely.
So this already happens with traditional banks, right?
Like, you know, with very few exceptions, even major companies like Chase work with third-party companies to basically power their travel platform.
So the advantage is just the complexity of both launching a platform and also negotiating kind of 2 million travel merchant deals.
Because we operate at scale, we power both crypto and non-crypto fintech companies.
We were able to negotiate sometimes, like, you know, closed-group rates at up to 60% margin behind the scenes.
So a hotel, you know, let’s say, for example, the Ritz-Carlton you’re going to book, they will never discount their price.
But we could potentially, with margin from our wholesale rate, fund rewards back to the consumer in stablecoin rewards or in crypto rewards, up to, you know, 20%, 30% back to that consumer.
It’s a huge value for consumers.
And these types of wholesale deals take years and scale to essentially negotiate.
We’ve been powering the Crypto.com in-app travel platform really successfully since earlier this year.
And what we’ve seen is, essentially, like, you know, a large financial institution or crypto institution can certainly take the phone and call the top airlines and hotels.
But it will still take them kind of years to basically negotiate all the deals and deploy a platform.
We can turn on a white-label solution for any crypto or fintech or other brand in less than 30 days.
So that is speed to market, incredible savings.
And we do this mostly on kind of a win-win basis.
So all the fintech companies actually get paid based on the volume of business and the wholesale margin that we create.
And consumers also win also, right?
Because, like, when was the last time you earned 20% or 30% rewards back on any of your travel purchases?
So we think that is kind of an easy turn-on solution, and more and more fintech and crypto companies are going to do white-labeled travel and rewards in the future.
Remy Blaire: Well, Lin, we are all out of time for today.
But thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate your time as well as all of your insights. Thank you so much.
Lin Dai: Yes. Thank you, Remy.
