• Ruben Salazar Genovez , CEO Gennius XYZ | Chairman at TerraPay at TerraPay


• 25.03.2025 07:15 am
#DigitalAssets #Crypto #Blockchain

What began as a clever way to keep airline passengers loyal has morphed into one of the world’s largest—financial ecosystems and untaped purchase power. Customer rewards are everywhere, but their value is often trapped behind expiry dates, obscure rules, and brand silos. Rewards aren’t perks anymore. They’re liquid assets. And it’s time they acted like it.

The Hidden Economy of Loyalty

Let’s start with the size of the challenge. Or rather, the size of the opportunity. More than $200 billion worth of loyalty points and miles are issued globally each year, according to industry analysts at Deloitte and Bond Brand Loyalty. Of that, around $50 billion goes unredeemed annually—a tidy sum of forgotten value. This isn’t just digital litter—it’s deferred liability on corporate balance sheets and lost purchasing power for consumers.

According to IATA, airlines alone have over 60 major frequent flyer programs, with the top ten accounting for more than 300 million members. The global loyalty industry spans over 7,000 programs across airlines, hotels, retailers, credit cards, and telcos. While participation is high, engagement is low. A 2023 report by McKinsey found that fewer than 40% of loyalty points are redeemed—and in sectors like financial services, the breakage rate is even higher. In short, we’re sitting on a mountain of idle value. And it’s growing.

Meanwhile, Banks Are Paying Out Billions

The cash equivalent side of the rewards industry isn’t small either. Global banks disbursed over $65 billion in cashback rewards to consumers in 2022 alone, according to Capgemini’s World Payments Report. These programs continue to scale with the rise of digital banking and real-time payments, yet they remain just as fragmented and brand specific.

Most points can’t move across ecosystems. You can earn a mile flying to Singapore, but good luck spending it on coffee in London. This lack of interoperability isn’t a tech issue—it’s a legacy business model.

The logic behind controlling redemption is simple: breakage—when points go unused—pads margins. But that short-term gain comes at the cost of long-term engagement. Consumers aren’t asking for more points; they want value they can actually use. Flexibility, portability, and transparency now matter more than accumulation. And the breakage game? It rarely builds loyalty. It erodes it.

Tokenizing Rewards: Not the Future—The Present

Tokenized digital assets aren’t speculative anymore—they’re infrastructure. “Markets-and-Markets” projects that the global tokenization industry will surpass $215 billion by 2029, driven by increasing demand for liquidity, cross-platform commerce, and embedded finance.

Some early moves have already hinted at the potential. Singapore Airlines’ KrisPay let users convert miles into spendable value via blockchain. UATP signed a deal allowing 260 airlines to accept Bitcoin. Smaller startups experimented with crypto-based loyalty coins.

At Gennius XYZ we are bridging the gap between rewards and real-world use. We’re not trying to fix loyalty. We’re rethinking Digital Engagement entirely.

From Loyalty to Liquidity

Our platform turns legacy points, airline miles, and brand rewards into tokenized digital assets—secure, transferable, and interoperable. We’re creating for our partners the conditions for globally accepted rewards wallet, where assets move seamlessly between merchants, users, and platforms.

Why It Matters: The Untapped Value of Consumer Trust

Like most consumers, I’m enrolled in rewards programs with over a dozen brands—but I can barely remember half of them. This isn’t a UX issue. It’s a trust issue. When rewards can be converted, stored, and spent like digital currency—without jumping through hoops, remembering passwords, or decoding convoluted redemption rules—brands don’t just improve convenience. They earn loyalty. And consumers like me? We finally get to reclaim value we’ve already earned.

By anchoring rewards in blockchain infrastructure, Gennius XYZ delivers what traditional loyalty programs have long lacked: transparency, security, portability, and scale. Every transaction is traceable and auditable, eliminating opacity. Fraud-resistant token systems ensure integrity, while assets move freely across ecosystems and geographies—unbound by brand or border. And unlike siloed reward schemes, Gennius is built for scale—a global redemption network designed to function as seamlessly in Barbados as it does in UAE

For us, loyalty is no longer about collecting points. It’s about collecting experiences—and converting them into value you can actually use.

We’ve come a long way from paper punch cards and frequent flyer miles. But most of the $200 billion in annual rewards still behaves like it’s 1999—locked, illiquid, and poorly utilized.

We’re betting on a simple idea: if consumers earn value, they should be able to use it—anywhere, anytime. From miles to money. From perks to programmable assets. The future of loyalty. It’s borderless.

Sources: Gennius XYZ Proprietary Data, Deloitte, 2023 Global Loyalty Survey; Capgemini, World Payments Report 2023; McKinsey, Loyalty in Retail 2023; MarketsandMarkets, Tokenization Market Forecast; Bond Brand Loyalty, The Loyalty Report; UATP, Digital Currency Acceptance Update; IATA, Global Airline Programs Overview