Blackbird, the restaurant loyalty platform based by Resy and Eater co-founder Ben Leventhal, shared Thursday that its Flynet mainnet is stay, bringing restaurant funds on-chain.
Flynet is a layer-3 blockchain based mostly on high of Coinbase’s Base chain. Base, a layer-2 community, permits customers to transact on high of Ethereum for quicker and cheaper.
The workforce claims that having a layer-3 advantages the restaurant business, as a result of “by dealing with funds and loyalty packages solely on Flynet, Blackbird eliminates conventional middlemen, reduces transaction prices, and introduces a brand new mannequin for rewarding each diners and companions.”
Blackbird had beforehand launched a funds platform, letting customers pay for his or her meals with $FLY, the platform’s native token, which customers might earn by way of the packages loyalty program by eating at taking part eating places, or by buying it within the Blackbird app utilizing the USDC stablecoin.
With Flynet stay, $FLY will probably be utilized in the identical manner, however now eating places can use the token to pay platform charges as nicely. As well as, the workforce is releasing a brand new token, $F2, for use for fuel charges on the community.
The workforce stated that they may airdrop 13% of the $F2 token provide to early customers and eating places, with distribution relying on sure exercise metrics. The remaining 87% of $F2 will go to “insiders, the treasury, and now we have one other six seasons after this that we are going to allocate tokens to the individuals,” Leventhal informed CoinDesk in an interview.
Based on the workforce, Blackbird has $85 million in funding with backers from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Coinbase, Spark Capital, and American Specific. In 2023, a16z raised greater than $24 million for the platform in a Collection A spherical.
Blackbird presently is on the market in New York, San Francisco and Charleston, and lets diners earn rewards at a few of their favourite eating places. Leventhal informed CoinDesk there are roughly 500 eating places as a part of their loyalty program.
“What we expect we are able to do is construct one thing the place transactions turn into a lot more economical, and the levers that eating places have to draw and retain prospects will turn into huge,” Leventhal informed CoinDesk on how he sees the restaurant business and blockchain intersecting. “And people two issues, greater than the rest, is the rationale why we’re constructing on-chain.”
Learn extra: Blackbird, Web3 Startup From Resy Co-Founder, Needs Diners to Pay for Meals in Crypto
