We’ve talked about crypto very little thus far. Blackbird’s membership cards are NFTs, its loyalty token is $FLY, and network participants can earn ownership in the network with $F2, but we’ve focused on what those different products do for restaurants and their customers, not on the nitty gritty of the tokens themselves.

That is a great thing.

Blac... See more

1. Privy makes it easy to embed wallets that users control but don’t need to think about, right in the app.


2. Base , Coinbase’s EVM-Compatible Layer-2 network, is a cheap, highly performant L2 with the trusted reputation and brand of Coinbase. (Since launching in August 2023, Base has already made upgrades that make the network cheaper and faster, whi

... See more

The key insight here is that the "regular" experience is a form of capital – social capital , to be precise. It's valuable to both the restaurant (which benefits from repeat business and word-of-mouth marketing) and the customer (who enjoys better service and status). However, this capital has traditionally been illiquid and non-transferable. You c... See more

While memberships were restaurant-specific, $FLY would be a “pan-industry loyalty currency.” Every time you check in at Gertie, for example, you might receive 1,000 $FLY or 5,000 $FLY. Restaurants might incentivize certain behaviors – checking in at times that are typically slow – with greater $FLY rewards. So each time you check in at a specific r... See more

Blackbird is the first app I’ve used that’s onchain but doesn’t feel like it is. It feels like a restaurant app. I use it to discover places to eat, and to earn loyalty for eating there. Starting today, I’ll be able to use it to pay my tab — automatically, without getting the check — using credit card, debit card, or Blackbird’s $FLY token.

Blackbird Pay is a no-brainer. Lowering payment processing fees from 3-4% to 2% improves profitability in both the short-term and long-term. Faster turnover improves profitability in both the short-term and long-term. Restaurants will adopt Blackbird for Blackbird Pay, in order to get back 1-2% of margin, which in some cases, might mean doubling ma... See more

There’s one big difference here, though. While Ben sold Eater and Resy to centralized companies, that’s not an option for Blackbird. Instead, ownership of the network of restaurants will primarily go to the restaurants themselves as the company progressively decentralizes. “Overall, the restaurant industry should own roughly half of the network,” B... See more

I did ask Ben what he thinks the experience will be like in a couple years as the network scales. Here’s what he described:

You open the Blackbird app. Based on what it knows about you, where you are, and any specific queries you make, it will suggest two or three places nearby. That will be the last experience you have with the tech. You’ll just w... See more

Fred Wilson pointed out that being onchain opens up the opportunity to build an AmEx-like loyalty program where all the loyalty points are onchain.

“$FLY is like a stablecoin. It’s not something like Bitcoin where you buy it and hope it goes to $100k,” he said. “But the idea of taking loyalty points onchain is a big deal.”

Specifically, it will all... See more