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By Loop - Cashback Everywhere with Stellar
Loop onboards the next million users to Stellar, empowering users to earn cashback every time they shop.
CTX.com has powered over $800,000 in gift card payments, representing real user savings of over $40,000. Loop takes this from a feature into a full standalone project designed to empower millions to save money on their groceries and other shopping.
Gift Card Payments
Using Loop, the average user will earn over $500 a year in cashback through our instant gift card system. Completing their purchase through an instantly delivered gift card to scan at the point of sale, paying through open banking (Plaid) or via cryptocurrency (XLM/USDC/EURC/GBPL, etc.), receiving instant cashback in USDC, EURC or GBPL on the Stellar network.
Cashback Card
Using our cashback card will net users up to 3% on purchases (region dependent), this is sourced from the interchange fees and is paid to us by our issuance partners and then we pay this out in the Stellar stablecoin asset based on the users region (USDC in the US).
Automated Yield
We’ll be rewarding users with automated yield (Defindex) on their holdings from deposits and earned cashback.
Passkey Stellar Wallet
Not a product/service but a core part of how the system works; each user will have a Stellar passkey wallet where cashback and yield will be paid - this is a key part of our strategy as it means we’re no longer holding customer funds simplifying our compliance setup. Likewise gift cards are considered closed loop products and have relatively simple compliance requirements.
Maybe in the future, but not in this submission
$139.6K
Success will be measured primarily by users and volume, ultimately our goal is to empower as many people to save as much money as possible. The cost of living crisis has hit many, and doing a small part to ease the burden the cost of everyday life places. Post mainnet launch we believe we’ll be able to onboard over 20,000 users and process over $4 million in payments within 12 months. In year 2 we intend to scale this drastically once our model is optimized and following a subsequent raise to over 100,000 users and over $40m in payments. These are realistic targets, a project in a similar vein though not a direct competitor is processing over $1.3 million daily in gift card purchases.
Loop serves both existing blockchain users and the general public - even with no awareness they’re using a crypto-empowered product. We’ll be using a variety of marketing strategies to serve these different audiences.
As we’ve already served $800,000 in payments we want to continue that strategy of integrating in partner wallets where users already are for our gift card program, we’ll be heavily focused on business development and are in early stages with a number of multicoin wallets that serve millions of users. We’ve also had some great conversations with Stellar projects from our time at Meridian 2025 and a number of them are interested in integrating our gift card system.
For the general public we’ll be taking a vastly different approach, one of our founders has a performance marketing background with millions in ad spend of experience so this is his area of expertise. We have already validated a SEM PPC based customer acquisition cost (through to first gift card purchase) of ~$20, and whilst at this stage we dont have figures for customer lifetime value we expect it to exceed this by over a factor of 10.
Likewise we’ll be working on partnerships with neobanks, existing money saving apps and other discount focused sites and influencers to both integrate our app and earn affiliate income through our affiliate programme.
Additionally we’ll be offering a customer referral programme, rewarding users with $5-10 in referral income and professional affiliates & partners with lifetime customer earning share.
We have processed over $800,000 in gift card payments, primarily on the Dash network where we are integrated into the Dash Android & iOS wallets. The average user spend is over $1000 and we have a very high retention rate. In the last month Dash has had a massive price increase by over 250% from $34 to $122. A core part of this was an extensive Brave ad campaign around Dash Spend (the gift card system we power) aligned with a general growth in privacy coin value. We also piloted a Stellar Spend variant that was well received with $10,000 spent in a few weeks, we pitched this at Meridian 2025 to really positive feedback but with the general consensus being to go bigger. We’re now taking this from a feature into a fully fledged standalone, from a blockchain project to one where millions will save, without even necessarily knowing they’re interacting with the blockchain.
As this is a commercial project some of our data (including user data) is quite sensitive, here is a document showing some screenshots of our admin panel with users personal information redacted:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1so1sjIcnSOv4E7eluM8u4YMKOVxMq2VL1ANMhCnzEoQ/edit?usp=sharing
Description:
Cross-platform Mobile App for Crypto Gift Card Purchases
Discounted gift cards for MVP - not cashback (cashback & stellar wallet in testnet tranche)
Purchase via crypto
US, Europe, Canada & UK Coverage
How to measure completion:
Download and install from app stores / testflight (before Apple approval)
Purchase a discounted giftcard with XLM/USDC
Redeem giftcard at merchant (in-store/online)
A comprehensive video will also be provided.
Timeline: 1 month
Please note: a large part of this work has been completed including payment processing via our company CTX.com and rates from our own pricing engine rates.ctx.com we will be spinning this work out into a standalone for the MVP as well as building out the mobile app and adding coverage for additional geographies.
Mobile Apps (iOS & Android) - 128 hours @ $75/hr = $9600
Infrastructure Setup & Spin-out of Payment Processing Logic - 80 hours @ $75/hr = $6000
Addition of Western Europe, UK and Canadian gift cards - 80 hours @ $75/hr = $6000
Infrastructure & Tooling Costs = $1200
Total: $22800
Description:
Integrated Stellar Passkey Wallet
Gift cards now award cashback instead of being discounted (paid directly to user)
Testnet Defindex yield system
How to measure completion:
Download and install apk / testflight
Purchase a mock giftcard with XLM/USDC
Verify receipt of cashback to Stellar testnet passkey wallet
Verify receipt of yield from held funds (direct or 'savings account')
A comprehensive video will also be provided (including admin dashboard & customer support views)
Timeline: 1 month
This work is largely focused on our integration of the Stellar wallet and the decentralized yield earnings.
Passkey Wallet & Full/Part Payments from Stellar Wallet - 120 hours @ $75/hr = $9000
Automated Cashback Distribution - 80 hours @ $75/hr = $6000
Defindex Yield - 120 hours @ $75/hr = $9000
Internal Tools (admin dashboard / customer support dashboard) - 40 hours @ $75/hr = $3000
Infrastructure & Tooling Costs = $1200
Total: $28200
We'll utilize audit credits unlocked from completing this tranche to audit our integration of Defindex.
Description:
Full app on mainnet & released in app stores.
Plaid SDK Integration for Open Banking payments (USD + GBP + EUR + CAD)
Gift cards purchasable through bank transfer or crypto
Mainnet real yield on holdings (USDC definite, GBP/EUR/CAD dependent on provider availability)
Virtual cashback card (Visa/Mastercard)
US, Europe, Canada, and UK Launch
Full Stellar passkey powered wallet (Secp256r1 direct signing or derived Ed25519 keys)
How to measure completion:
Download and install from app stores (testflight whilst pending Apple approval)
Purchase a real giftcard with XLM/USDC or Open Banking integration at merchant (in-store/online)
Redeem real gift card (credit to Uber account for example, or shop online or in-store at hundreds of merchants)
Verify receipt of cashback
Verify receipt of USDC yield
A comprehensive video will also be provided.
Timeline: 3 months
Open Banking - 360 hours @ $75/hr = $27000
KYC Integration (Virtual Card) - 40 hours @ $75/hr = $3000
Virtual Cashback Card - 280 hours @ $75/hr = $21000
Partner Library / API work - 80 hours @ $75/hr = $6000
Affiliate & Referral System - 80 hours @ $75/hr = $6000
Mobile App Work - 80 hours @ $75/hr = $6000
Infrastructure Expansion - 40 hours @ 75/hr = $3000
QA - 60 hours @ $75/hr = $4500
Monitoring / Alerting - 20 hours @ $75/hr = $1500
Internal Tools Work (admin dashboard / customer support dashboard) - 40 hours @ $75/hr = $3000
Infrastructure & Tool Costs = $7600 (horizon + captive core in 4 cloud locations w/ full HA setup, software licenses, etc.)
Total: $88,600
Loop is the consumer facing project by the team behind CTX.com, a crypto payments processor that's processed over $1m of payments. Our co-founders are Ash Francis and Alex Cox. Ash & Alex have built comprehensive crypto payment solutions and contributed to both THORChain and Maya Protocol (decentralized cross-chain exchanges). Prior to becoming full time blockchain developers in 2017, Ash was Head of Digital at an automotive start-up and Alex was dev-ops lead at an enterprise VoIP provider. In addition we're supported by a few external resources assisting in engineering, business functions and fractional general counsel.
Ash Francis
No other submissions.