[Early Access Waitlist] Bakkt Digital Rewards Wallet - $10 On Launch

Update 12/08/20: For those part of the early access program, Bakkt has a purchase/load $20 get a $25 Target gift card promotion running:

Looks like the Starbucks option is only available on iOS devices.

Contents

1 The Offer
2 The Fine Print
3 Bakkt App
- 3.1 Vision
- 3.2 Current Reality
4 Our Verdict
5 History

The Offer

Direct link to offer [$10 early access list]

Bakkt is a digital wallet to track, spend, and send your digital assets. Bakkt is promising $10 on app launch when you signup on their early access list.

The Fine Print

Limit one $10.00 incentive per customer
- One customer may only create one account
Incentive limited to the first 50,000 customers
App is not currently available in New York or Hawaii
(Probably requires) linking a bank account
- But the promotion appears to post after linking a bank account through Plaid
(Probably requires) creating an account within seven days of receiving access

Bakkt App

Vision

Bakkt’s goal is to create a digital wallet that can hold, buy, sell, and trade a wide assortment of digital assets:

Rewards/Loyalty Currencies
- Airline Miles, Hotel Points, …,
Gift Cards
Crypto
- Bitcoin (BTC), …
In-Game Points/Assets
Cash (USD)

Current Reality

But currently [as of 2020-11-10] the app only supports a fraction of those assets and a very small part of the planned functionality.

Basically, you can get an aggregate view of your loyalty balances and buy/sell bitcoin.

Our Verdict

The $10 signup bonus definitely won’t make you rich, but I think its around the going rate for many app installs.

I originally joined the waitlist from this page in May 2020, and just a few days ago was offered a $20 bonus to try out the app. So that method might work, or the option of waiting for a potentially larger signup bonus down the line, but there’s no guarantee either of those options will be successful. [The link at the top of the post only benefits the new user (there is no referral bonus component)].

It’s tough to say how valuable Bakkt will become (at this stage in its development). But a few initial thoughts:

Trading rewards points through Bakkt may offer bad value
- because historically programs (like points.com) have offered poor conversion/trading values for rewards points.
And Bakkt might not deliver on their vision
- because despite being backed by the owner of the NYSE and completing a significant capital raise their vision is very ambitious.
But Bakkt is a mashup of a lot of the domains in which we play (points & miles, gift cards, crypto, visa debit cards, some form of P2P money transfer, …)
- so there might be some value to discover.