Raise, a payments provider in the global gift card industry, announced a partnership with Parity Technologies this week to provide the payment rails for the upcoming Polkadot mobile application. Previewed during last week’s Polkadot Decoded conference, Raise’s white-label payments and gift card infrastructure API will allow users to make purchases at more than one million stores and websites across the United States using Polkadot’s native token, $DOT, and earn up to 20% cash back in $DOT on all transactions.
Raise provides on-demand gift cards for users at more than 1,000 retailers. Directly integrated into the POS systems for many of these brands, the Raise platform also provides cashback on all purchases.
“For far too long, crypto and traditional commerce have remained siloed,” Raise founder and CEO George Bousis said. “Raise published its first blockchain whitepaper in 2015 detailing a better way for customers to transact with businesses, but technological constraints prevented this evolution from happening.
“The Polkadot blockchain provides the technical backing to bring our vision to life. Together, we are making it easier and more rewarding for people to use their crypto for everyday transactions. We couldn’t be more excited to partner with the Parity team, and we look forward to showcasing how crypto can be seamlessly integrated with retail and e-commerce going forward.”
The Polkadot app is scheduled for release in Q3 of this year. It will allow users to make purchases at retailers across the US using $DOT without ever having to leave the app. The rewards issued in $DOT will function as cash-back, providing instant savings to users on all their purchases. By the end of the year, Raise and Parity intends to expand these capabilities internationally, bringing crypto payments to over thirty-three countries and more than 5,000 brands.
“Upon first meeting George and the Raise team in 2021, I was immediately impressed by their vision for unlocking crypto in retail through their gift card platform,” Parity co-founder and CEO Björn Wagner said. “We have been tirelessly working together since then. I am proud of all we have achieved through this integration, allowing all $DOT holders in our ecosystem to utilize their assets in traditional commercial systems. This partnership with Raise opens up an entirely new audience to traditional e-commerce, and this is only the beginning of what we have planned for the future.”
Raise said it is also working to make its payments API available to all self-custodial Polkadot wallets shortly. The company is targeting additional blockchain integrations in the coming months.