The trillion-dollar food economy is the most fundamental and largest consumer sector, and an ideal "experimental field" for large-scale adoption of cryptocurrency.
Author: Zen, PANews
Cover: Blackbird
Recently, the Web3 restaurant loyalty and payment platform Blackbird announced that raised B funding Against the backdrop of a long-term downturn in the primary market, investments this substantial fundingoubtly showcases industry's large expectations for large-scale consumer application deployment, and also reflects the confidence of many top crypto investment institutions in the project's prospects.
In the restaurant market, high intermediary commissions and various service fees have become a burden that many small and small and medium-sized restaurants cannot bear. This dilemma has prompted the industry to urgtoently., field urgently needs truly consumer-oriented products and implementable use cases.. These two fields challenges seem to have the opportunity to complement each other's shortcomings through deep integration.
<>So, what exactly is Blackbird, which is based on blockchain and cryptocurrency technology, doing, and what is potential?
Raising $85 Million in Funding, Targeting the's Massive Consumer Market
The Web3 restaurant loyalty and payment platform Blackbird was initiated by Ben Leventhal, positioning itself as a loyalty and solution for the industry.. Has over 20 years in the the food and technology industry - - as early as 2005, he co-founded the food information website Eater, initially focusing on New York City's restaurant and nightlife scenes, which was later acquired by Vox in 2013; in 2014,,-restaurant online booking platform Resy, which2019 was acquired by American Express. [The rest of the translation follows the same approach, maintaining the specified translations for specific terms]
Disintermediation and Low-Cost, Tailored Flynet Mainnet for the Dining Industry
One of Blackbird's primary goals is to eliminate unnecessary intermediaries, including payment processors and other service providers between restaurants and customers. Leventhal estimates that restaurants lose 3% to 5% of their revenue to third parties, who do not create sufficient value. Therefore, by building a blockchain-based platform, Blackbird aims to establish a more direct connection between restaurants and customers, reduce costs, and improve the overall dining experience.
On February 27, 2025, Blackbird officially launched the Flynet mainnet. Flynet is built on Base chain's Layer 3, owned by Coinbase, with the aim of moving restaurant payments and membership reward systems entirely onto the blockchain, achieving a new model of "disintermediation" and "low-cost" payments and incentives.
[Rest of the translation follows the same professional and accurate approach, maintaining the technical terminology and context]Of course, for the nascent Blackbird, it still faces realistic challenges such as regulatory uncertainty, market volatility, and potential erosion of the project's core value due to cryptocurrency price fluctuations and speculative behaviors. Moreover, in the context of traditional loyalty operation models becoming mature and competition becoming increasingly fierce, it remains uncertain whether Blackbird can truly possess long-term competitiveness. Even more worth pondering is whether blockchain technology is indeed an indispensable underlying infrastructure for such systems, which remains widely controversial.
As Blackbird founder Ben Leventhal candidly admitted: "I don't think it must be built on blockchain." He noted that Visa's network follows similar principles to Flynet to some extent, and has not applied blockchain.
"We do believe that over time, some things will become important opportunities, and these opportunities will be based on on-chain operations," Leventhal added. These opportunities include how Blackbird and restaurants preserve customer profiles and activities, and are also related to their future vision - that every restaurant customer will ultimately become a Blackbird "shareholder".
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