Stack ‘points chain’ layer-3 aims to bring loyalty points to Base

Layer-3s are helpful for attestations but not as much for DeFi, Stack said in a blog post

article-image

Base modified by Blockworks

share

Stack went to mainnet Monday as a so-called points chain, built as a layer-3 on top of Base.

DeFi projects have lately been incentivizing usage on their platforms through “points,” or participation tallies that determine allocation in a future token airdrop. 

Crypto is adjusting to points mania. Users are gaining leveraged exposure to points on Pendle and trading points on Whales Market. DeFi-focused hedge funds are accumulating currently-valueless points on behalf of liquidity providers. 

Read more: DeFi ‘points’ farming has reshaped the crypto investment landscape

But these points tend to live off-chain. Backed by fresh funding from investors including Archetype Ventures, Balaji Srinivasan and Farcaster co-founder Dan Romero, Stack hopes to turn points systems into an on-chain primitive. The project was founded by Graeme Boy, who previously co-founded the decentralized publishing platform Mirror. 

Stack is intentionally limited in scope. In a Telegram message, Boy said points cannot be natively traded on Stack. In Boy’s view, this holds with Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s vision for soulbound tokens — essentially non-transferable NFTs

Stack is built as a layer-3 blockchain, meaning its points attestation data rolls up to Base’s layer-2 blockchain, which in turn rolls up to Ethereum. Layer-3s “may not necessarily provide a secure solution” for DeFi, Stack said in a blog post, but they inexpensively reap the benefits of blockchain transparency. Gas fees are low on layer-3s, since data is doubly compressed before being sent to Ethereum. 

As token airdrops become an increasingly popular means of bootstrapping projects, Stack’s boosters hope on-chain points attestations will become table stakes in crypto. 

Read more: ‘Blast radius’ of new users joining Solana DeFi for the points, liquidity is ‘snowballing’

“Orchestrating airdrops historically is extremely labor and cost-intensive, [but] by shifting the focus to points and putting them on a [layer-3], you drastically reduce the overhead in both cases while maintaining blockchain auditability,” Katie Chiou, principal at Stack investor Archetype Ventures, told Blockworks.

Points managed on Stack are not meant to be traded on open markets. However, points program managers could decide to make the points exchangeable, according to Stack’s product marketing manager Bradley Freeman. He said this could look similar to American Express’ program, where points can be converted into Delta Skymiles. 

Blockchain’s usefulness for customer rewards programs isn’t a new idea. Singapore Airlines began using a private blockchain for frequent flier miles in 2018. Starbucks is still beta testing its NFT rewards program. 

Read more: Lufthansa to offer NFT rewards program

So far, blockchain points programs have largely remained fringe initiatives. Not everyone is convinced of the need for a points chain. 

“I cannot fathom a reason why this is necessary. Points are [ERC-20] tokens without a transfer option,” an X user wrote

Stack pitched its points chain idea to investors at the Coinbase Ventures Summit in Malibu in October 2023, the project said. Last week, it announced a $3 million seed round. The project also drew plaudits from Jesse Pollak, the founder of Base.

“Everything is going to move [on-chain] — points included. This is because [on-chain], [developers] can build faster, reach more users and embody the open, transparent values of the [on-chain] economy,” Pollak said in a text.


Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter.

Get alpha directly in your inbox with the 0xResearch newsletter — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.

The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Tags

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 18 - 20, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

recent research

LTIPPanalysis.png

Research

This report is a retroactive analysis of Arbitrum's Long Term Incentives Pilot Program (LTIPP). We collect relevant data at a protocol level and review bi-weekly updates to analyze recipients, their strategies, and the impact of the incentives on high level growth metrics. In particular, we want to highlight outperformers and underperformers, and glean any best practices or lessons learned for protocols distributing ARB incentives in the future. The overarching goal is to synthesize lessons learned that the DAO can reference as it begins thinking about future incentives programs–namely, the working group for incentives that is being actively discussed–especially as Timeboost introduces new conditions for trading and economic activity.

article-image

Sponsored

AI project Zerebro intersects the spheres of artificial intelligence, finance, art, music, and culture

article-image

Allmight is focused on furthering the United States’ leadership in crypto

article-image

The conditions Charles Schwab is waiting for before jumping headfirst into crypto could take shape soon

article-image

The FCA’s director of payments and digital assets shared some takeaways from chats with crypto companies and law firms

article-image

Let’s take a look at how US equities typically perform this time of year and what we might see in the coming days

article-image

Lumina introduces transparency and permissionless integration via an OP stack-based optimium, challenging traditional oracle designs