Bitcoin reward firm Fold will now pay up to 1.5% cashback in satoshis on ACH transfers

Bitcoin wallet app Fold is launching ACH rewards, which will pay out up to 1.5% in bitcoin on payments made through the platform, Senior Marketing Manager Brian Harrington told The Block in a recent interview.

The company, which joined Visa's Fintech Fast Track accelerator in 2020 to launch payment cards that also reward usage with bitcoin, claims to be the first to offer a crypto-based Automated Clearing House rewards program. 

ACH payments today are typically reserved for large electronic money transfers, like mortgage, credit card and rent payments, Harrington said, meaning that users can earn crypto on some of their “largest purchases.”

“Just by downloading Fold you can 'refinance' your home on better terms, reduce your mortgage or cut your credit card bill down," Fold CEO Will Reeves wrote in a statement.

Fold has distributed $42 million in rewards to date, the company said. According to a survey of Fold’s user base cited in the press release, many users attested to having more bitcoin in their rewards accounts than dollars in savings accounts.

Some 60% of respondents said they anticipate the need for additional bitcoin financial services.

“For Bitcoin to succeed, it needs to continue to supplant the legacy banking system that keeps censoring bitcoin purchases,” Harrington said. “This is a story about bitcoin being useful in people’s day-to-day lives.”

Founded in 2014 by Reeves and Matt Luongo (now focused on Bitcoin DeFi at Thesis), Fold began as a way for people to exchange gift cards for bitcoin. It soon expanded into rewarding users in bitcoin when buying gift cards for select retailers, and then beyond that.

Reeves said Fold is now one of the few full-stack infrastructure companies that allows Bitcoin wallets to connect directly to FDIC-insured banks and Visa payment rails, with easy conversion between bitcoin and fiat at every step, in a recent Bitcoin Magazine interview.

Its Visa cards pay out variable or fixed bitcoin rewards on all purchases, depending on whether you want to pay $10 a month or $100 per year for ​​a Fold+ (formerly Spin+) membership for more consistent rewards. Free accounts can "spin" Fold's rewards wheel once per day.

The firm raised a $2.5 million seed round from Craft Ventures, CoinShares and Slow Ventures in 2019. It raised an additional $13 million in 2021.

EDITOR'S NOTE (Jul7 23, 2024 — 1:57 PM ET): The piece has been updated to reflect that Fold is sunsetting its previous post-purchase rewards policy in favor of the new ACH rewards.