Teşvik Katmanı: Bitcoin'in Bir Sonraki Benimsenme Dalgası Neden Satın Alınmayacak, Kazanılacak?

For the better part of a decade, the narrative surrounding Bitcoin has been dominated by two distinct poles: high-conviction ideology and high-stakes speculation. To the early adopters, Bitcoin was a monetary revolution, a sovereign exit from the fiat system. To the later retail waves, it was a volatile ticker symbol, a chance to get rich quick or a risky asset to be feared.

But as we look into 2026, the data suggests that neither ideology nor speculation will be the primary engine of the next great migration into digital assets. The exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have already built the bridge for institutional capital, settling the question of legitimacy. Now, the bridge for the remaining mass market is being built on something far more universal: consumer incentives.

We are witnessing a substantial shift in how the mainstream interacts with digital assets. The next hundred million users will not enter the ecosystem because they have studied Austrian economics, nor because they are day-trading volatility. They will enter because the incentives to do so, embedded in the everyday actions of spending and saving, have simply become too efficient to ignore.

The Psychology of “Risk-Free” Entry

The single greatest barrier to Bitcoin adoption has always been the psychological hurdle of buying it. Exchanging hard-earned fiat currency for a volatile asset triggers intense loss aversion. For the average consumer, the perceived risk of buying $100 worth of Bitcoin often outweighs the potential reward, regardless of the asset’s long-term performance. Incentives flip this equation. When a consumer earns Bitcoin as a reward for purchasing coffee, paying a mortgage, or buying groceries, the psychological cost is neutralized.

At Fold, we’ve seen that rewards can be a subtle yet effective way to boost Bitcoin adoption. Our data indicates that users who enter the ecosystem through rewards are significantly stickier than those who enter through direct purchase. Once a consumer owns a fraction of Bitcoin, earned passively, the endowment effect takes hold. That consumer will naturally begin to want to track its value, understand its volatility, and eventually, seek to understand the technology behind it.

This “earn-first” model outperforms the “education-first” approach that the industry relied on for years. You cannot lecture a consumer into caring about monetary debasement. But if you give them an asset that appreciates while their airline miles depreciate, the lesson teaches itself.

The Collapse of Traditional Loyalty

To understand why Bitcoin rewards are gaining traction, we must look at the deterioration of the traditional loyalty landscape. For decades, consumers have been trained to accumulate points, miles, and cashback. However, these programs are fundamentally broken by design.

Traditional rewards are liabilities on a company’s balance sheet. As a result, issuers are incentivized to debase them. We see this constantly: airline blackout dates, “dynamic pricing” that inflates redemption costs, and points expiring due to inactivity.

Bitcoin introduces a new paradigm: rewards as assets.

Unlike points, Bitcoin is a bearer asset with a fixed supply. It is not a liability on a corporate ledger; it is the property of the user. This distinction is critical as we head into 2026. Consumers are becoming increasingly sophisticated. They are realizing that cashback in a fiat currency suffering from inflation is a losing proposition. Conversely, earning rewards in a deflationary asset turns a sunk cost (spending) into a savings vehicle.

We are seeing a “flight to quality” in loyalty programs. Just as capital flees to safety during macroeconomic uncertainty, consumer attention is fleeing to rewards that hold value. This is confirmed by the broader dissatisfaction with traditional points programs, which are increasingly viewed as a bad deal by younger demographics who prioritize asset accumulation over perks.

Data Signals: The Mainstream is Ready

The appetite for this shift is measurable. We found that 60% of consumers expressed interest in gifting or receiving Bitcoin. This is a staggering figure that contradicts the narrative that crypto remains a niche interest.

However, the method of adoption matters. The same survey revealed that 78% of respondents find Bitcoin products from regulated, well-known financial institutions more appealing than those from typical crypto companies. This signals a maturity in the market. The Wild West era is over. The next wave of adopters demand the same consumer protections, regulatory compliance, and ease of use they expect from their banks.

This aligns with broader industry trends. We are seeing a resurgence in activity in North America driven by institutional maturity and clearer regulatory frameworks. The market is reorganizing around trust. Consumers want exposure to the asset class, but they want it within the guardrails of compliant, insured, and familiar financial structures.

The “Spender-Saver” Paradox

One of the clearest signals emerging from incentive-based Bitcoin products is how incentives reshape financial behavior. There is a well-known concept in economics known as Gresham’s Law, which states that “bad money drives out good.”

The world is seeing a digital manifestation of Gresham’s Law among mainstream users. They are increasingly willing to spend fiat currency (which they view as depreciating) to earn Bitcoin (which they view as appreciating).

This behavior bridges the gap between spending and saving. Historically, these were two distinct activities: you spent money to live, and you saved money to build wealth. Bitcoin rewards collapse these categories. By integrating Bitcoin into the payment layer, via debit cards, credit cards, and bill pay, every transaction becomes a micro-investment.

For the underbanked or those living paycheck to paycheck, this is transformative. It allows for the accumulation of a hard asset without requiring disposable income to invest. It is financial inclusion not through charity, but through commerce.

The Educational Flywheel

The industry often debates whether better education is needed to drive Bitcoin adoption. From our experience at Fold, adoption is the education.

We see a consistent user journey play out on our platform:

A user earns a small amount of Bitcoin through everyday spending, buying groceries, paying a bill, swiping a card. There’s no upfront decision to invest. Just a reward. Then something changes. They check their balance. They notice it move, up, down, then up again. That volatility, which once felt intimidating, becomes familiar. Curiosity follows. Users click through to learn why Bitcoin moves the way it does, supply caps, halvings, market cycles. And over time, many take the next step, which is buying a small amount directly or withdrawing their rewards to self-custody.

Our internal data shows that users who enter Bitcoin through rewards tend to be more engaged and longer-lasting than those who start by buying outright. They’re acclimated to volatility early, because their entry point didn’t feel risky. It felt earned. That distinction matters. These users are less reactive during market swings because they don’t frame their Bitcoin as money they “put in.” They frame it as value they accumulated over time.

This is why rewards-driven adoption is more sustainable. It creates familiarity before conviction and ownership before ideology.

Data from Fold’s 2025 consumer survey show that 60% of people are interested in using Bitcoin as a gift and that a large majority prefer Bitcoin-related products from regulated, trusted institutions, a strong signal that mainstream users are ready to adopt digital assets in everyday contexts.

2026 and Beyond: The Convergence

In 2026, we believe the lines between fintech and crypto will start to disappear. We are already seeing major payment processors and neobanks rush to integrate crypto rewards. The success of River’s Lightning integration ve growing volume of stablecoin settlements suggest to us that the infrastructure is ready for scale.

The winning consumer finance apps of the next decade will be those that successfully merge the utility of fiat payments with the asset properties of Bitcoin. We will likely see the miles model challenged aggressively. Why would a consumer collect airline miles, subject to the whims of a single corporation, when they could collect a globally liquid, censorship-resistant asset?

The banks and institutions that ignore this shift risk losing the primary banking relationship of the next generation. We are moving toward a world where every transaction is an opportunity to opt out of inflation and opt into a sounder monetary standard.

The ideology of Bitcoin remains as potent as ever, but it is no longer the primary hook. The hook is value. And in a world of shrinking purchasing power, the most powerful incentive of all is the ability to preserve the wealth you create.