Blockchain Loyalty Rewards: RBR Rebranding to CoVal

This image was submitted to a design battle to find a new logo for CoVal, it is not the official logo (although it could be in the future)

RibbitRewards started out with an airdrop and small ICO crowdsale back in 2014, touting a mission to bring loyalty rewards onto the blockchain. The plan called for the creation of an online store for redeeming rewards and earning points by shopping using various cryptocurrencies, and the building of an open coalition reward scheme which anybody could join using the RBR token.

Since then a lot has changed. The company behind Ribbit made a significant pivot, putting the marketplace on the backburner and focusing instead on building out a wide range of unique and exotic features for branded reward programs using smart contracts over a new semi-permissioned blockchain (permissioned for reward issuers, not permissioned for users). Hand in hand with this change came a rebranding of the company from Ribbit Rewards to 'Loyyal'.

For a long time the RBR blockchain and its tokens were all but abandoned, with communications between the company and community dropping to zero. The price dropped to 15 satoshi. Then as loyyal started hitting the headlines with $1.5 million angel investment and high profile clients including the Prince of Dubai and Deloitte, and rumours began of a one-to-one swap from RBR to new loyyal tokens, the price soared briefly to over 700.

In the end, it turned out the the swap was not to be - loyyal will continue with no native token as we usually understand them (there is one in the background, but it won't be traded on open markets and won't be visible to most users). The price crashed on the news.

But then a new story began - the Loyyal architect known as Shannon Code was to take over RBR to build original vision of an open coalition rewards program on the blockchain, using a free-pass given by his employers to create 'RApps' (reward apps) without paying the usual fee.

Since then the price has settled at ~150 sats, well down from the highs but still 10x the all time lows.

Now news has been broken on the project slack that Ribbit Rewards will be rebranded to 'CoVal', or 'circuits of value'. A new multi-currency wallet that can be used for Bitcoin, a range of altcoins, and any Loyyal reward token is being built. What's more, brainstorming is well underway for the first wave of RApps designed and built by Shannon, who is still employed by Loyyal.

I think this is an interesting project to watch, even if it is also true that they will have to go a long way to rebuild trust after the long period of silence and the rumour-fed pump which filled that void.

For more info check out the following links:

*http://synrg.tech/ (will be moved to http://co.val at some point)
*http://loyyal.com/
*https://bittrex.com/Market/Index?MarketName=BTC-RBR