Digital gift cards issued to one customer’s app and unlocked only by their signed claim, so stolen codes and drained cards stop working.
The problem
Scammers have turned gift cards into the payment method of choice, and thieves drain cards before anyone gets to spend them.
Sources: NCSL: Gift card fraud surges as scammers get more sophisticated · Federal Trade Commission
Every gift card is a number and a PIN. Wherever that pair is stored, copied or guessed, value leaks. Five problems follow from that.
Hacks, database breaches, employee theft, leaked sheets of codes and brute-force bots all end the same way: a card drained before the customer loads it.
PINs are short and predictable. Bots try combinations until one works.
A digital card is emailed, screenshotted, pasted into a spreadsheet and forwarded. Every copy is as good as the original.
When a card is drained, the brand, the retailer and the customer each point at someone else.
With today’s technology, once a card is issued you can’t see where it goes, how many times it changes hands or when it is used.
The digital shift
Wallets are moving onto phones, fastest with Millennials, Gen Z and the Gen Alpha kids growing up behind them, and for hundreds of millions of people a phone is the only account they have. Plastic gift cards on a rack are next.
How it works
Most programs provision a code, send it to the buyer and hope it arrives intact. Bidali makes the claim cryptographically verified, so a card only opens for the person it was issued to.
Today
Provision
Codes are generated in bulk and stored in the clear.
Send to the buyer
Copied in transitEmailed or printed. Anyone in the path can copy the code.
Claim
Usually skippedNothing proves who the card belongs to.
Redeem
Anyone with the codeWhoever holds the code spends it, sometimes before the buyer does.
With Bidali
The card arrives in a sealed digital envelope, issued to one customer’s wallet and no one else’s.
A signed claim unlocks the envelope. It is cryptographically verified, so a forwarded or copied card is useless.
Keep the card in the Bidali app, or add it to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet.
Redeem opens the brand’s app with the code already filled in, or the right page on its website.
Launch plan
We launch with wrapped cards from select digital brands, then open the Bidali network so brands and platforms can issue natively.
Digital brands that deliver codes by API keep their existing cards. We wrap each one before it reaches the customer.
Codes arrive by API
We start with select digital brands whose codes and PINs are delivered by API.
Sealed and issued
Each code is sealed in a digital envelope and issued to the customer’s Bidali app.
Unlocked on claim
The code is only revealed when the right customer signs the claim.
Brands and platforms issue cards directly on our network and see every card from issue to redemption.
Run your own nodes
Brands and platforms run issuing and redemption nodes with Bidali SDKs.
Signed, not logged in
Customers redeem with a signature from their own key. No password to steal.
Balance goes to the brand account
Redeeming credits the customer’s balance with the brand, ready to spend.
Phase 2 · the Bidali network
A gift card passes from the issuer to resellers and affiliates, then gets regifted, resold or used in place of cash. Somewhere along the way the brand loses sight of the card, and of the customer holding it.
Where brands lose sight of a card today
Brand + platform
Acme Coffee on your Shopify store
Bidali network
Every card is unique and every hop is cryptographically verified
Platforms and resellers
Apps, marketplaces and partners that sell the card
Customer wallet
Claimed with a signature, not a login
Redemption
Credited to the customer’s balance with the brand
The brand sees every card, from issue to redemption
Issuing and redemption nodes run where you already sell. Bidali provides the SDKs.
There is no charge to issue a gift card on the network.
Nodes take a small fee when a card is redeemed, so the platforms doing the work share in it.
New economics
The old gift card model counted on cards that were never spent. A digital card that is claimed, tracked and redeemed earns its keep in other ways.
The old model
Breakage
Profit from cards that are lost, forgotten or drained before anyone spends them.
$73
average spend beyond a gift card’s value; nearly 60% of US shoppers go over
Blackhawk Network research, June 2026~75%
of Gen Z and Millennial shoppers used AI tools for holiday shopping in 2025
Giftcards.com (Blackhawk Network)The digital model
Every card sent is an introduction to someone who has not bought from you yet.
Rewards and top-ups land in an app your customer already opens.
Most shoppers spend past a card’s value, and you can see it happen.
A leftover balance is a reason to come back, and you know it is waiting.
Shopping agents compare, time and bundle purchases for people. Cards on our network are something they can use safely.
The agentic era
An agent can hold a key to a customer’s gift cards instead of their email and password. It claims and redeems within the limits set for it, and nothing else.
What brands get
Every card is a unique, traceable record you can see, limit and report on.
See what is redeemed, what sits unused and when, card by card.
Know what you owe today, not after month-end close.
Choose where and in which currencies a card can be used, and how value converts.
Cap how many times a card can change hands. It blocks laundering and keeps cards from circulating as currency.
Quick-service and retail chains with locations in many countries see redemptions by location and region.
Sell through Bidali’s partner network from launch instead of building distribution alone.
Redemptions, liability and transfers in a single dashboard.
Acme Coffee · Issuing
LiveOutstanding balance
$1,284,300
+4.2% this month
Predicted breakage
6.2%
Next 12 months
Redemptions (30d)
48,120
+12.4% vs prior 30d
Transfer limit
3 / card
Avg. 2.1 used
Redemptions worldwide
6 markets
Redemptions by day
Last 30 days · +12.4%
We did this in 2018
In December 2018, Bidali and Enjin created the first blockchain gift cards and gave them away to celebrate the launch. Issuing is what that pilot grew into.
Why blockchain
Your customers still buy and spend gift cards the usual way. Our blockchain based gift card network makes each card verifiable, auditable and extremely secure behind the scenes. Leave the old technology where it belongs, in the past. We have run our own Bidali One balance on this infrastructure for three years; Issuing opens it to brands and platforms.
Every issue, transfer and redemption is recorded and can’t be quietly edited.
No shared number and PIN to copy from a shelf, so there is nothing to guess.
We run a full compliance program: KYC/AML, sanctions screening and fraud monitoring.
See how teams in these industries put Bidali to work.
Issuing is opening to a first group of brands and platforms.
For brands that issue or want to issue gift cards.
For commerce and payments platforms that want to offer Issuing to their brands.
Prefer email? sales@bidali.com
Join the waitlist and see terms before launch.