Most people who join a loyalty program use the welcome offer and then forget about it. A study by Digital Silk found that in 2024, the average person signed up to 19 loyalty programmes but used only 9.3 of them regularly. Most platforms lose users between when they sign up and when they actually start using the platform. Points are useless, the company changes the terms whenever it wants, and having a points balance doesn’t feel like it’s worth anything.
Token-based platforms work differently, and the data on why is clearer than most people expect.
What the Loyalty Numbers Actually Say
According to research by Capital One Shopping, 84% of customers say that loyalty programs influence whether they keep shopping with a business. People who join loyalty programmes spend 12 to 18% more than those who don’t. If you can keep 5% more customers, you can make 25% more profit. On average, loyalty programmes give a return on investment (ROI) of 4.8 times the investment, with the best programmes making a 15 to 25% annual increase in revenue from their members alone.
Those numbers are already good. The problem is getting people to watch the whole thing.
A 2026 study by Attentive found that 81% of consumers say that seeing their progress towards a reward makes them want to keep going. But most programs are not built to show progress in a way that sticks. You collect points in a system that the company controls. The company can decide how many points you need to get a discount. The company can stop the program. When you leave, you have nothing.
Token holders will get something. That is the whole difference.
Why Staking Changes the Math
In 2026, on-chain gaming platforms had 38 million active users every month, according to SQ Magazine’s blockchain statistics report. Decentralised social platforms had 12.4 million active creators. The way people use these apps is different from what traditional apps report, and staking is a big part of why.
When people use tokens to earn rewards, they are not just using a platform. They have linked their financial success to the success of the platform. When they stop staking, the rewards stop. When they sell their tokens and leave, they give up the future value of those tokens if the platform keeps growing. The cost of leaving is real, and it’s something we’ve never seen with a points programme before.
Starbucks Rewards made up almost 60% of the money made by US stores owned by the company in 2025, according to Zoho Thrive’s loyalty data. A well-run traditional loyalty programme can do this, if it is personalised and large enough. Token-based staking is a similar process, but it doesn’t require personalisation because the economic factors do the work instead.
The Governance Factor
Most people don’t realise this when they talk about token engagement.
Jupiter on Solana lets JUP holders vote on the protocol’s next steps. Cardano lets people who hold ADA participate in choosing network upgrades. Yield Guild Games uses a system of voting with tokens to decide which games to back and where to spend money. These are not just empty symbols. The votes are processed through a code system, and the results are then announced.
Research on brand loyalty consistently finds that customers with an emotional connection to a brand spend 306% more over their lifetimes than those without, according to Capital One Shopping’s data. A governance vote creates exactly that kind of connection without any marketing spend, because the person has participated in a decision that actually happened. They come back to see how it went. They talk about it. They have a reason to care about the next one.
How Dexsport Uses These Mechanics
The Dexsport token brings the same set of ideas to sports betting.
A standard betting site holds your money, sets the terms, takes a cut of every bet, and gives you no stake in how any of it works. You place bets. The platform does fine either way. There is no particular reason to stay loyal to one site over another when they all work the same way.
Dexsport works differently. Holders get a vote in how the platform develops. Staking unlocks lower fees and better access. Part of what the platform earns goes toward buying back and removing tokens from circulation, which means supply goes down as activity goes up – the same mechanism that pushed BNB up 24% in 2025. Payouts are processed through smart contracts, so the money goes out when the result comes in, without anyone at the company approving it. The rules are in the contract before you bet, and they stay that way.
The Broader Picture
The loyalty management market was worth $15.19 billion in 2025 and is growing at 15.3% every year. It is expected to reach $41.21 billion by 2032, according to Rivo’s 2026 market data. Most of the programmes make a profit. But according to Propello Cloud’s research, 83% of businesses say they struggle with employee engagement, and 80% say they have not solved the problem of retaining their employees.
Token-based ecosystems do not fix everything. If the price of a token doubles, the fees can also double. People will take part in governance less if the platform doesn’t make voting feel meaningful. It is still hard to get new users to set up the wallet. These are the real challenges that serious platforms are working through.
But the game’s ability to keep you hooked does work. Give people something to hold, something to lose, something to vote on, and something to build towards, and they behave differently than they do with points that expire in January. The loyalty programme data is already very interesting. Token ecosystems are what happens when you add ownership to that.
