According to CoinDesk, Blackbird Labs, the restaurant loyalty platform founded by Resy and Eater co-founder Ben Leventhal, has announced the launch of Blackbird Pay, a system enabling participating restaurants to accept cryptocurrency payments.

Backed by American Express and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Blackbird raised over $24 million last year amid growing interest in Web3 technologies. Initially, the platform aimed to provide diners in New York, San Francisco, and Charleston with rewards and exclusive perks from their favorite restaurants, while also driving traffic and generating new revenue streams for the notoriously challenging restaurant industry.

The new payments platform expands Blackbird's mission by allowing consumers to pay for their meals using the $FLY cryptocurrency. These tokens can be earned as loyalty points for dining at participating restaurants or purchased in the Blackbird app using Coinbase's USDC stablecoin. Restaurants may find this system beneficial as it allows them to avoid high merchant card fees. Blackbird Labs stated that restaurants on the Blackbird Pay network pay a flat fee of 2% per transaction, compared to typical credit card fees that can reach up to 3.75%. This system also enhances the dining experience by enabling customers to pay their checks in-app, allowing them to leave whenever they are ready.

The platform is powered by the new Blackbird Mainnet, a layer-3 blockchain built on top of Coinbase's Base chain, which is a layer-2 network offering fast and cost-effective transactions on the Ethereum blockchain. Leventhal, who has spent two decades in the restaurant industry and previously founded Resy and Eater, described restaurants as a