UPTOP: INTRODUCING FAN LOYALTY ON AVALANCHE
Uptop replaces closed, fragmented loyalty points with a unified rewards engine built on Avalanche, turning everyday spending into team equity.
Every sports fan has a team they bleed for. They buy the jersey, show up to the games, spend money at every partner brand in the city, and get nothing back for it.
And it’s beyond sports. You already spend money every single day. Groceries, coffee, gas, dinner. None of it has ever worked in your favor beyond the purchase itself.
Uptop looked at all of that and saw an opportunity the entire industry had been sitting on without doing anything about. So they built a platform with fans at the center.
What is Uptop?
Uptop is an onchain rewards platform built on Avalanche that turns everyday card purchases into loyalty points for fans, brands, and sponsors.
The simplest way to understand it: you link your existing debit or credit card once, and every time you spend money at a participating brand or partner location, you automatically earn points toward rewards from the teams and organizations you already love. Tickets. Signed memorabilia. VIP experiences. Seat upgrades. Exclusive access. All earned through purchases you were already going to make anyway.
It operates as a white-label platform, meaning sports teams and organizations put their own name and branding on it. The Cleveland Cavaliers call it Cavs Rewards. The Detroit Pistons call it Pistons Rewards. LSU calls it Geaux Rewards. The Empire State Building has its own Ambassador Program. Uptop is the engine running quietly underneath all of them.
One of its distinct features from traditional loyalty programs is the open-loop design. Most loyalty programs are closed, meaning your points only work within one brand’s ecosystem. Uptop connects multiple businesses, local and national sponsors, and the team itself into one shared rewards network. A fan earns points at a grocery store, a restaurant, a gas station, and redeems them for courtside seats. Everything settles on Avalanche, which handles the point issuance, badge minting, and partner settlements in fractions of a second.
For teams and sponsors, Uptop is also a data platform. They can see what their fanbase is buying, which sponsors are driving behavior, and where engagement is strongest, giving them enough attribution data to trace user activity.
The idea is straightforward: the brands and sports teams you love should be able to reward you for the everyday things you do.
Built on Avalanche
Behind the scenes, it runs on Avalanche, tracking rewards accurately and handling loyalty rewards at scale.
Avalanche’s infrastructure enables points, badges, and partner settlements to be issued and processed in seconds, while keeping the experience simple. Because transactions finalize quickly, a fan buying at a Cleveland restaurant that supports the Cavaliers can receive points immediately, with clear tracking and low enough costs to support large-scale use.
The blockchain is completely invisible to the fan. What they see is a reward. What runs underneath is Avalanche.
Proof That It Works: The Cavs, The Pistons, and LSU
Uptop has live programs running across the NBA and college sports, with real numbers to back them up.
The flagship is Cavs Rewards, launched in October 2024 with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Cavs Rewards is a fan engagement program designed to bring fans unforgettable rewards and connect businesses in Cleveland with the Cavs community. It delivers a sports open-loop rewards system that allows a team or league’s sponsors to participate directly in the fan loyalty program. Sponsors have seen a 21% lift in spend from enrolled members and a 51% boost in Team Shop sales since launch.
The numbers sparked instant interest. When Uptop showcased the Cavs program metrics to LSU, it quickly became evident that several of their existing brand partners were eager to plug into this kind of fan engagement experience.
The Detroit Pistons launched Pistons Rewards in partnership with Uptop, designed to reward the loyalty of Detroit basketball fans through everyday purchases, Pistons Rewards gives fans the opportunity to earn “Pistons points” from transactions like grocery stores, restaurants, and more. Once fans have earned points, they can be redeemed for exclusive team prizes, such as VIP experiences, tickets, merchandise, and memorabilia.
Early registration tracked 50% faster than Cleveland’s pre-launch period.
Then came college sports. Uptop partnered with LSU Athletics to launch Geaux Rewards, a fan engagement program that unites fans across all LSU Athletics programs, rewarding their engagement with points redeemable for exclusive prizes and experiences. Geaux Rewards spans the full spectrum of LSU Athletics, covering football, basketball, baseball, gymnastics, and more.
Beyond sports, Uptop also powers the Empire State Building’s Ambassador Program. The range of partners shows that the product has reached well beyond the arena.
What Makes it Different?
Traditional loyalty programs are closed loops. Your airline miles only work on that airline. Your supermarket points stay in that supermarket. They are designed to lock you in, not reward you freely. Uptop works differently.
Uptop’s platform awards fans digital badges representing status tiers powered by Avalanche. A fan profile represents proof of fandom, which not only gamifies the fan experience but introduces users to the tangible benefits of blockchain technology.
The platform connects neighborhood businesses with national sponsors in the same ecosystem, meaning the sponsor dollars that used to fund billboards and broadcast ads now flow directly back to fans in a form they can actually use. Because everything settles on Avalanche, attribution is concrete. Brands know exactly what drove a purchase.
Beyond creating a new source of partnership revenue, sports teams use Uptop to engage fans year-round and understand how they spend. They can track what fans buy, when they buy it, and which sponsors drive those purchases. In many cases, that kind of data is more valuable than a single sponsorship deal.
The Rain Acquisition: Going Global
In November 2025, Uptop was acquired by Rain, the enterprise-grade infrastructure platform for stablecoin-powered payments. The acquisition follows Rain’s recently secured $58 million Series B and accelerates the company’s commitment to delivering a complete, vertically integrated stack, including on-ramps, wallets, cards that work anywhere Visa is accepted, off-ramps and payouts, and now native rewards.
Rain’s CEO Farooq Malik put the reasoning plainly: “We’re building end-to-end, stablecoin-native infrastructure so our clients don’t have to stitch it together. By integrating rewards, Rain continues to lead the stablecoin industry as a comprehensive platform that lets partners go live and scale fast, all while keeping the consumer experience simple.”
In the coming months, Rain partners will be able to launch branded rewards without managing third-party integrations, build wallet programs that combine branded balances, payments, and loyalty in one clean user flow, and run sponsored bonus-earn campaigns that drive measurable engagement and spend.
Uptop will continue to operate as an independent brand under Rain, with its reach expanding beyond sports and entertainment into retail, travel, and dining. The user experience stays exactly the same but it’s reach expands through Rain’s 150-country card network.
How to Get Started
Getting into Uptop depends on which side of the ecosystem you are on.
1) For fans: The entry point is through whichever team program is live in your city. Uptop’s programs are free to join.
Steps:
Sign up through your team’s rewards page.
Connect a debit or credit card.
Earn points automatically on eligible purchases (in-store, online, or at the arena), as well as through promotions and referrals.
Redeem points for tickets, merchandise, memorabilia, or experiences.
Current programs:
Cleveland Cavaliers: nba.com/cavaliers/rewards
Detroit Pistons: pistons.com/rewards
2) For sports organizations and brands: Organizations can launch co-branded cards that allow fans to earn rewards from everyday spending. Rewards can include tickets, merchandise, seat upgrades, VIP access, or other experiences. Programs can also use unsold or unused inventory as rewards.
Program access:
Visit Uptop’s demo page: uptop.xyz/demo
Contact the team: uptop.xyz
The Bigger Picture
What Uptop has quietly proven is that blockchain adoption does not require users to understand blockchain. It requires a product good enough that people simply use it.
The approach stands in contrast to projects that require fans to purchase crypto, manage private keys, or understand token economics before participating. Uptop leverages blockchain to enhance familiar loyalty mechanics whilst maintaining traditional payment experiences.
That is the bet Avalanche made in backing this. The assumption is that when infrastructure is built correctly and paired with the right product, it can bring millions of users onchain through routine activities like buying a beer at a bar.
In practice, it points to the simple idea that adoption often follows utility, not the other way around.
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