For two years, the NFT market has been drifting in a kind of economic flatline. The excitement that once surrounded digital collectibles has faded into a few stubborn online communities and a handful of gaming experiments. Trading volumes have withered. Marketplaces that once dominated Web3 have shrunk into quiet marketplaces for die hard collectors. And the broader public, after being burned by hype, speculation, and rug pulls has largely checked out.
Inside gas stations, corner stores, liquor shops, smoke shops, and even vending machines, a surprising shift is taking shape. A blockchain product that people can actually hold and buy like any other retail item is catching on. It isn’t happening online. It’s happening in physical stores where major consumer brands have been built for decades. Not online, not through Twitter spaces or Discord servers, but through the very same vertical where some of the largest consumer products in history have thrived: physical retail brick and mortar stores.
In October 2025, Convenience Store News, the leading trade publication covering the U.S. convenience retail market selected Rewards, Inc. as one of the winners of its annual Best New Products Awards, recognizing it among 52 standout innovations introduced to the convenience store channel during the year. This award was decided through a consumer panel that evaluates value, convenience, packaging, and novelty and validates that Rewards, Inc.’s scratch card collectible system isn’t just a niche blockchain experiment, but a retail ready product deemed innovative and viable by industry veterans.
If the projections are accurate of this partnership between Avalanche and Rewards, Inc., this new category could mint more NFTs in a single year than every major blockchain combined. Think about that, more NFTs in a single year than EVERY MAJOR BLOCKCHAIN COMBINED.
At the center of this movement is Rewards, Inc., a startup blending the familiar scratch off mechanic with digital collectible redemption. Their system, a patent pending hybrid between physical retail products and on chain assets has caught the attention of Avalanche (AVAX), one of the most technically advanced and high throughput blockchains on the market. According to individuals close to the company, Rewards, Inc. is preparing a partnership that will place all of its NFT issuance directly on Avalanche, with production estimates that push beyond anything the network has ever seen.
The number circulating internally is a startling: 40 million NFTs in 2026. Not hypothetically. Not “if things go right.” Forty million, as a baseline.
In an industry where most NFT collections mint 5,000, 10,000, or occasionally 100,000 units, the idea of tens of millions of NFTs tied to real world retail distribution is almost unthinkable. But for those who understand the global scratch off market, the scale suddenly makes perfect sense.
Brian Johns, a key figure at Rewards, Inc., speaks about the company’s ambitions with a calm confidence that betrays the magnitude of what they’re building.
The 40 million NFT target is our first phase. We’re on track to hit 10 million NFTs minted every quarter as we expand our placement across retail. Our goal is simple: bring NFTs to the masses through the stores they already visit. Nationally first. Globally where allowed. And in a format that’s fun, familiar, and frictionless.
Brian Johns – Director of Partnerships at Rewards, Inc.
He is careful on one point, the company is NOT a lottery.
“At the end of the day, we’re not here to be a lottery,” Johns said. “We’re focused on a collectible scratch off mechanic that people already enjoy. It’s fun. It’s simple. And it happens to be the easiest on ramp to digital ownership that exists today. These cards can be collected, traded, and go far beyond a traditional scratch off experience.”
What Johns is describing is not merely an NFT product. It is a new category, a bridge between the largest physical retail distribution system in the world and the digital collectible rails Avalanche provides.
A $200+ Billion Industry Crypto Has Completely Ignored
The worldwide scratch off and instant lottery market is massive, far larger, more stable, and more culturally ingrained than most people realize. It’s larger than all online casinos. Across Europe, Asia, North America, and Latin America, a report by AMR suggested in 2023 alone, scratch cards generated over 200 billion dollars with a projected annual growth of 7%. They are printed by the billions, which means billions of NFTs if each scratch card is a NFT, distributed through hundreds of thousands of retail locations, and purchased by every demographic imaginable.
Printing plants in the United States alone have historically produced hundreds of millions of scratch tickets annually. In markets like China, Italy, the UK, and Brazil, national lottery distributors maintain operations so large they rival the scale of major CPG manufacturers.
For decades, scratch cards have been one of the most durable consumer engagement formats on earth, simple, inexpensive, and universal. And nearly all of it has operated completely outside the blockchain world.
While crypto spent years attempting to build mass adoption through speculative trading, virtual pets, virtual casinos or metaverse land, it overlooked the most obvious distribution model available: the retail system that already moves millions of products every single day.
Rewards, Inc. did not overlook it.
They built directly on top of it.
Distribution: The Crypto Industry’s Fatal Weakness
If you ask veterans of the NFT industry what killed the hype cycle, they’ll point to greed, scams, volatility, and unrealistic pricing. But beneath all of that was a more fundamental flaw: no distribution.
Crypto companies mastered online marketing, influencer hype, and Discord engagement, but they never broke into the real world. No mass market hardware. No physical retail presence. No products sitting next to gum, lighters, gift cards, or energy shots. No way for the average consumer to encounter NFTs as anything except a confusing digital abstraction. Unlike Pudgy Penguins, with a successful show at the Licensing Show in Las Vegas and successful retail distribution platform, Pudgy Penguins has launched in over 3,100 Walmart Locations Nationwide. A major milestone for the NFT industry and NFT collectibles in establishing a physical retail presence.
NFTs never became a product.
They remained a concept.
This is the crucial difference:
Rewards, Inc. is not asking consumers to find NFTs.
It is placing NFTs directly into the lives of consumers.
From countertop displays to carousel vending machines, the distribution is already live and growing. Rewards, Inc. is one of the first company’s to solve this problem at scale.
Their scratch off collectibles are stocked in convenience stores, the same channels that move energy drinks, trading cards, mobile top ups, lottery tickets, and prepaid cards. These stores are the beating heart of American impulse purchasing, attracting more than 160 million people per day per Convenience.org. The placements range from countertop displays to carousel vending machines and according to the company, those placements are expanding rapidly.
This is where Rewards, Inc. excels not with whitepapers or webinars, but with the part of the business crypto has always failed at: distribution.
The Avalanche Connection: A Chain Built for Volume
Avalanche has long been known as the blockchain with the technical capacity to handle real world, high volume applications. It is fast, inexpensive, and engineered for throughput. Subnets, its customizable network architecture, were designed precisely for enterprise grade workloads, gaming, RWA tokenization, payments, and large scale digital issuance.
But even Avalanche has never seen anything like this.
If Rewards, Inc. truly mints 40 million NFTs in 2026, it would instantly become the largest NFT deployment in Avalanche history, and in many ways, the largest the industry has ever seen. It would outpace even the most ambitious gaming initiatives. It would redefine Avalanche not as a Web3 speculation chain but as the first blockchain powering a nationwide retail collectible ecosystem.
Behind the scenes, Avalanche appears to understand the opportunity. For years, the chain has been searching for the kind of consumer facing success story that could pull blockchain technology out of the crypto bubble and into the mainstream. Rewards, Inc. may be that breakout.
The Explosion Ahead
The partnership between Avalanche and Rewards, Inc. signals something the blockchain industry has been waiting for: a real consumer product with physical distribution, scalable manufacturing, and a clear pathway to tens of millions of real world users.
This is not a speculative NFT drop.
It is not a 10,000-piece art collection.
It is not a cultural moment manufactured on X/Twitter.
It is industrial scale adoption, a fusion of the largest retail network in America with one of the fastest blockchains in the world.
If the roadmap continues as stated, the NFT category is about to experience something it has lacked for years: volume.
Real volume.
Repeatable volume.
Physical to digital volume.
Avalanche will benefit more than any other chain, not just in numbers, but in narrative. For the first time in the network’s history, it has a partner capable of driving mainstream, everyday consumer engagement at national scale.
NFTs are no longer just digital files.
They are products in convenience stores.
They are in vending machines.
They are inside chains across the country.
They are being bought by people who have never heard of minting, wallets, or gas fees.
And they are all being minted on Avalanche.
Whatever the future of NFTs looks like, the Avalanche and Rewards partnership has officially set the direction.
The NFT revival won’t be digital first this time.
It will be physical, tactile, accessible, delivered through scratch offs, redeemed into collectibles, and powered by the fastest rails Avalanche can offer.
A new chapter has begun.
And the volume will speak for itself.
Timothy Wuich – timothywuich@vizi.com
Disclaimer: The information contained herein is based on interviews, official statements, industry data, and publicly available materials at the time of publication. Nothing in this article should be interpreted as financial advice, investment guidance, or a recommendation to purchase or engage with any digital asset, NFT, cryptocurrency, or related product.
