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Twitter enables tipping with Bitcoin, plans to let users authenticate NFTs

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11–20 of 172 posts

Re: Twitter enables tipping with Bitcoin, plans to let users authenticate NFTs

#11
Lightning network theoretically makes micropayments possible, and that should be celebrated for enabling new ways of online monetization that the tech world writ large can explore.

Imagine if you could buy access to a paywalled news article for $0.02 (on an article-by-article basis) instead of having to purchase a monthly subscription. Or imagine being able to pay $0.10 to watch a particular episode of a show without needing to subscribe to the streaming service. How many people would prefer doing that instead of using current SaaS subscription models (which exist largely because it's a huge hassle to implement credit card-based micropayments)?

Subscription businesses should be on guard: micropayments open up advertising-independent ways for creators to monetize content. With all the well-deserved criticism of ad-based businesses in recent years (particularly social media), it's possible that micropayments enable business models that don't rely on ads the way many online businesses have up to this point. That's huge, and kudos to Twitter for taking the leap.

Re: Twitter enables tipping with Bitcoin, plans to let users authenticate NFTs

#12
post #7

Sounds like initial plans are to not take a fee for Bitcoin payments. Which is awesome but a bit surprising. I wonder whether they'll be able to keep this fee-less over the longer term. If/when they start facilitating billions of dollars moving per year, I'd imagine intense pressure from shareholders to take a cut.

They're using the 2nd layer lightning network, fees are not an issue.

Re: Twitter enables tipping with Bitcoin, plans to let users authenticate NFTs

#13
post #5
post #2

Anyone else not really suprised. It's like they were actively in search of sharks to jump over for years. The question we should be asking is, what's next or why? I think this is for Only Fans uber-for-porn competition. If only a massive corporation could think beyond their wallet which may people put next to their second favourite organs!

HN will never understand crypto / blockchain. Bitcoin and NFTs are amazing tools with huge potential for monetization of all sorts of digital goods. It has never been a better time to be a digital artist and earn a living. The lack of imagination and "get off my lawn" around here is absurd.

NFTs solve the problem of digital theft. It's just...that's not really an issue with the sort of digital goods that can use NFTs. Nor do most people want to download a whole blockchain for every marketplace they want to participate in (and then continue participating in to facilitate transactions).

Re: Twitter enables tipping with Bitcoin, plans to let users authenticate NFTs

#14

microtransactions via the Lightning network is wonderful part of the bitcoin vision. But I don't think this sentence at the bottom of the "Strike" app page is holding up to the promise: "Custody of your funds and bitcoin trading are offered through Prime Trust, LLC." [1] [1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/strike-send-and-spend-bitcoin/...

Thanks for bringing this up. While the idea of blockchain payments hitting a mainstream app is kind of exciting, adding Strike support to twitter isn't much different than adding something like Venmo support. Both require a banking style intermediary that require KYC from their users.

Re: Twitter enables tipping with Bitcoin, plans to let users authenticate NFTs

#15
post #5
post #2

Anyone else not really suprised. It's like they were actively in search of sharks to jump over for years. The question we should be asking is, what's next or why? I think this is for Only Fans uber-for-porn competition. If only a massive corporation could think beyond their wallet which may people put next to their second favourite organs!

HN will never understand crypto / blockchain. Bitcoin and NFTs are amazing tools with huge potential for monetization of all sorts of digital goods. It has never been a better time to be a digital artist and earn a living. The lack of imagination and "get off my lawn" around here is absurd.

How's the eco status on NFTs these days? I know Bitcoin is still trying to cook the Earth but have they fixed NFTs yet?

My only "get off my lawn" take on it

Also it all seems to be digitally drawn portrait templates with different accessories on (eg robot heads). I have no idea if they sell but someone's giving Twitter a bunch of money to shove those in my face haha. I'll put that one down to not getting it, I never got into pokemon cards etc either

Re: Twitter enables tipping with Bitcoin, plans to let users authenticate NFTs

#16
post #5
post #2

Anyone else not really suprised. It's like they were actively in search of sharks to jump over for years. The question we should be asking is, what's next or why? I think this is for Only Fans uber-for-porn competition. If only a massive corporation could think beyond their wallet which may people put next to their second favourite organs!

HN will never understand crypto / blockchain. Bitcoin and NFTs are amazing tools with huge potential for monetization of all sorts of digital goods. It has never been a better time to be a digital artist and earn a living. The lack of imagination and "get off my lawn" around here is absurd.

Here's my question - NYT could charge me $5 and then deduct from my balance on a per-article basis.

Do we need crypto to enable those transactions? If micropayments made sense, why haven't they caught on already with the payment infrastructure 99% of people already have? Micropayments via crypto are just payment with extra steps.

I'm not for/against either one. I'd just like to see a coherent argument against the idea that crypto is a solution looking for a problem.

Re: Twitter enables tipping with Bitcoin, plans to let users authenticate NFTs

#17
post #2

Anyone else not really suprised. It's like they were actively in search of sharks to jump over for years. The question we should be asking is, what's next or why? I think this is for Only Fans uber-for-porn competition. If only a massive corporation could think beyond their wallet which may people put next to their second favourite organs!

Plenty of people tip creators on YouTube (SuperChats) and Patreon for things that have nothing to do with porn or sex at all.

Re: Twitter enables tipping with Bitcoin, plans to let users authenticate NFTs

#18
post #8
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN will never understand crypto / blockchain. Bitcoin and NFTs are amazing tools with huge potential for monetization of all sorts of digital goods. It has never been a better time to be a digital artist and earn a living. The lack of imagination and "get off my lawn" around here is absurd.

The Diablo 3 real-money auction house was better implemented than most NFT schemes. At least that involved an actual transfer of virtual goods.

What's an "actual" transfer of a "virtual" good?

When an NFT is sold a unit of data stored on a digital ledger is transferred. When a D3 item was sold a unit of data stored on in the database was transferred. Why are those meaningfully different?

Re: Twitter enables tipping with Bitcoin, plans to let users authenticate NFTs

#19
post #16
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN will never understand crypto / blockchain. Bitcoin and NFTs are amazing tools with huge potential for monetization of all sorts of digital goods. It has never been a better time to be a digital artist and earn a living. The lack of imagination and "get off my lawn" around here is absurd.

Here's my question - NYT could charge me $5 and then deduct from my balance on a per-article basis. Do we need crypto to enable those transactions? If micropayments made sense, why haven't they caught on already with the payment infrastructure 99% of people already have? Micropayments via crypto are just payment with extra steps. I'm not for/against either one. I'd just like to see a coherent argument against the ide…

Most of the world does not have access to cheap and easy dollar-denominated payments. Using Bitcoin for this simplifies the implementation for Twitter, and reduces fees.

Re: Twitter enables tipping with Bitcoin, plans to let users authenticate NFTs

#20
post #5
post #2

Anyone else not really suprised. It's like they were actively in search of sharks to jump over for years. The question we should be asking is, what's next or why? I think this is for Only Fans uber-for-porn competition. If only a massive corporation could think beyond their wallet which may people put next to their second favourite organs!

HN will never understand crypto / blockchain. Bitcoin and NFTs are amazing tools with huge potential for monetization of all sorts of digital goods. It has never been a better time to be a digital artist and earn a living. The lack of imagination and "get off my lawn" around here is absurd.

It's really consistent and strange considering the ostensive nature of the site.
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