Text: Deandra Aurelia
Photo: Twitter
Twitter enabled the ability to request tips in Bitcoin through its app, making it the first major social network to encourage the use of cryptocurrencies as a payment method. They also plan to let users connect their crypto wallets and authenticate NFT holdings they tweet with badge special.
Twitter has been testing the tip for several months now, but it wasn’t made widely available until Thursday, when the feature rolled out globally on iOS, and Android followed. In addition to Bitcoin, Twitter will allow users to connect nine traditional payment providers, including Venmo and Cash App, to their profiles to receive tips. Twitter does not process payments itself.
Bitcoin Tips is facilitated by Strike, a Bitcoin wallet application that runs on the Lightning Network protocol. Lightning is designed to allow for faster and cheaper transactions using Bitcoin. The company behind it has received funding from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, a staunch Bitcoin advocate who tweeted in June that it was “only a matter of time” before Twitter supports payments via this protocol.
Strike works all US states except New York and Hawaii, and the state of El Salvador. In addition to their Strike username, Twitter users can also add their Bitcoin address to their profile, which can then be copied and pasted into a crypto wallet of their choice to send tips.
The Twitter app will notify someone when they receive a Bitcoin tip via Strike, letting them quickly reply to the tipper to say thank you or send an emoji reaction. Twitter will also create a feature for content creators to track the tips they receive. “Bitcoin represents one of the best solutions” to allow people to transact in the unbanked region of the world, Esther Crawford, Twitter’s chair for creator monetization, said Thursday at a news conference.
Bitcoin is not limited to Twitter’s crypto plan: they also plan to support authentication for NFTs, or non-exchangeable tokens, by letting people connect their crypto wallets. “NFT authentication will come in the form of badge, shown on the profile picture, marking the owner’s NFT as genuine,” a company spokesperson said.
NFT has recently become popular as a way to buy and trade digital art on the Ethereum blockchain. A few months ago, the main Twitter account did an NFT giveaway that was printed on a marketplace called Rarible.
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