Twitter Chooses “Global, Barrier-Less Option” for Tipping and to Help Creators Join the “Decentralized Internet”

Twitter, which has more than 200 million daily active users, will now allow people to tip content creators with Bitcoin, the company announced this week.

“We recognize it is still early days for digital currencies, but we think that that’s the future,” said Esther Crawford, product lead for creator monetization at Twitter.

Twitter CEO and founder Jack Dorsey, a Bitcoiner, has repeatedly said that he believes the leading cryptocurrency will be the native currency of the Internet.

The company will also launch a fund to pay some users who host audio chat rooms on Twitter Spaces. Furthermore, it will test new ways to help users have a safe experience on the platform, such as allowing users to filter out certain words they don’t want to see in their tweets which could be used to stop abusive speech.

The San Francisco-based social media giant said on Thursday that its users globally on iOS devices can start sending and receiving digital payments.

“We believe we can continue to incentivize the types of conversations that people want to see,” Crawford said in a briefing with reporters.

Big news of the day that everyone is missing: Twitter made sats the standard. pic.twitter.com/R1sNWFNYPY

— Dennis Porter (@Dennis_Porter_) September 23, 2021

Crawford also took to Twitter to share that for the first time; people will be allowed to send Bitcoin tips through a Bitcoin address or a Lightning-enabled wallet.

“We want everyone on Twitter to have access to pathways to get paid. Digital currencies that encourage more people to participate in the economy and help people send each other money across borders and with as little friction as possible – help us get there,” she said in the official announcement.

To enable the tips feature on a Twitter profile, one can add their Bitcoin address which people can copy and paste into a BTC wallet to send a payment directly.

People can also tip with BTC using the app Strike built on layer 2 solution Lightning Network that offers instant and free payments. This would require signing up for a Strike account and using that username to send BTC tips over the LN.

I just published Announcing the Strike API

Today, @Twitter enables free, instant, global payments for their users with their integration of the Strike API.

What the internet did for communication, #Bitcoin + the Lightning Network is doing for money.https://t.co/jHkY6knXkP pic.twitter.com/FXujknG7sM

— Jack Mallers (@jackmallers) September 23, 2021

According to Crawford, this is the opportunity for Twitter to choose “global, barrier-less options,” and they see Bitcoin representing one of the best options. While she acknowledges that not everyone transacts with Bitcoin yet, she said, “it’s one of the better solutions.”

Twitter is also planning to support authentication for non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Through this feature, people will be able to track and showcase their NFT ownership on the platform, said the company.

On Crypto Twitter (CT), users already showcase NFTs on their profiles, including their expensive digital art, including CryptoPunk and Bored Apes. But currently, there’s no easy way to authenticate if the person displaying it actually owns it.

Bitcoin lightning network tipping on twitter is cool but verified NFT avatars if implemented well is going to be the first layer of the metaverse. Extremely cool

— cobie (@CryptoCobain) September 23, 2021

“There’s this growing interest among creators to use apps that run on the blockchain,” said Crawford. “We want to help creators participate in the promise of an evolving decentralized internet directly on Twitter.”