Twitter’s Bitcoin Tipping Feature: What You Should Know

BigONE Exchange
4 min readOct 8, 2021

Twitter began rolling a new tipping feature to Apple iOS users on September 23, with Android users able to use it in the coming weeks. The new service, including Bitcoin, is intended in part to support people in making money from their content. And because many people around the world do not have access to traditional forms of currency, using Twitter to send and receive cryptocurrency could solve many ‘unbanked’ people’s problems.

What is this Bitcoin tipping feature all about? What are the advantages of its release for Twitter users? BigONE has gathered all the need-to-know information on this topic to get you up to speed on this exciting new development.

Twitter users can tip with a range of options
Account holders who want to receive tips can do so by activating several platforms, according to Twitter. Once activated, fans can use them to tip content creators and express their gratitude in hard cash rather than likes or retweets. The following third-party payment apps are available:

⦁ Bandcamp

⦁ Cash App

⦁ Chipper

⦁ GoFundMe

⦁ Patreon

⦁ PayPal

⦁ PicPay

⦁ Razorpay

⦁ Venmo

⦁ Wealthsimple Cash

As explained in a Bitcoin Magazine report, most payment solutions for the tipping feature will depend on the services available in users’ geographic locations. “The exception to this will be Bitcoin and Lightning tips, which will be available to users worldwide, as Bitcoin functions independent of location,” the article reported.

Strike enables Bitcoin

In addition, users can pay for tips using a Bitcoin-specific channel called Strike, which uses the Lightning Network. It is a layer two solution built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain that is faster and processes payments more cheaply. The Strike digital wallet is currently available in the United States and El Salvador. Twitter users can also add their Bitcoin address to their personal information to make receiving payments easier.

Twitter Product team member, Esther Crawford, stated in a tweet, “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.” “Twitter takes no cut,” added Crawford.

Twitter’s NFT project

Crawford also confirmed that more crypto integration features are underway. Twitter is currently in the early stages of the NFT identity verification project. Users can verify and own a piece of art by connecting to their crypto wallet. As @CryptoCobain tweeted in response to this news, “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.”

NFTs contains a variety of digital collectibles, from art to sports trading cards. Copyright and author information can also be incorporated into tokens, just like autographed real-world collectibles. In theory, this helps to ensure authenticity, but there are more and more cases of NFT fraud. There have been incidences of fraudsters turning people’s artworks into NFTs without the artist’s knowledge or consent, and the NFT verification feature will help fight that fraud.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is a big Bitcoin fan

Jack Dorsey is known as a loyal Bitcoin fan. He supports Bitcoin more than all other cryptocurrencies. He believes that Bitcoin is most likely to become the future currency of the Internet. For Twitter, if the internet has its own currency, it will be able to speed up their product development.

Dorsey also hopes that Bitcoin can help people get rid of what he considers to be a predatory financial system. Earlier this year, he said that if he is not at Square or Twitter, he must be working for Bitcoin.

Towards Bitcoin’s mainstream acceptance

According to a cryptocurrency report, more and more stores around the world are accepting cryptocurrency payments, and there are now over 400 cryptocurrency exchanges globally. El Salvador was the first country to accept Bitcoin as legal tender. However, cryptocurrency volatility, strict regulation, and the potential tax implications of cryptocurrency spending have stifled its growth. The addition of the Twitter tipping function will aid in the expansion of Bitcoin’s application worldwide. For Bitcoin, it represents yet another step toward mainstream acceptance and adoption.

Twitter’s Bitcoin tipping feature provides a new avenue for more people to obtain and use Bitcoin, and its potential benefits should not be overlooked. Twitter has approximately 192 million daily users, compared to El Salvador’s population of approximately 6.5 million. This is also more than nine times the number of people in the United States who own cryptocurrency. Consider how much of a stake in the future of cryptocurrency these Twitter users would have even if they only bought a small amount of Bitcoin.

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