Stellar Foundation funds $1 million SatoshiPay grant program

By Tim Copeland

SatoshiPay is on fire right now. After scoring a partnership with Europe’s largest publishing house Axel Springer earlier this year, they’re at it again, this time it’s by divvying up a $1 million grant from the Stellar Foundation.

SatoshiPay and Stellar have history. Stellar powers the SatoshiPay network, and ensures payments run smoothly. And now, the Stellar Development Foundation--the non-profit custodian of the cryptocurrency--has earmarked the micropayments provider as a route to wider adoption.

The Fund’s $1 million donation—which was received at the start of last year—is now going to be given out primarily for marketing, in particular, giving free credits to companies that sign up for SatoshiPay. Grants of up to $100,000 are being offered to companies that set up a paywall on their site. In return, SatoshiPay will then give $10 of free credit, the idea being that both companies and their users have an incentive to start using the micropayments service. But don’t worry, this isn’t just about major companies, startups are being encouraged to apply.

“This is targeted towards innovators. We want to see new use cases and develop our API's to fit the requirements of these startups. Essentially this is a way to get real customer feedback in development and hopefully grow with those startups if they succeed,” Emanuel Coen, growth manager at SatoshiPay, told Decrypt.

The grant program is part of a wider shift towards other industries—not just online publishing. Submissions are open to any business that would suit micropayments, such as gaming, tipping or rewarding customers for newsletter signups. And this makes sense for SatoshiPay, going after sectors like the gaming industry--that made $134.9 billion in profits last year--would be more lucrative than just helping out impoverished online journalists.

Coen added, “We try to cater to an audience of builders and makers of great products who are still looking for ways to monetize where seamless micropayments make sense. We want to improve the user experience and in return, we can help them with user acquisition.” With further news this week that SatoshiPay has signed up another partner--blockchain protocol AERGO—user acquisition seems to be a company strong point.

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