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Twitter users are now able to tip with the Basic Attention Token (BAT) as long as they use the Brave browser. The recent move could put more pressure on Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey—a vocal Bitcoin fan— to introduce native cryptocurrency tipping for all users.
Brave is a privacy-preserving web browser that, in default mode, blocks ads and doesn’t collect user information. It also allows users to choose to receive ads and get paid for viewing them. The browser, which has been downloaded six million times includes a wallet for BAT, an Ethereum-based token used as the cryptocurrency of choice within the Brave browser. However, for users to cash out, they must go through know-your-customer protocols.
Brave previously introduced support for tipping with BAT on Reddit, Vimeo and GitHub. By allowing its users to make small tips with cryptocurrency, Brave hopes to encourage an online environment where lesser-known influencers and content creators are able to make extra money, rather than it all going to the platform itself. And this, it hopes, will drive up usage of BAT across social media platforms.
The tipping model works for users of the Brave desktop browser who visit Twitter and have enabled Brave Rewards. They will now find a “Tip” button on each tweet which, when clicked, will allow the users to send as much BAT as they want directly to the author of the tweet.
Brave will also allow for recurring tipping so that automatic BAT payments can go to the same Twitter user on a monthly basis.
This is not the first attempt of bringing cryptocurrency-based tipping to Twitter. Tippin.me is a browser extension that supports tips made using the Bitcoin Lightning network. In February, Decrypt reported that Tippin.me had reached 13,000 downloads. Other options include the XRP tip bot, developed by Weitse Wind, and the SoDogeTip, for tipping Dogecoin—plus many more including Stellar, Nano and Reddcoin. Twitter, the ball is in your court.
Yesterday, in a call with shareholders of Square, the payments company that Dorsey runs alongside Twitter, he gushed about Bitcoin, which has put up big numbers for Square of late. “We love Bitcoin,” he said.