Social Media Giant Twitter Hints At Integrating Bitcoin Payments to Its Platform Very Soon
The microblogging website Twitter is planning to integrate Bitcoin payments to its platform. The social media giant plans to it through its recently launched innovative feature "Tip Jar." Tip Jar enables users to reward and support content creators they follow.
With the integration of the Bitcoin lightning network, users will be able to pay in Bitcoin in addition to the traditional method of payment.
Infamous leaker, app developer and researcher Alessandro Paluzzi, was the first to release the feature. He shared a screenshot on Wednesday, September 1, revealing how Twitter will notify users about receiving Bitcoin tips through the social network.
In the following thread, Paluzzi said, "Reverse engineering, I enabled the feature on my phone." Even though the feature is inactive and inoperable, he could still see the user interface.
Paluzzi used a .ipa file (iOS App Store Package) or a .apk file (Android application package) to decompile the code to view the features within the beta update.
After some time following Paluzzi's tweet, Twitter's product leader Kayvon Beykpour validated the rumors to be true. He affirmed that they are undoubtedly working to implement Bitcoin transactions for its Tip Jar platform.
Tip Jar has a design that works well with various approved payment services, including Bandcamp, Patreon, PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App.
The social media giant will use Strike's services to produce Bitcoin invoices through the Lightning Network. This will aid in offering faster payments and with significantly lower than the typical fees for Bitcoin transactions.
Strike only operates in the U.S. and El Salvador. Twitter’s founder and CEO, Jack Dorsey, also is a massive advocate for Bitcoin, said that the company would "definitely" seek African partners to grow accessibility to the Bitcoin Lightning Network. Dorsey made it very clear that Bitcoin will be "deeply integrated into Twitter."
In their latest earnings report, he said, "I think this is a big part of our future. I think there's a lot of innovation above just currency to be had, especially as we think about decentralizing social media more and providing more economic incentive. So I think it's hugely important to Twitter and to Twitter shareholders that we continue to look at the space and invest aggressively in it."
Moreover, today, Twitter finally launched the long-awaited "Super Follow" feature for users, who can now pay to access exclusive content from certain Twitter accounts.