SatoshiPay launches, following VC investment and Incubator success

SatoshiPay is making a new widget for pay-as-you-go content payments, which allows website publishers to earn bitcoin by adding a lightweight paywall to content. At the same time, it helps bring new users into bitcoin by automatically generating them a super-simple bitcoin wallet, in their browser, which they can keep tiny amounts of bitcoin in to bypass these paywalls.

The first prototype exists as a free WordPress plugin. In addition to charging per post, publishers can also enable ad blocker detection, which specifically asks users of ad blocker software for a payment. PageFair estimates that ad blockers on desktop computers will cost publishers US$22 billion this year.

When a user arrives on a page they’ll see a message pop up over the blocked content, informing them about the payment needed, and how to top up their wallet. Visitors never have to sign up nor register anywhere.

Topping up the wallet is simple, and it has Coinbase integration. Since the amounts are so small, SatoshiPay will credit zero confirmation transactions too. Even a few satoshis, sent from a typical phone wallet like Mycelium or a browser wallet like KryptoKit, can load your wallet in just a few seconds.

Once loaded, the wallets balance will show in an icon, lovingly referred to as the “sun of satoshi,” which appears as a small, orange circle at the bottom right-hand side of the screen. This icon only appears when there is SatoshiPay-hidden content on the page, and It expands for more options when clicked on.

There’s a setting for “auto pay,” allowing the wallet to instantly pay for content without any user interaction, a setting for backing up the wallet by exporting the private key, and there is also a nice set of instructions and a support link.

This simple wallet can’t be used to pay for other things online nor tip anyone with it. The funds can be easily spent on any pages with SatoshiPay code, and the developers discourage large balances:  “The idea is that this is the visitor’s pocket change – not their savings account – so it shouldn’t hurt them too much if their funds get lost.”

The wallet works on most modern browsers and operating systems already, but only supports the English language so far. We gave the wallet a quick try, and a few small software bugs became apparent. Although everything worked as promised, and no money has gone missing, problems with Cookies that stop balances from showing – and even the whole wallet from showing – were major flaws. Be careful!

The issue will likely be worked out by the support team soon. In the meantime, clearing relevant cookies might be necessary to get the wallet to work at first, but once it does, clearing specific cookies will make it forget your private key, and you’ll lose your balance! Stay vigilant while setting it up, and be sure to back up any amount you’d rather not lose.

On the publisher’s side of the equation, the plugin can ask whatever price they deem appropriate, measured in satoshis – one-hundred-millionth of a bitcoin . To cut down on the number of blockchain transactions, as well as the amount of bitcoin mining fees needed, SatoshiPay collates the payments, and debits the user’s wallet when they leave a site.

Outside of the typical bitcoin network mining fee, which is minimized, there are no fees for either the publishers nor the readers for the time being. As its popularity grows, the SatoshiPay team plans to charge 10% for all publisher payouts.

Installation is quick for publishers too. Simply instal the WordPress plugin, create an account on the SatoshiPay website, and enter your SatoshiPay API credentials through the admin console. There is no waiting for approval of any kind, and webmasters can start adding content immediately.

Publishers need to log into the SatoshiPay dashboard website to see the income they’ve earned. It takes a few hours for each ‘sale’ to complete, but once they’re all finished they get bundled up together and sent to the webmaster’s payout address.

SatoshiPay is a well-funded venture that has been a long time in the making. In mid-2014, German founders Meinhard Benn and Henning Peters pooled their coding talents and outlined a bitcoin payment platform. As time went by they grew their team and worked on a first iteration of the payment platform. In April they decided to focus on nanopayments, and started working on the first prototype of the website widget for pay-as-you-go content.

“Nanopayments can be fractions of a cent. They are instantly settled and can be executed at high frequency. Imagine a couple of payments per second by a single user”
— – Meinhard Benn, SatoshiPay Founder

The startup has attracted a lot of attention throughout their journey, and some assistance from the venture capital world. Shortly after they started working together, in Berlin,  Deutsche Telekom made space for them at the company’s incubator, hub:raum. They were selected for the Axel Springs Plug and Play accelerator soon afterwards, where they received their first funding.

In March 2015, the team became the first bitcoin startup on Europe’s first angel network focused on FINTECH, London-based Fintech Circle. The following month Coinsilium invested, and helped focus the company on nanopayments. The hard work that followed led them to the Coinbase BitHack competition, where SatoshiPay won second place out of 84 bitcoin projects.

Now that the basic service has launched, the team will be turning their attention to adding complimentary services, such as a paid download option, and even metered bitcoin payments for streaming content.