Hacker Noon raises $ 1 million in investments from Ripple's former CTO company for micro-tipping content

Hacker Noon's 4 million monthly readers are about to experience a first attempt at crypto micropayments.

The terms of the agreement

The independent technology information platform closed a $ 1 million strategic investment with the micropayment company Coil. It is a blockchain independent product based on the Interledger protocol and led by Ripple's former CTO Stefan Thomas.

The terms include a three-year partnership between startups based in Colorado and San Francisco, including the use of Coil's Web Monetization technology. "Avoiding something like a paywall with a microtransaction is extremely valuable," Hacker Noon founder and CEO David Smooke told the media.

"Hacker Noon is home to an incredibly passionate community of technologists and software developers," said Jonathan Greenglass, Coil's Chief Growth Officer. "We are excited to be working with Hacker Noon to offer his community of readers and writers an easy way to participate in the exchange of values ​​between them."

How Web Monetization works on Hacker Noon

With a simple web tag, Coil integration allows readers to pay the authors of Hacker Noon based on the time spent on the information website's webpage, Smooke said. Registrations with this method start from $ 5 per month which will be divided and credited in real time to the authors of Hacker Noon, or possibly collected in a common fund of the company.

Funds not intended for individual writers will be donated to charity, Smooke added. The reading experience will remain exactly the same, without pop-ups or paywalls. The only difference will be that those who subscribe to Coil will send the micropayments directly to the authors.

A suitable solution for any online publication

At first glance, microtransactions seem like a suitable solution for journalism or any online publication: a happy compromise between subscription and advertising-based revenue models. Smooke, founded Hacker Noon in 2016 with his wife Linh Dao Smooke and business partner Jay Zalowitz.

The platform currently boasts 4 million monthly readers with content created by over 10.000 contributors. Hacker Noon's micro-tipping technology comes after the platform left Medium in 2019 following management disagreements.

The partnership with Coil allocates part of the subscribers' revenue to writers based on its "applause" function, making the site economically viable. In addition, both Hacker Noon and Coil are committed to supporting user privacy with the new payment feature. Smooke said that Hacker Noon does not "want to do the New York Times thing" and "collect social graphics" from his readers.

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