A Community-Centric Platform Enabling Creators to Earn Digital Currency Rewards from Readers for Content Contributions
When writers/bloggers spend countless hours crafting good quality content and share it with the world but are not rewarded for their efforts, it can disincentivise them to continue doing so. This is evident from the millions of abandoned blogs on legacy platforms such as WordPress or Blogger. These traditional blogging platforms don’t have built-in mechanisms that allow tipping in micropayments, perhaps due to the high transaction costs and other limitations that come with traditional payment processing and use of fiat currencies.
Even though more and more people are beginning to come to grips with the concept of cryptocurrencies, the use cases are sometimes not spotlighted as much as the price movements and the frenzy that surrounds the volatility of such crypto assets. It is encouraging, nonetheless, to know that the blockchain ecosystem at large is thriving and blockchains such as Bitcoin Cash are being utilised to further power unique innovations such as read.cash.
What is read.cash?
This is a smartly designed blogging platform where users have the ability to create, publish and share content in the form of articles or blogs which can also include images and embedded videos. In return, they can potentially earn Bitcoin Cash (BCH) for their contributors, if the community of users on the platform choose to reward them for creating great content. Essentially, if a reader likes the content, they can simply upvote the post by sending BCH to the content creator’s online wallet.
The platform empowers both reader and writer since the reader is able to show their appreciation and support authors and the writers are able to share useful and captivating content and get rewarded for it. When a reader tips, 90% is sent to the content creator and only 10% goes to read.cash to support the development and promotion of the platform. This is a great way to support both the continuous development of the platform as it grows its user base while ensuring that content creators get the lion’s share of the rewards for their efforts.
What’s incredible is that read.cash also supports users through the read.cash fund. The supporters of this initiative can decide how much they are comfortable contributing. The unconventional fund exists only in the donors’ browsers and read.cash is not a direct custodian of those funds. Donors have control and are able to cancel their pledges at any time, if they wish to do so.
How does the platform work?
Posts on read.cash are stored in a traditional database. However, the system uses onchain transactions for peer-to-peer upvote payments. According to read.cash, the transaction side of things is done on-chain.
What’s great about the platform, especially considering the growing trend of censorship that we see on social media is that they do not censor content. The platform does make a point to emphasise that their goal is to help creators get paid for their work, and not to necessarily fight censorship. It’s important to note however, that the platform doesn’t allow users to post anything illegal, or content that is considered hateful and explicit. Trolling, name-calling, trash-talking, personal attacks or insults are not tolerated on read.cash.
The read.cash platform provides a great way for content creators to make passive crypto income and there are several ways users can earn including through user paid tips, sponsorships, the tipping bot, and affiliates. The platform also makes it possible to boost or promote your post if you want to reach a larger audience. There’s also a sponsor feature on the platform which can be an effective marketing tool for those who want to gain exposure by leveraging a content creator’s audience.
Why you should care
The read.cash platform is ad-free, nicely designed and offers a simple and intuitive user interface. Additionally, the platform has a transparent earning and payment model that incentivises creators to post value adding content. Try it out and you may even be lucky to get a tip from the TheRandomRewarder bot which tips users randomly from time to time, but only if the content they share doesn’t violate the platform’s guidelines.
Another great thing that read.cash is doing is helping support and promote the growth and mass adoption of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) as the digital currency of choice for peer-to-peer payments for people all over the world. Content creators from the developing world for example, are able to make a few dollars worth in BCH for simply blogging, which is sometimes more than they would earn per day in some cases, especially considering that there’s a huge population of smart, educated youths who may have the skills but fewer opportunities available in their geographies. Earning a few extra bucks on global platforms like read.cash can make a big difference and what’s great is that content creators are also able to then sell their BCH on peer-to-peer platforms such as Local.Bitcoin.com and actually get local currency in exchange, which they can then practically use to purchase products and services they may require. Or if they have merchants in their local communities who accept BCH, they can simple use the crypto for purchases. You can read more about the Local.Bitcoin.com p2p platform here.
How to get started
Signing up is quick and easy. You can simply register with a Cash ID and Badger wallet if you do not wish to sign up with an email address. Once you’ve signed up, the platform automatically creates a Bitcoin Cash wallet that will exist only in the user’s browser. There’s no need for the user to download or install anything which makes it easy to use.
After a user signs up, they receive a welcome message and then a screen appears where a 12-word seed phrase for the read.cash native BCH wallet. It is recommended that users take note of their seed phrase and ensure they store safely as with other noncustodial cryptocurrency wallets. Once that’s done, read.cash provides the user with a BCH address tethered to their account and they are free to begin contributing content to the platform and earning rewards through the site. Users are generally encouraged to withdraw their funds regularly so that they don’t keep sizeable balances on the platform wallets.
If a user wants to post content, they can simply go to the “write” section and choose to either make a short post or write a full length piece. From there, a user can insert contents and format the post including images and embedded videos if necessary – just like on other content blogging platforms.
For readers, there’s a growing number of communities that share different types of content on a range of subjects they may wish to explore. Readers can find anything from Travel, Politics, Lifestyle, Economics, Philosophy, Music, and other content types on read.cash. If they enjoy a particular author’s content, readers can tip them in BCH by upvoting at the bottom of the article’s page, where it reads “encourage the author to write more.” Readers can also like and share their favourite posts to other social platforms.
Conclusion
Blogging sites are evolving and read.cash is an innovative platform that is demonstrating what can be achieved by leveraging new technologies to strengthen value propositions and create offerings that are well-designed and that truly solve real challenges such as that of peer-to-peer value exchange. Most of the blogging platforms today benefit more from their users’ data than their users do and it’s great to see new platforms pop up that will hopefully scale, disrupt old models and even compete with legacy tech platforms. As more people become consciously aware of the imbalances in the relationships they have with social media giants and other platforms that monetise data at their expense, it’s likely that we’ll see more people gravitate towards platforms like read.cash.
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