ChangeTip

ChangeTip was a micropayment platform built by ChangeCoin, Inc., an American corporation based in San Francisco, California, which specialized in online micropayments using the digital currency bitcoin. Founded in 2013, ChangeTip enabled users of the digital currency to send micropayments across various social media websites, such as Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, and Facebook, as well as e-mail and text messaging. These micropayments, referred to as ‘tips’, were primarily used to express appreciation for quality content.^[1] As of January 31 2015, the average micropayment using the ChangeTip platform was a little over $1, with over $250,000 having been tipped since its inception.^[2]

1 Main information
2 History
3 New life
4 Criticism
- 4.1 Terms and Conditions
5 External links
6 See also
7 References

Main information

Country: United States
Headquarter: San Francisco
Type: Financial Services
Round: Seed
Cost: $ million
Date: 4-Apr-2014
Investors: BOLDstart Ventures

In 2016, ChangeCoin, Inc. was acquired by Airbnb, leading to the shutdown of tipping services in November 2016.^[3] Withdrawals are still possible.

History

Jinyoung Park from ChangeTip – CoinCongress 2015

The concept of sending bitcoin micropayments over social media was inspired by BitcoinTip, which began facilitating bitcoin micropayments on Reddit in July 2012, and was decommissioned in April 2014 after assisting users in migrating to the ChangeTip platform. Tipping functionality was extended to YouTube, Google+, and Tumblr in August 2014.^[4]

In October 2014, ChangeTip experienced a viral phase which has resulted in a dramatic surge of interest in the tipping platform. During this phase, the platform processed 10,000 tips in one day.

In November 2014, Reddit users started a new community called “Millionaire Makers” with the goal of creating a random millionaire by encouraging one million people to donate $1 each. A drawing was held to select a winner by random, and Reddit users each made donations to the winner using PayPal, ChangeTip, and other cryptocurrencies. Since then, the community has gained over 60,000 subscribed users and holds monthly drawings. Combined donations have exceeded $47,000. ^[5]

In December 2014, ChangeTip announced that it had raised $3.5 million in venture capital funding led by Pantera Capital. At the time, 50,000 social networking accounts had connected to ChangeTip, with transaction sizes ranging between $0.00001 and $100. In the same month, Walter Isaacson speculated that micropayment platforms such as ChangeTip could improve the quality of journalism by encouraging news sites to publish high quality content to attract users, instead of relying on click-bait to increase advertising revenue.^[6]

In November 2016, it was announced that ChangeTip would cease operations at the end of the month.

New life

The service of micro-payments Changetip, which was closed last year due to high commissions in the Bitcoin network, has now found a second wind. Account owners go to the site in the hope of finding once forgotten pieces of bitcoins, the cost of which is now hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

When the ChangeTip platform announced its closure in November 2016, the cost of one bitcoin was about $750. However, now that the price of cryptocurrency exceeded last year by more than 20 times, the site has turned for its former users into a real storehouse of wealth. Social networks are full of stories about bitcoin miners returning to the site, remembering once left there surrender, and, to his delight, found that the delivery is not at all surrender, and a pretty decent amount of money. So, one of Reddit users found 0.25 BTC on his account. Many other users report about it to the tune of hundreds of dollars. Despite the closure, the site still Changetip allows users to login via social networks – Facebook, Twitter or Reddit – and restores lost bitcoins.

The only problem faced by the users of accounts, in whose purses contain very small amounts of bitcoins – this is a fee. And indeed, the Commission for sending small amounts now often exceeds the amount of the payment itself. This year bitcoin has gone a long way, but an incredible increase in its prices also influenced the size of the transaction fees. The futility of bitcoin as a micro-payment platform was proven last week when someone tried to transfer Andreas Antonopoulos $1.50 in bitcoins, but he was prevented from transaction fees that exceeded $13.

Criticism

Users and critics of the ChangeTip service have expressed concerns about internet privacy, particularly repercussions which may result from linking various social media profiles to a single entity. For example, a Facebook user might connect their profile to ChangeTip in addition to their Twitter or Reddit profiles with the potentially unintended consequence of creating a link between these profiles.^[7]

Terms and Conditions

Tippers and tippees of ChangeTip are required to agree to a long list of terms and conditions.^[8] As per these conditions, they must agree to waive their right to a trial by jury. Additionally, they must give up their right to reverse engineer the service. Some people find these terms unreasonable, and choose to deny the tips that others may wish to send them via ChangeTip.

External links

References

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