Blockchain innovator SatoshiPay offers alternative to advertising for web publishers

Blockchain innovator SatoshiPay has launched a platform offering web publishers new ways to monetise content through frictionless micropayments. Its payment technology allows users to transact amounts as small as €0.01 or less – which the company refers to as "nanopayments" – by leveraging blockchain technology.

SatoshiPay CEO Meinhard Benn said in a statement: "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. This enables completely new ways of monetising web content and digital goods in general. In an increasingly digital society, nanopayments allow for new business models that existing payment technology cannot facilitate due to its fee structure and trust models."

SatoshiPay removes friction usually associated with paying for online content. There is no sign-up, no login and the user does not need to install any additional software to get started. Payments are done with one click or tap and the user can also choose to pay for content completely automatically.

After topping up, the available balance is displayed in SatoshiPay's floating web widget at the bottom of the publisher's website. The user's balance is shared across all websites that integrate with the SatoshiPay widget, eliminating the need for the user to maintain multiple payment accounts.

"It is commonly accepted that payment processes on the web are not fun. When paying for digital content, additionally the pricing appears a bit off, especially considering the low distribution costs involved. We want to change this, we want to make web payments fun and fair," said Benn. "Micropayments in computer games work extremely well. We looked at games, learned a lot and incorporated the findings into our product."

Ad blocking

SatoshiPay helps publishers to address the increasing number of readers who use an ad blocking software to remove all advertising from a website. While big publishers react to ad blocking by refusing to show their content and urging the user to deactivate their ad blocker, SatoshiPay gives publishers the possibility to charge a small fee for viewing the article.

"Users send a clear message by installing an ad blocker: they don't want to see ads on websites. Locking them out of your site as a response is sending the wrong signal. Charge them a few cents or pennies and they will understand," added Benn. "We want to help transform users from involuntarily being a website's product to being its consenting customer. That's why we built this product."

At launch, SatoshiPay offers an extension for WordPress, the popular publishing software that is installed on 25% of all websites on the internet. Using SatoshiPay's free WordPress extension, publishers can get started within minutes and test if their audience is willing to pay for their content, without a major technology investment.

The first available payment method for readers is the digital currency Bitcoin. The company said methods such as card payments and instant bank transfers will be added soon.