Coinbase unveils tip button

On Tuesday Coinbase announced on its blog a new Bitcoin tip button to send and receive micropayments anywhere on the Web. The company said the tip button can be easily added to a Web page, allowing visitors to that site to tip through a Coinbase account or another Bitcoin wallet.

For those already logged into Coinbase, the process is just a one-click step. The content creator will receive the money as soon as the tipper clicks on the button. Coinbase said in its post that the default amount sent per tip is 300 bits (roughly 10 cents USD at the time the company published its post), but senders can customize the denomination.

Coinbase said it decided to develop the tip button in an effort to make it easier to send small amounts of Bitcoin, noting that to date more than 30 percent of orders on Coinbase are $1 or less.

According to the Wall Street Journal‘s MoneyBeat blog, the tip button arose out of side project of one of Coinbase’s engineers.

“The goal was to come up with a one-click system, something that would make the transaction simple enough to encourage its use, and something that would be compelling for individuals and give them a way to make money off their products and websites,” reported the blog.

More than a dozen bloggers, podcasters, and platforms, such as actor and comedian Adam Carolla and financier Fred Wilson’s AVC blog, have installed Coinbase Tip on their sites. Coinbase embedded a tip button at the bottom of its blog, and tips received will benefit the NYC Foundation for Computer Science Education. At 7 pm EST Tuesday, Coinbase had received more than 51,800 bits in tips.

In its report of the button, TechCrunch said Coinbase does not charge a fee and has no plans to in the foreseeable future.

According to CoinDesk, which also reported on the new feature, Coinbase indicated that all tipping will be completed off the blockchain and that the company will pay the associate miners’ fees for all transactions.

In an interview with CoinDesk, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong noted the recent rise in interest regarding Bitcoin micropayments, giving praise to ChangeTip as a complementary tool that Coinbase frequently recommends.

Coinbase Tip is just one way Coinbase is looking to bring Bitcoin closer to the mainstream, said Armstrong to CoinDesk, asserting his belief that the tip function will help consumers become gradually more aware of the digital currency.

Armstrong stressed to CoinDesk that Coinbase is not trying to compete with other tipping platforms, like those offered by rival wallet provider Xapo, arguing that his firm’s main goal is to see Bitcoin succeed.

“We don’t look at what the competition does around these things,” Armstrong told the news outlet. “If we can help the bitcoin ecosystem overall, that’s probably where we most want to focus.”

Image courtesy of Coinbase