I wonder if tipping were key to better content on Hive because tipping allows content be rewarded long after the seven-day payout window has closed.
There is one inherent limitation to tipping, however, which is that you can't tip if you don't have a Hive account.
But what if you could?
Yes, anyone can publish a cryptocurrency address and ask readers for tips. But that requires that your readers have a Bitcoin wallet and that they manually send each transaction, unless they have installed a browser extension called ProTip.
What ProTip does is simply detect Bitcoin addresses on web pages and record the time spent reading that page. The user can easily accept the suggested tips from a Weekly Reminder page and let ProTip handle the payments.
What I'm suggesting is an opt-in service implemented by PeakD that allows a Hive author to be paid directly in HIVE. How that happens is that PeakD has a wallet for receiving the bitcoins, which are exchanged for HIVE on an exchange. The amount of HIVE earned by an author minus a exchange fees and commission charged by PeakD is credited to the author at regular intervals, liquid or powered up as the author prefers. If similar tipping tools for other cryptocurrencies are developed by third parties, they can be added to the service.
The aforementioned arrangement would have several benefits for the authors as well as Hive as a whole.
- The author would not have to deal with any other crypto than HIVE.
- Because the other cryptos would automatically be traded for HIVE, use of the service and all the posts being tipped would create upward pressure on the price of HIVE indefinitely.