Of all the innovative and interesting things I've discovered in this crazy world of web3 and crypto, this simple little Discord bot is among my favourites.
- It's a ton of fun (and easy) to use
- It seriously works as a community engagement incentive
- It subtly introduces new people to the world of crypto
- It is creative as hell!
What is tip.cc?
In a nutshell, it's a bot that allows anyone in a Discord server to creatively transfer, gift, tip or reward crypto to users in the server—without any wallets or (immediate) fees.
In tip.cc's own words:
Use our chat tipbot to send and receive any amount of crypto, directly on your favorite Discord servers, without having a wallet or having to pay a single cent in fees! Engage your friends into cryptocurrency!
But how??
In a word: escrow.
If someone gives you crypto via tip.cc, the balance is associated with your Discord username. The funds are actually held by tip.cc. You have to tell the bot to withdraw it to a wallet of your choosing (and this is where gas may come into play, if applicable).
Community engagement (with the Pizza Guild)
Here are some examples of how the Hive Pizza Gaming Guild makes use of tip.cc.
Airdrops! 🪂
$airdrop [amount] [currency] [time limit]
This spawns a box, and if you click the button, you're in!
The Pizza Guild leaders sprinkle these drops around sparingly, with most of them being in a locked channel. To access that channel, you need to regularly vote for the server on top.gg. Smart stuff.
Active user tips 💬
$tip active [amount] [currency]
Sorry lurkers! You need to have been engaged in the conversation to get these tips :)
You can also tip a channel. Below, only the folks in voice get in on the goodies.
Minigames, like trivia 🤩
$triviadrop [category] [amount] [currency] [time limit to guess]
tip.cc has a whole bank of trivia questions across dozens of categories. Every Friday at 3:30 PM EST, there's a lot of pizza raining down during Pizza hosted trivia!
Direct p2p tips 👥
$tip [user] [amount] [currency]
Pretty straightforward. Give someone some crypto directly. Good for prize winners, settling bets, etc.
Plus tons more!
This only scratches the surface of commands. There are randomizers, balance checkers, ways to add monikers to get creative (for example, if you tip "breadsticks" instead of "pizza" in the Pizza Guild Server, it interprets the amount as [amount] * 0.10 PIZZA)
Withdrawing to a wallet
This is a straightforward process. Send a message to the bot: $withdraw [currency]
This will fire up a series of prompts. For Hive Engine tokens, pop in your username without the @:
Here's the transaction record from the image above. No fees, because HIVE. 😎
Depositing to your tip.cc "wallet"
Depositing is a similar process. $deposit [currency]
The bot will give you a QR code, wallet address, and memo. Easy peasy!
Remember, this isn't "your" wallet. It is associated with your Discord name though. Just technically not under your control!
Onboarding new people to crypto
Besides the fun, I think this is my favourite part of tip.cc.
Any Discord server can invite the bot and start using the features. If the leader(s) of a mostly non-crypto community (e.g. a popular streamer) start using the bot, inevitable curiosity will spread. People love collecting tokens, checking balances, etc. In order to use the tokens beyond re-gifting them through tip.cc, you need to learn about real wallets and the $withdraw function.
It's a pretty frictionless and non-confrontation way to introduce someone to the world of crypto, IMO. Not least of all, you start newbies off with solid, enjoyable utility via community gamification.
Getting a currency listed
To get a currency listed with tip.cc, you currently need to email the tip.cc team according to this page: https://tip.cc/guides/listing-coins
- There's a $1,000 fee (and a 10% referral bonus!)
- Listing can be free if your server has over 20,000 members
Thanks for reading :)
All images screengrabbed by me, from the good ol' Pizza Guild Discord Server. Join us!