London-based startup Tibdit is to officially launch its new service on 19th January, allowing online content publishers to collect bitcoin micropayments through a WordPress website plug-in.

The new service could add to the rising interest in micro-transactions characterised by ChangeTip, a social media tipping tool.

Payments to Tibdit can be made in bitcoin or with a credit or debit card, but must be collected in bitcoin. As a result, publishers will need a bitcoin address in order to cash out their funds. A demo of the service can be experienced here.

The company sets out a variety of scenarios in which Tibdit could be used for collecting tips, charitable donations or paid content. Bloggers, forums, reviewers, news sites, artists and local groups could all benefit from the service, it says.

Tibdit’s founder and CEO Justin Maxwell said:

“We hope it will result in people who will otherwise not have looked at bitcoin to get themselves a bitcoin address.”

Tibs not tips

Maxwell said his service is currently used by only two blogs as the firm has not begun to market its service widely yet.

Tibdit plans to market itself to bloggers before approaching established publishers. Maxwell said his service is still in ‘beta’ and that his team of four is looking to identify and resolve any problems that may arise with it.

Users who want to send funds on Tibdit have to purchase a bundle of ‘tibs’ from the service using either bitcoin or a fiat payment card.

Users set the value of each bundle of tibs before they are used. When the desire arises to tip or donate to a site, users click the Tibdit button to send a tip of that pre-determined value.

Tibdit charges 1.5 pence per transaction for its service.

Tipping trends

Maxwell met co-founder Pauline Hunter when they both worked in the British civil service at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Maxwell was a technology consultant and Hunter worked on compliance.

Tipping has become a buzzword in the cryptocurrency economy after the startup ChangeTip posted impressive numbers in November, claiming that 10,000 transactions passed through its service in one day.

The firm has created a ‘love button’ for a range of social media platforms that lets users tip others in bitcoin.

ChangeTip went on to raise a $3.5m seed round from high-profile investors Pantera Capital, 500 Startups and others the following month.

Micro-payments for online content have also grabbed the attention of established publishers in recent months. The New York Times Company and German publisher Axel Springer put €3m into a Dutch company called Blendle that lets readers pay newspapers to access individual articles.

Correction Tibdit charges 1.5 UK pence per transaction, not a 10% commission to publishers.