It’s been almost 3 months since we launched the first version of the AirTime browser extension. We’ve been taking notes from community feedback and have been steadily improving the user experience and feature set of the extension. It’s really starting to take shape. In a previous post we laid out our short-term roadmap. Today, we are happy to be sharing some additional bigger news items.

We officially have our own banking and crypto exchange licences!

You heard that right. Finally, BitTube has obtained its licences for financial services (i.e. Banking and Crypto Exchange). A lot of people have been wondering about the status of the BitTube debit card which we announced last year. We can now go ahead and make it available to everyone in the near future. Though more importantly, we can now officially offer the exchange of TUBE into any crypto and any local currency! That’s correct - you can now convert/transfer your TUBE holdings directly to your own bank account using the extension.

This means every payment you receive in TUBE can be sent directly to your bank account. All you need to do is link your bank account once and you are good to go. We believe online creativity has to be rewarded without overly complicating things. People shouldn’t necessarily have to understand the ins and outs of cryptocurrency in order to start earning, and we are proving it. With BitTube you get the lowest fees on the market and independence from payment providers that may apply censorship or arbitrary policy changes. It’s never been so easy to get in and out of crypto than it is now.

Our financial services licenses not only help us provide the debit card and bank withdrawal options. They open doors to many more services. Currently, purchasing TUBE from the extension can be done via wire transfer and we’ve been improving this process. The licenses now allow us to provide TUBE purchased via traditional debit/credit card as well (though this process will take some time), as well as direct exchange between TUBE and other popular cryptocurrencies. You can imagine the vast amount of features and services we can start offering with these building blocks down the road.

What’s new

We have made the BitTube browser extension bigger, faster and more secure. The new release will completely change what you've gotten used to so far. Setup and navigation has been streamlined and we’ve added a VPN (Virtual Private Network) service that, when enabled, will be subsidized by your daily AirTime rewards, essentially free of charge. In case you are new to VPNs, they can add security by hiding your real IP address, and allow you to access content in other countries that would otherwise be region restricted.

The new User Interface

A bigger chart and market information on the user’s dashboard will give stats for AirTime rewards and value.

We have moved the side menu items to to directly accessible icons at the bottom.

Some items have been moved, such as History under Account and Wallets now have a dedicated space in the header for faster access.

The extension’s icon in the browser bar will turn red when disabled, a helpful feature for the users who need to temporarily switch off the ad-blocker.

Update for Firefox is now available

After more than a month of back and forth submissions with the Mozilla review team, we believe we've got everything sufficiently polished. We expect the new release to be officially available in the add-on store in a few days. Meanwhile, the extension can be installed/updated manually from our installation page. You will need to remove the old version first.

Going forward and upward

We want to show the world what is possible with AirTime monetization and how it can foster new means of interactions online. With help from the community block reward, we are supporting developers and publishers with integrating AirTime into their websites and apps. We are happy to say we’ve got a few in the pipeline already.

Secondly, next quarter we will launch the beta of our new social video platform, meant to showcase everything that’s possible with AirTime, TUBE and peer-to-peer technology. It is built from ground up and mixes the best (not worst!) of YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and reddit into one cohesive platform. It will be a night and day difference compared to the current bit.tube platform, offering more creative freedom, discoverability, features and an overall better user experience.

We’ll talk more about the bells and whistles in a separate announcement, because there will be a lot to cover.

Stay up-to-date!

From now on, you can follow our latest updates directly from the Notify menu.

Lastly, feel free to share your experience with the extension by rating/reviewing it in the add-on stores, and get involved by joining our Telegram and Discord channels. :)

Stay tuned for more exciting news!

Your BitTube team