Let's be honest: tipping is kind of awkward these days.

Traditionally, tips are paid in cash right after services are rendered. But modern consumers are increasingly eschewing cash in favor of plastic and even cryptocurrencies, which makes tipping a bit unwieldy. Sure, tips can be added to credit cards, but commission charges and transaction fees prevent the individual being tipped from seeing all of the money. Worse, unscrupulous business owners can steal employees' tips without anybody knowing about it if they are so inclined.

Tipping is also awkward in the digital world. Popular social media platforms such as Reddit and Discord rely on unaffiliated contributors for all of their content, but have no method in place to compensate users providing the best content.

Many crypto developers have invented “tipbots” that allow readers to “tip” their favorite contributors with cryptocurrency, but there is no standard in this emerging field.

TIPbot is a new blockchain project that aims to cure tipping's awkward ailments. It describes itself as a “real world payment gateway,” providing one universal smartphone application for tipping your waiter, electrician, delivery driver, or even a stranger in whatever amount you choose.

How TIPbot Works:

TIPbot envisions one convenient mobile app capable of tipping anyone in the world using a brand new cryptocurrency called $TIP. Most people don't have cryptocurrency wallets, so TIPbot strives to make the money-receiving process as simple as possible to encourage users to take advantage of this service.

The company's whitepaper includes an example of how to tip a waiter who knows nothing about cryptocurrency using TIPbot.

First, you ask the waiter for their email address. Next, you input that address into the TIPbot mobile app, which will automatically generate a brand new wallet for the waiter funded by your tip. Then, TIPbot will send the waiter an encrypted email detailing what cryptocurrency is and how to access the tokens they just received.

There are no transaction fees, commission charges, or opportunities for a third party to rob the waiter of his rightful earnings.

In addition, the development team behind TIPbot intends to create a special TIPbot for many of the most popular social media platforms. Users will be able to tip any contributor they choose, and recipients will get an auto-generated wallet (if they don't already have one) and instructional message so that they can make use of their tips. Reddit, Discord, and Telegram are specifically mentioned in the whitepaper, though support for additional platforms may be announced in the future.

Currently, TIPbot runs on the Ethereum Network. The company is contemplating developing its own blockchain to minimize the gas fees associated with each transaction, though, so this could change over the long term.

TIPbot's Cryptocurrency: TIP

TIPbot is currently seeking funds through an Initial Coin Offering, or ICO, scheduled to last through May 30th 2018. The company announced that it had successfully reached its soft cap on March 5th 2018, but was still offering tokens as of that date.

Tipbot has now reached its soft cap! 🙂 If you wish to take part in our token sale you can do through this link:https://t.co/Bb8Q9zLf2Q If you have any questions, please ask. — TIPbot (@OfficialTIPbot) March 5, 2018

Token Sale Link: https://www.tipbot.io/index.php/ico

TIP will have an initial circulation of 100 billion $TIP tokens, with 49 billion tokens distributed through the ICO, 10 billion retained by the marketing team, 40 billion by the development team, and the rest distributed to the public through a combination of free airdrops (to get it into the market) and offered as bounties for various services (such as translating the whitepaper into additional languages).

Ultimately, the total supply of TIP will increase from 100 billion at launch to 10 trillion through TIPbot's Proof-of-Stake (PoS) mining system. Essentially, the process is similar to a savings account earning more interest the longer it is left in the bank: TIP holders will be able to “mint” new tokens just by holding their TIP. The minimum holding period is three days, with increased returns up to and including a 90 day holding period. After 90 days, there's no additional advantage conferred by waiting longer to mint.

Returns of up to 100 percent are possible in the first year, with the second year cutting that figure to 50 percent before allowing market forces to take over in year three and beyond. Once the planned cap of 10 trillion tokens is reached, the PoS Mining process will cease to function and no further inflation will take place.

TIP is available on ForkDelta, and will be publicly traded on the YoBit! exchange. The developers plan to use the site's Investbox feature to reward early adopters of the cryptocurrency. The developers have also announced plans to list on KuCoin and IDEX.

The Road Ahead for TIPBot

It's worth noting that as is the case with most cryptocurrency projects, TIPbot is still under active development. Its smartphone app, for example, isn't scheduled for release until next quarter, and the project's success may hinge at least in part on whether that app can deliver on its promise.

But there's reason to be optimistic: TIPbot's founder and CEO, Barry Flood, who we recently interviewed is personally overseeing the development team. He has previously developed the Solidity contract at the root of TIPbot and has worked for Google and Cambridge University as noted on his Twitter bio, so there shouldn't be any doubt that TIPbot has the technical capabilities to achieve its goals.

With cash getting less and less popular, tipping has become a real problem that TIPbot is poised to solve. The company has a long way to go before becoming global standard for digital tipping, but it's a promising concept that's backed by a skilled development team, and it could be a worthwhile addition to the portfolio of any aspiring ICO investor.