In brief A simple WordPress plugin lets site owners launch a crypto exchange.

Users can opt to charge fees to earn passive income.

Draper Goren Holm may further enhance the plugin and/or release others.

Implementing a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange on a WordPress-based website or blog is now as easy as installing a new plugin.

The free WordPress Cryptocurrency Exchange Plugin comes courtesy of blockchain and crypto venture studio Draper Goren Holm—the first of those names being billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper.

Founding partner Alon Goren created the plugin using the API from Totle, one of the startups that the firm has invested in, and told Decrypt that he decided to build it himself amidst current shelter-in-place orders due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“One of our portfolio companies, Totle, created a really great way for developers to add decentralized trading and get the best prices within their dapps and their products,” said Goren. “I had told them the next thing they should do is to create a WP plugin to make it easier for everyone, because content creators, media companies, and the average person is not an engineer,” he said.

“I bugged them about it fairly regularly, and going into quarantine, I decided one day I would try and build it myself. Here we are!”

According to Goren, it only takes a couple of clicks to implement the plugin, and users may choose whether or not to charge fees to monetize the addition. The plugin then finds the best exchange rate to complete a swap via a connected wallet. It is both open-source and customizable, and works with a wide array of desktop and mobile Web3 wallets, including Metamask, Brave, TrustWallet, Coinbase Wallet, Enjin, and Opera.

Goren said he sees an opportunity to add further functionality to this plugin or to create others based on the work of other Draper Goren Holm portfolio companies, including LunarCRUSH (social media data) and Degens (decentralized sports betting). However, he also sees potential in another kind of pivot: allowing readers to tip site creators via plugin.

“There are a bunch of other features available through the Totle API that I want to add to this in the future, like the ability to only display certain tokens within a particular post and other great features,” he said.

“I may even create a separate crypto payment plugin using the Totle API ‘Pay’ function, because that on its own would be huge for content creators. Imagine being able to accept any token as payment but have it show up in your wallet in whatever token of your choosing, automatically."