PopChest is a new platform for Bitcoin micropayments

PopChest is a new Bitcoin micropayment platform that allows people to use Bitcoin to tip their favorite authors.

The PopChest team has built a platform where people who create content can directly receive rewards, and whoever watches their videos will reward them.

To do this, PopChest uses Bitcoin micropayments to get rid of ads and poor viewing experience to improve the user experience. PopChest also provides content authors with an opportunity to increase additional income and receive more transparent compensation.

PopChest is a Bitcoin video startup in Santa Monica. PopChest is not involved with YouTube or any third-party video sites. Video creators can upload their videos to the company's servers. After the video is uploaded, users can embed the video on PopChest on their own website or add a hyperlink back to PopChest.com, and through this method, they start to earn income.

Users can easily give Bitcoin tips to their favorite content. This also makes their income completely decentralized. After the author uploads the video to PopChest by inserting the URL, the platform will generate a link for people to watch.

To learn more about PopChest and the platform’s progress towards liberalization, Bitcoinist spoke with the platform’s founder Valerian Bennett and chief technology officer James Poole.

I would like to know more about the decentralization you are currently doing.

“Valerian: For now, we are leaning more towards ‘democratization’ rather than full decentralization. Ultimately, PopChest will be a top-level P2P media classifieds network running on a DAO.

Quote: "Now, we know that this project has integrated blockchain technology and users have started using it." You just said that you have achieved these. Please explain this situation.

“Valerian: PopChest looks to verify payments through the Bitcoin blockchain before transmitting media. Content creators are tipped directly by users. This is the first step towards a decentralized online media landscape. Currently, most tipping is done by platforms (YouTube, Facebook) and their advertising agencies (MCNs), while content creators are left with poor quality content and users don’t see it as valuable. Our first goal is to provide content creators with more revenue in Bitcoin. Over time, we will compensate users for spending their time and effort on our platform… It’s the right thing to do.

Who is the team behind this project and how did you come up with the idea?

“Valerian: My name is Valerian Bennett. I live and work in Los Angeles as an editor for network television (The Real World, RuPaul’s Drag Race, Super Dinner Time) with a background in film editing and music video (degree in TV Production from USC Cinema). I founded TheProtocol.TV out of my passion for how Bitcoin would change the world. I wanted to support the site through a micropayment model rather than advertising. When I couldn’t find a solution that satisfied me, I turned to the Bitcoin community for help.

“That’s how I met one of my co-founders, James Poole. He was an engineer in South Africa and the first person to demonstrate Bitcoin micropayments online. We hit it off and ended up working on PopChest.

Regarding the micropayment intelligent system, I hope you can tell me more about why you want to do this. Please talk about its positive and negative effects.

“James: When I think about how it actually costs less to buy something with Bitcoin today than to pay with a credit card, it makes me think about micropayments. I think that’s a cool way to do that for people who like to pay as they go or receive a service.

“To this day we seem to be trying to prove or disprove that micropayments still have potential value and find a real use case. I know it’s hard to do that right now if we don’t see the potential for this service because the Bitcoin user base is too small and the service isn’t fully established or there’s no need to put it in the first place.

"Obviously, I thought there was a great opportunity to make money with micropayments in a variety of conditions, otherwise I wouldn't be working at PopChest. I think it was wrong to initially target the "long tail". For example, if you upload a video to the Internet and it gets 10,000 hits a day, that's fine with the current ad network system. The problem is if the hits are 100 a day (or even less) then how do the creators get paid? We thought if the user base paid for the video they watched through a payment window, the creators would make 10 times more money than if they made ads. Some viewers will click to pay and "skip the ad". Some will just tip. I personally hate ads and am happy to pay a few cents to "skip the ad" to save every minute of my time.

“Overall, I think there is room for micropayments. We are providing a new way for content creators to make money and for viewers to use it. If Bitcoin continues to grow and become more common, I can definitely see that we will see some real-world applications of it.”

How is your plan going now and what are your expectations for it?

“Valerian: The build out of this project has exceeded our expectations. When we first launched, the participation in the PopChest.com beta was very high. In the following weeks, I was very excited to launch the product and watch our users use it.

“Micropayments are an important feature of Bitcoin technology. Since small amounts of money transactions are not feasible with current financial institutions, Bitcoin micropayments have become the best choice for some online suppliers.