Twitter rolls out bitcoin tipping, safety features in product push

Twitter will allow people to tip their favourite content creators with bitcoin and will launch a fund to pay some users who host audio chat rooms on its Spaces feature, the company said on Thursday.

Twitter users globally, on iOS devices, can now send and receive digital payments, which was previously limited to a small group of testers.

Twitter, such as warning when people are entering a “heated” conversation or letting them leave tweet threads.

Incentivise positive conversation

The San Francisco-based company added that it will test new ways to help users have a safer experience on

The product announcements are part of Twitter’s effort to compete with rival platforms like Facebook and Alphabet’s YouTube for popular content creators with large followings, and turn around its image as a site where polarised discussions can fester.

“We believe we can continue to incentivise the types of conversations that people want to see,” said Esther Crawford, product lead for creator monetisation at Twitter, in a briefing with reporters.

NFT authentication plans

Twitter said it plans to support authentication for NFTs or non-fungible tokens, which are digital assets such as images or videos that exist on a blockchain.

The feature will let people track and showcase their NFT ownership on Twitter, the company said.

Also see: Twitter to pay $809.5 million to settle shareholder lawsuit

In an effort to grow Spaces, Twitter will launch a creator fund to provide financial, technical and marketing support to users who host recurring audio programming on Spaces.

Such support will allow more Spaces hosts to organise better conversations and potentially gain brand sponsorship deals, said Andre Jean-Pierre, who served as an early beta-tester for Spaces.

Twitter added that it is exploring how to allow users to filter out certain words they do not want to see in the replies to their tweets, which could be used to stop name-calling or abusive speech.