Josh Petty explains how microtransactions power new Bitcoin-native apps

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The co-founder and CEO of Bitcoin social network Twetch, Josh Petty, was among respected industry figures to present at the CoinGeek Conference in London. CoinGeek caught up with Petty for an exclusive interview to discuss Twetch’s progress, the announcements in his conference speech, and the benefits of microtransactions on Bitcoin SV (BSV) for building and powering new Bitcoin-native applications.

Petty said Twetch gives content creators and users the opportunity to own their data on the blockchain. Rather than creating content for social media platforms owned and monetized by large tech companies, creators retain full ownership and control over their content and data.

Individuals who create content pay a small fee in Bitcoin SV to do so, equivalent to roughly $0.02 to publish to the blockchain. Whenever anyone interacts with the content, through liking or sharing, Twetch shares money with the creator.

According to Petty, it’s because of BSV that microtransactions can be used in the way they are meant to be, powering applications and rewarding those that provide value to the ecosystem.

In the case where someone shares content which is subsequently liked by other users, both the person sharing and the original creator benefit from a share of the microtransactions. The idea, according to Petty, is that Twetch will reward content of value in a meritocratic way, rewarding those with the most significant contributions to make.

Petty described Twetch as an information marketplace, where people who create information can trade in it. While there are costs involved in BSV for every action on the platform, Petty says these will continue to fall with mass adoption of BSV, likely to under fractions of pennies. Twetch itself shares in the microtransactions by taking a small fee, again in the order of decimal points on the penny.

In his conference speech, Petty made what he described as “three big announcements” concerned Twetch.

Firstly, that the platform has moved from private to public beta for the first time, with users now able to invite others to use Twetch. He also announced the launch of Twetch’s SDK, providing developers with access to all the tools required to build their own interfaces and to develop on Twetch.

Finally, Petty announced work was underway on developing a direct messaging system where users could communicate directly and privately through the platform, similar to functionality available on social networks like Twitter.

While the app is still early stages, Twetch was well received by delegates at the CoinGeek Conference, many of whom consider the model a glimpse into the future of social media in the bitcoin-native world.