Ripple is putting aside a massive 1 billion XRP tokens for content creators and artists willing to publish through Coil, a platform intended for content monetisation. The Ripple online content strategy is aiming to encourage XRP adoption in and outside the crypto market.
Ripple’s grant is worth almost $260 million and comes from the company’s investment subsidiary Xpring. The funding is expected to improve Coil’s performance as the platform creators seek to increase its popularity with content creators.
What is the Coil platform?
Coil is a micropayments platform for content creators. The concept behind the project is simple: artists, journalists, writers, and other people who create content should be able to monetise their work without intermediaries.
The platform aims to disrupt a market dominated by giants like Netflix, Amazon, and Disney+ where people have to pay fees to watch content. This money doesn’t go directly to the content creators, which leads to an unfair distribution of funds.
Coil claims to introduce a new model for monetising content that doesn’t compete with traditional platforms.
Not only does Coil help content creators who publish directly on the platform, but it also has an extension for Chrome and Firefox. End-users can also donate to creators while reading websites or watching YouTube videos outside Coil.
Despite being supported by Ripple, the Coil platform claims not to be tied to any single coin or crypto asset.
A platform powered by the Interledger Protocol
Content creators can join Coil for free, but subscribers are expected to pay a $5 monthly fee. This money is then used to reward writers and artists.
All Ripple online content goes directly from the creators to the end-users. The cash flows also lack intermediaries so that no third party ends up keeping the largest share of the profit.
Coil uses the Interledger Protocol for sending payments. It’s a sort of cryptographic escrow that enables transactions between different payment networks, such as banks or financial institutions. The protocol uses XRP as an international coin to facilitate transfers.
The system releases funds only when certain circumstances occur. For Coil, time-based conditions determine transactions. The platform pays out a fixed bandwidth per second, and the money goes to the creator instantly. It also offers a series of bonuses and incentives for popular content.
After every successful payment transaction, the end-user gets a cryptographic receipt in exchange for the funds. The algorithm works with any currency, so people who submit content can receive funds either in XRP or USD, as they prefer.
The idea behind Coil has already brought musician Riley Q to the platform. Cryptocurrency blogger and Ripple enthusiast Hodor also publishes there.
The Coil platform has been on the market for less than a year, but it has already processed around 10 billion payments to creators.
Ripple online content strategy: 1 billion XRP for funding content
The Coil platform is one of many start-ups developed by Ripple. So, it’s somehow normal for the San Francisco-based fintech company to support Coil’s growth with substantial amounts of XRP.
First, Ripple participated in the $4 million seed round for the Interledger Protocol. Now, its investment arm, Xpring, is also bringing 1 billion XRP to the table to encourage content creation.
This money is expected to “drive adoption and engage users”. The primary purpose is to increase the community of creators who use Coil to publish and promote their content. This way, the platform will have a solid content offering available for potential new subscribers.
This strategy is something of a numbers game. The more creators publishing on the platform automatically increases the number of strategic partners as well.
At the same time, Ripple’s online content strategy seems to be focused on increasing the number of people who use XRP cryptocurrency. With an extra 1 billion XRP circulating on the internet in the coming years, it’s very likely to see increased popularity of Ripple’s coin.
An entire ecosystem around XRP
Currently, XRP is the third-largest cryptocurrency in the market, right after Bitcoin and Ethereum. However, this doesn’t seem to motivate people enough to use XRP the same way they use BTC and ETH.
By investing in a series of start-ups, Ripple hopes to push its cryptocurrency on the market. What the fintech firm is looking to achieve with this online content investment is for people to get used to making XRP transactions. The company supports start-ups which in return build their products and services on the XRP ledger.
Ripple has also invested an undisclosed amount in Cinnamon, a platform for video streaming, and $20 million in the Imgur platform.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author should not be considered as financial advice. We do not give advice on financial products.