On February 1, 2014, something new will happen in the digital news world, and it’s good news for anyone who loves Bitcoin.

The Chicago Sun-Times, with the collaboration of BitWall, will begin testing a Bitcoin paywall for its digitally published articles. On the said date, readers will either have to pay in Bitcoin or share the news via Twitter to read its articles online.

“We continue to experiment and test new technologies that we believe engage our readers and look forward to being the first major USA newspaper to test a bitcoin-based paywall,” said Jim Kirk, chief editor for the Sun-Times.

Though it may seem like the Sun-Times just wants to ride on the back of Bitcoin’s recent fame, it’s actually for a good cause. Proceeds from the Bitcoin paywall will go to the Taproot Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides pro-bono design, marketing, IT, strategic management, and human resources professionals to build the infrastructure of other nonprofit organizations.

“Taproot is thrilled to be the recipient of an innovative collaboration between BitWall and the Chicago Sun-Times. The Sun-Times is a longstanding partner in Taproot’s work to build pro bono in the corporate sector, which strengthens and grows nonprofit infrastructure,” said Elizabeth Schwan-Rosenwald, Taproot’s executive director.

Micro paywall

Paywalls are usually frowned upon by most internet users, since they entail subscribing to a website for a complete access to its stories, videos, and other content.  It usually requires an annual subscription fee, and let’s face it most people don’t like paying for content that they can usually find on other websites.

But rather than having to pay for a full subscription, micro-payments – paying only for content you want to access – is a more reasonable alternative.  With micro-payments, readers won’t have to pay the full annual fee, but only a fraction of that cost to access certain articles, videos or content. The downside of micro-payments is that processing fees will cost more, meaning the publication probably won’t earn as much.

This is what Sun-Times and BitWall aims to address with the experimental Bitcoin paywall. As all Bitcoin lovers now, it’s completely free of charge to accept Bitcoin as payment, with the only costs being the fees accrued when digital money is converted into a fiat currency.

What this means for Bitcoin

Bitcoin averaged 60,000 transactions per day last year, with its highest volume of transactions in a single day weighing in at some 102,000.  Though Bitcoin is gaining traction and its value has hovered around the $1,000 mark for some weeks now, not everyone considers it as a viable form of currency, since there are still a limited number of places that actually accept it as payment.

With the Sun-Times using a Bitcoin paywall, this could broaden the crypto-currency’s reach and entice more businesses to use it, especially in the media. Sun-Times is owned by Wrapports, which owns seven suburban Chicago papers. If this Bitcoin paywall works out, its not impossible that Wrapports could extend the idea to its other publications.

Sun-Times is the ninth-largest news publication in the US overall, and the first major news publication to adopt a Bitcoin-powered social paywall. If this Bitcoin paywall is a success, we could well see the beginning of a new trend for internet-based news portals.

photo credit: zcopley via photopin cc