Matters has opened the USDT sponsorship function! Are you still on the sidelines?

I believe that most of you who still pay attention to Matters' latest developments regularly should know that Matters has recently opened the USDT sponsorship function. I myself took advantage of this craze (?) and used USDT to sponsor a few netizens who "make friends with literature in my heart". I will talk about it in the second half of this article. There are already several articles on the Matters website that have written how to use this function, so my operation method and any problems encountered during the operation process are also left in the second half of the article.

In this article, I want to talk about why the USDT sponsorship function is "important" to me.

What do you think of Matters opening up the USDT sponsorship function?

I know that some netizens on the Matters website may have some questions about "Why Matters officially chooses USDT first". These doubts may revolve around: I feel that the official decision-making process of Matters is not transparent enough, or whether Tether, the issuer of USDT, has prepared equivalent US dollar reserves (Tether now holds more U.S. treasury bonds, I think the risk of USDT/Tether is relatively low. It's pretty small).

Faced with the above problems, I think it is a matter of personal choice for Matters users. After all, the business model of Matters is still a writing and social platform. As a user of a social platform, it is basically dependent on others and at the mercy of others (?) But I think the official Matters is already a platform that is willing to communicate with users. Why did the Matters official choose to open up those who sponsor creators through USDT? Maybe you can take this opportunity to chat with the Matters official about the currency you want to open?

As a Taiwanese user on Matters, before Matters opened the USDT sponsorship function, it was basically difficult to truly feel that "creation is valuable". Recently, I am considering starting a paid subscription system, and I also feel helpless and a little angry about Taiwan's financial regulations.

Be a valuable reader who supports content by "turning likes into rewards"

Before Matters opened the USDT sponsorship function, if you want to practice "creation, content has a price", from the reader's point of view, you can clap your hands (LikeCoin) or sponsor a self-selected amount of LikeCoin or Hong Kong dollars.

There are already many discussions on LikeCoin on Matters. Basically, I personally have not experienced the era when I can use LikeCoin to make a small fortune (?). For me, the main meaning of clapping or using LikeCoin is to "practice that I am a reader who agrees that the content is valuable".

At present, the LikeCoin I take out every month is about the same as the LikeCoin I receive (I also want to read it by the way, I personally agree with the idea that LikeCoin’s new Writing NFT wants to promote, but the LikeCoin in my hand is just Not so much, the current pricing method of Writing NFT, if the hand speed is not fast enough, the price is really amazing), although LikeCoin can be exchanged for NT dollars through layers of checkpoints, but the only LikeCoin I currently have in hand can also be exchanged for NT$. It doesn't cost much, so let these LikeCoins continue to "circulate" in the LikeCoin ecosystem, and use actions to support the concept of "turning praise into rewards and content with value".

Sponsoring Taiwanese Hong Kong dollars can only be circulated on Matters

It's more troublesome to sponsor my Hong Kong dollars on Matters.

1. There must be more than 500 Hong Kong dollars in the Matters wallet to withdraw , but I only have ten digits of Hong Kong dollars in my wallet, so I cannot withdraw at all. So from the very beginning, I decided to let these Hong Kong dollars be "inner circulation" on Matters. If someone appreciates my Hong Kong dollars, I will appreciate these received Hong Kong dollars, creating a good cycle, and maybe these Hong Kong dollars will be used someday in the future Can fall into a predestined person who can bring them out.
2. Even if I have accumulated more than 500 Hong Kong dollars today, I believe that most Taiwanese still have no way to withdraw. The problem is that the Matters withdrawal is bound to Stripe : Taiwanese without overseas accounts cannot use Stripe .

Speaking of Stripe makes me want to sigh.

In fact, I have a Stripe account. I can only be thankful that I opened an account in Japan, and I also opened a Stripe account during my stay in Japan (thanks to the Medium Partner Program). So even if "Stripe" is the only way to receive money, I can receive money in my account, but all the money will be converted into Japanese currency and deposited into my bank account in Japan. Now that I am in Taiwan, I can’t touch that money at all, which is equivalent to helping me save money in disguise (the Japanese currency is so thin now).

I heard that Taiwanese can use Payoneer to "bypass" to open a Stripe account (Payoneer is also a third-party cash flow system, which can help you open a virtual bank account in a specific country), but now this trick is no longer possible, because I really tried it. Pass. If you use Payoneer to open a U.S. bank account, you will still be stuck at the U.S. social security number (and of course address and phone number) when you open a new account in Stripe. Opening a Japanese bank account with Payoneer is even worse, because the account name of the Japanese bank account opened by Payoneer will be "Payoneer", not my name, and the Japanese version of Stripe can't pass it at all~

Taiwanese people who want to use Stripe don't even need to worry about whether Payoneer's cross-border wire transfer fees will be too expensive, and they will die directly.

How difficult is it for Taiwanese to open a paid subscription system?

Recently, I have been worrying about the problem of the cash flow system for a long time because I am considering setting up a new platform. I used Stripe to send money directly to my Japanese bank account (Why are Taiwan’s financial regulators so strict that foreign third-party cash flow platforms can’t get in?) ;Using Patreon, Taiwanese users will send money to Paypal, and then withdraw it through Yushan Bank, so that the platform handling fee will be drawn: 2.9% Patreon platform handling fee + 1% PayPal receiving surcharge outside the United States + 2.5% PayPal Withdrawal fee, plus a 2.5% PayPal currency conversion fee at the end. I have also tried the third-party cash flow system in Taiwan, Lanxin and Greenjie. One is that foreign credit card transactions are no longer open recently, and the other is that I told me that my "business type" cannot enable credit card transactions:)

Maybe I just wanted to whine along the way. Recently, I have been troubled by the problem of cash flow for a long time. The reason is that many of my followers are not in Taiwan, and there is no way to use the transfer function of Taiwan bank accounts, so I must find a way to use overseas credit cards. Unexpectedly, when I carefully studied various feasible methods, I found that this is really too disturbing.

Well, I know that Fangge, which is the same writing platform as Matters, is doing this, but there are some problems in the design of Fangge’s paid subscription system (you must become a member of Fangge to sponsor creators, if I directly provide My sponsorship link in Fangge, when everyone fills in the amount and presses the next step, the page for registering an account will pop up. I think this is a pain point that will discourage users, or even exit the screen directly, without completing the donation process. ), so I am still hesitating whether to use square grids or not (there are other factors that make me hesitate, this part will be skipped first).

Rescue the creators of the above troubled USDT

At this time, Matters opened the USDT sponsorship function~ (Scattering flowers in circles) (←Turn super hard, but it’s true)

Unlike Hong Kong dollars, sponsoring USDT through Matters can directly enter the creator's personal cryptocurrency wallet. As long as you have a cryptocurrency exchange account in Taiwan, you can easily transfer the USDT in your wallet to your physical bank account (of course, if you want to transfer to crypto.com and spend it directly with a crypto.com debit card la~). From the creator's point of view, the aforementioned troubles are gone. The more troublesome part may be that the supporters (users) themselves must have a certain degree of understanding of cryptocurrency.

Although the USDT sponsorship function of Matters is built on the Polygon chain, which means that the transfer in and transfer out requires MATIC as a gas fee, but the money is in your wallet and you are very happy! Moreover, the handling fee on the Polygon chain is relatively low. If it is built on Ethereum (Ethereum), I will probably let the USDT in the wallet continue to lie in the wallet because the handling fee of the Ethereum chain is too expensive, so as to reduce the cost of moving USDT as much as possible. Number of times. As a Taiwanese user on Matters, it would be great if the furnace can also be used for regular subscriptions of USDT in the future (wishing)

But as a user who used to live in Japan, I should also give a voice to users in Japan: I found that it is almost impossible to use stablecoins in Japan a while ago, and it is difficult to find Japanese cryptocurrency exchanges outside of Japan. The trading pair of the currency and the stable currency of the U.S. dollar; the cryptocurrency that can be exchanged with the Japanese currency is not a stable currency. Judging from this example, I think there should still be users in some countries (not just Japan) who cannot use stablecoins. Can Matters open up other currencies after that? Or how to serve the needs of users in various countries? I think it is a topic worthy of further discussion. But let’s not mention users from other countries. Taiwanese users who are also Chinese speakers have to wait so long for a “relatively easy-to-use” sponsorship method. Users in other regions feel that they will have to wait even longer.

Sponsor other creators with actual USDT

In this test, we use USDT to sponsor other creators on Matters. In addition to having enough USDT on the Polygon chain in the wallet, because we held Traveloggers before, when Matters launched Logbook, we received MATIC airdrops from Matters officials. So I didn't prepare MATIC in particular, and after several operations, the existing MATIC in my wallet was enough.

Before that, there was no USDT on the Polygon chain in my Metamask, so when the wallet transfers 5 USDT, I have to add tokens to CoinGecko (after entering the Tether page of CoinGecko, click Info → Contract on the right side of the screen) ⋯ → Find the Metamask avatar of Polygon POS on the next line, click it to automatically add USDT/Tether tokens on the Polygon chain to Metamask), and then I know that there is really no USDT on the Polygon chain in my wallet before.

Pain point 1: The person who wants to sponsor has not activated the USDT collection function

In the process of operation, I have encountered several obstacles that have been shared by many predecessors—it is nothing more than that the person who wants to sponsor has not activated the USDT collection function (the Matters account has not been bound to the encrypted wallet on the Ethereum chain. ).

I think this is actually the creator’s personal choice. Maybe it’s not convenient for him to use an encrypted wallet, so we force the other party to open an encrypted wallet just to be able to “donate to him”, which feels a little bit upside down. After all, in addition to the USDT sponsorship method, there are also existing LikeCoin and Hong Kong dollar reward channels! It’s just that I don’t know if the recipient will become another kind of internal circulation “circle of goodness” like me, or lie in the Matters wallet and accumulate sand into a tower. But if it is another factor, the creator himself is interested in receiving USDT donations, but because he has not received information about the launch of the USDT sponsorship function by Matters, or does not understand that in order to receive USDT, one more step is required to "bind Matters account and encrypted wallet" The steps are another matter.

Pain point 2: You need to press one more time to confirm the first operation

Personally, I have encountered another obstacle, which I think is "personal stupidity" - when using the USDT reward function for the first time, the encrypted wallet must first authorize Matters to access USDT. After confirmation, go back to the Matters page and press [Next] again to complete the USDT tip .

Thanks to the official staff of Matters ( @颖欣) , after I casually mentioned on the Discord of Matters that I (mistakenly thought that I had already completed) the situation that the reward was not displayed normally, I quickly contacted me, and also Find out where the problem is for me (Thank you for developing a good habit of screen recording when you operate an unfamiliar interface "for the first time") After discovering this situation, change another article and try again and it will be successful. Attached is that the operation failed at the beginning, and I mistakenly thought that I had completed the sponsorship function, but I didn't realize that I only authorized Matters to access the Metamask record. At that time, there was still information on the link , so I really didn’t doubt him, and I was afraid that if I clicked [Next] again, it would become two rewards. In hindsight, it was really annoying.

At the end of the article, it is unavoidable to share which articles I have sponsored using USDT during this period:

• Salsa experience｜Matters USDT new teaching manual: mascot will also support methods by @沙挈
• "Secrets in the Attic": The most beautiful love story in the "gray zone" of the Nazi concentration camp by @许恩恩
• [Blockchain and writing] Ordinary creators just want Matters to be quiet, so why do they get a USDT tipping function? by @熊太先生｜NFT Community Research
• "I don't want privileges": Interview with Macanese youth｜"On the End" Selected Interview Series by @澳门学16号
• What Simone de Beauvoir taught me: We women are born daughters but not necessarily mothers by @Chin

In fact, there are still many good articles on the Matters website during this period. The reason for not being sponsored is not necessarily because the other party has not activated the USDT sponsorship function. Maybe that article has already been sponsored by others, so I want to take the opportunity Leave it to other creators to give good content a chance to make the jump to the Matters homepage.

Finally, this period of time happened to be the writing NFT whitelist qualification recently. I originally wanted to use this writing NFT as the first mint, but encountered technical problems... I feel that "troubleshooting" will take a while, so I will Decided to give up for now. Even if there is no channel for writing NFT for the time being, I will accept any rewards through USDT and LikeCoin!

This article was published on the blog at the same time. Maybe one day the writing NFT technical problem is solved, and you can mint writing NFT from the blog

Follow-up update: Writing NFT is here! Come and collect~ https://s.yam.com/aNqgO