Crypto payments for creator platforms: Paragraph partners with Loop to enable writers to get paid in crypto
TL;DR: Paragraph has deployed Loop Crypto to enable writers to receive payment in crypto for newsletter subscriptions. Creator platforms can now leverage Loop’s flexible payment architecture to support their revenue models.
Introduction
We’re excited to announce that Loop Crypto is powering crypto subscription payments on Paragraph, the popular web3 content creation platform. Built with a focus on putting control back in the hands of creators, Paragraph offers an innovative writing platform that incorporates the unique benefits of web3 like true content ownership, decentralized storage, and new distribution channels.
Providing writers with the ability to accept payment in crypto for their subscriptions was the next step on Paragraph’s journey to put control back in the hands of writers. It is now easy for writers to monetize their content and offer the broadest possible range of payment options to their readers, many of which are web3 natives who prefer to pay in crypto.
Who is Paragraph?
Founded in 2022 by Colin Armstrong, Paragraph combines the best features of web2 and web3 for writing and distributing newsletters. The platform is designed around three core pillars: creation, distribution, and monetization. In practice, this means Paragraph provides a simple interface for writers to create blog and newsletter content. This content can then be distributed with their advanced email workflow tools and discovered via their trending feeds on Paragraph or Farcaster. Finally, Paragraph enables writers to design their own monetization schemes. Writers can offer their newsletter for free or build various subscription tiers for access to premium content.
From its earliest days, the team has been focused on learning from and integrating core functionality from web2 blogging platforms like Ghost and Substack while layering in unique web3 functionality like minting, content gating, decentralized storage, and crypto payments. All of these features offer writers new ways to build strong communities of readers while maintaining control over their content and the member list within their communities. The result has been a platform that is easy to use and appeals to both normies and web3 natives. The content on the platform spans a broad spectrum including DAO governance, DeFi, AI, art, and culture.
Why did Paragraph select Loop to support crypto payments?
Enabling creators to get paid in crypto has been a central goal of the Paragraph team since its origin; however, the team required a crypto payment processor that was flexible enough to handle the unique payment flows of a platform.
Paragraph’s team designed its revenue model to align with the incentives of its creators. Every time a reader purchases a subscription, Paragraph takes a small fee to cover the cost of running its platform. This model aligns Paragraph’s incentives with its writers; they grow as their writers grow. To implement this revenue model, Paragraph needed an embedded finance solution that could automate the collection of a platform fee. For example, if there was a $5.00 payment, a small fee would need to be sent to Paragraph’s wallet while the remainder was directed to the writer’s wallet.
Loop Crypto was designed to make it simple for any platform to integrate crypto payments into its experience for creators. With Loop, Paragraph was able to offer its writers a simple interface for creating and managing their own subscription plans. Writers can create bespoke subscription plans setting their own prices and configuring the networks and tokens they want to receive payment in. One writer can charge a simple subscription of $10 per month and only accept payment in USDC on Polygon while another writer can offer 5 different subscription tiers and accept tokens across six different networks.
In addition to the flexibility for writers to manage their own subscriptions, Paragraph also needed a white-label solution that it could fully customize within its existing user interface (UI). Loop’s API made it easy for Paragraph to embed Loop seamlessly within the platform. For creators, the team built a simple setup flow within the settings page allowing writers to turn on crypto payments via Loop with a few clicks and toggles. For readers, the Loop checkout widget was deployed within the subscriber sign-up page. This meant that readers could stay within the Paragraph site and easily authorize payment via crypto within a pop-up window. As soon as the payment processes on-chain, the reader is immediately granted access to the newsletter.
Checkout flow for Kazumayu.eth on Paragraph using Loop Crypto for crypto payments.
Finally, Loop’s availability across a number of layer-2 (L2) networks was key. As noted above, high transaction fees have historically been a challenge for creators. Unfortunately, transacting on a layer-1 is often not economically feasible due to gas fees for subscription payments with low dollar amounts. Loop supports payments on the most popular L2s and sidechains like Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, BNB Smart Chain, and Polygon. Transaction costs on these chains are typically just a few cents or even lower with the latest Dencun upgrade on Ethereum. This unlocks the ability to support micro-subscriptions and ensures that gas costs do not eat into creators’ revenues in the same way typical fiat interchange fees have.
What’s next?
Paragraph and Loop have been running an alpha program since early 2024, testing the crypto subscription payment functionality with a small cohort of writers. Loop has already processed several thousand dollars in transaction volume for the cohort. The subscription prices for these newsletters range from just $1 up to $420 per month. As expected, over 98% of transactions have occurred on L2 networks with BNB Smart Chain and Polygon being the two most popular chains for subscriber payments to date.
Loop’s crypto payment functionality is now live for all Paragraph writers to utilize. We’re excited to see more writers continue to monetize their content and save on transaction fees by enabling crypto. Check out Kazumayu.eth, Cryptogryph, and Thought Crime Trap House to see the signup flow in action.
If you’re a writer looking to add crypto subscription payments to your newsletter, simply navigate to the settings page on your Paragraph dashboard. Paragraph also has setup instructions within their docs. If you’re a creator platform looking to offer crypto payments, let’s talk. Loop’s flexibility makes it ideal for any payment model for your platform.
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About Loop
At Loop Crypto, we build infrastructure to unlock truly programmable money and create an open financial system. We enable crypto payments for 50+ of the top web3 companies, including Pinata, Neynar, Paragraph, Kaito, ETHGlobal, and ENS, supporting millions of dollars transacted and saving thousands of hours.
Whether the payment is one-time or recurring, Loop supports a broad range of payment use cases: subscriptions, one-time charges, recurring bill pay, loan repayments, and donations. Our integrations with Stripe, QuickBooks, and Xero make it easy to implement crypto payments within your existing operations.
If you’re ready to get started, book a call with our team to get started in minutes.
Stay in the Loop.