Every now and then, Bitcoin is all over the news. Usually, the intensity of media exposure is directly correlated with very good or very bad news for investors. Actually, all this doesn’t really matter, as important work happens all the time in the Bitcoin world, with thousands of developpers dedicating their time to build around the number one crypto-currency.

In the past couple of years, the most important developpement has been the Lightning Network, a second layer built upon the Bitcoin network in order to make transactions almost instantaneous, thus solving an important issue for mass adoption of Bitcoin.

A WordPress plugin to integrate the Lightning Network

Bitcoin Lightning Publisher is a WordPress plugin that offers the possibility to integrate three core features: Paywall, Donation, and Value 4 Value, all using the Lightning Network for the transactions. It’s a great set of features if you want to monetize any digital content with instant microtransactions that go straight into your preferred Bitcoin wallet, no intermediary necessary.

Using the Paywall

The most interesting feature is probably the paywall, which allows you to monetize content on a pay-per-post, pay-per-view, or pay-per-download basis. It is very easy to setup and highly customizable. Some of the best features of the paywall are the following:

• Easy integration with dedicated Gutenberg blocks (or shortcodes).
• Time-out option: which will make the content free after a given period of time.
• Time-in option: which is the opposite of the above bullet point, making the content freely available for a given time, then turn it into paid content automatically.
• Flexible currency display: the price can be configured in Satoshis, Euros, US Dollars, or British Pounds.
• Crowdfunding-ready: the content can be made freely available for everyone once a given amount of donations has been reached.
• Integration with other membership tools is possible.

Using donations or Value 4 Value

Although there are less features than for the paywall, enabling donations or Value 4 Value with the Lightning Publisher plugin is very straightforward and comes with all the necessary features:

• Gutenberg block for a donation widget
• Donation widget for themes
• Enable the Lightning meta tag to allow users to send payments (Value 4 Value)
• Enable the podcast:value tag in your RSS feed to receive payments for your podcast

Nowadays, Value 4 Value is not very widespread, it is a great concept for monetizing content for creators, so we think you should give it a try.

Connecting to a Lightning node

To accept payments with the Lightning Network, you must be connected to a Lightning node. If you are not technical, you should opt for Alby, a service that seems to be connected to the creators of the plugin. Otherwise, you can connect your own Lightning node, LNBits, LNDHub, BTCPay Server, or a Lightning Address. This is probably the most intimidating part of the installation, but it’s manageable for most.

Lightning Donations on WP Expert

As you could guess, we have added this plugin on the WP Expert blog to accept donations. We will probably also integrate the paywall feature in the future. Do not hesitate to give a try to the donations below!