Planet Web Monetization welcomes you!
🔊 Community and Advocacy
It feels like we’ve been around the world since our previous update.
Pixel Pioneers Bristol
On June 20th, Pixel Pioneers Bristol hosted about 130 web enthusiasts, designers, digital makers, and front-end developers. Rabeb Othmani, Product Manager, gave an electrifying lightning talk, and Senior Engineer, Adrian Boros hosted a booth. Bibi and Adi spoke about our vision for Web Monetization to enrich the way people support the work of publishers and owners of content online…thus “paying the Web forward”.
Inclusive growth at FinTech Summit Africa
“Innovating for inclusive growth” was the theme at the FinTech Summit Africa, hosted in Johannesburg, South Africa on June 26th. Tseli Thabane, Project Manager, joined a panel discussion about why we believe that real-time systems, digital currencies, and cross-border solutions matter in shaping the future of payments. We shared perspectives about open technologies and open source software being instrumental in creating a more inclusive digital financial ecosystem.
UCT x ILF Bootcamp and Hackathon
On June 27th, Sid Vishnoi, Senior Engineer, gave an insightful talk to a group of about 60 students in Cape Town, South Africa. Sid walked the group through how the Web Monetization extension uses Open Payments to facilitate micropayments. This was one of the examples used to inspire creativity about using Open Payments at a hackathon hosted by the University of Cape Town Financial Innovation Hub.
Hackathon Build with AI Bolivia 2025
Between June 27th and the 29th, Marian Villa, Developer Advocate, gave a dynamic talk in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, at Hackathon Build with AI Bolivia. Marian invited students to take a more expansive view about how Large Language Models (LLMs) can unlock innovation that sustains the Web using open technologies like Web Monetization. With over 400 participants and organizers hosted by Universidad Católica Boliviana (UCB), this was Bolivia’s largest hackathon to date, celebrating the launch of the university’s undergraduate program in Artificial Intelligence.
🧰 Building the Software
Publisher Tools
We already have a set of tools available for publishers and owners of content to quickly start using Web Monetization:
- Link Tag Generator
- Banner Generator
- Revenue Share Generator
Banner, Link Tag and Revenue Share Generator
We are making it simpler for developers to start contributing to the publisher tools codebase, while making it easier to maintain. The initial steps were to:
- Overhaul the architecture and restructure the codebase to follow the structure of more mature and stable code repositories.
- Simplify the release process by using Cloudflare, instead of using Docker containers in a Kubernetes cluster.
WordPress plugin for Web Monetization
We are working on a Web Monetization plugin for WordPress. The plugin is a free and open-source must-have for WordPress website builders and publishers to enable Web Monetization. It gives control for web monetizing a page, or individual posts such that individual authors or contributors can get paid directly.
The Web Monetization Extension
Improvements worth highlighting were for connecting a wallet to the extension, and making continuous payments.
Connecting a wallet
Before connecting a wallet
The extension now suggests a default budget based on the currency of the wallet. A user can still change this value. Previously, the extension would suggest a default budget of 5. The extension now considers the buying power of different currencies.
After connecting a wallet
The extension settings now display the same wallet address entered when connecting the wallet. Previously, the wallet identifier was displayed, but this introduced confusion whenever a wallet identifier differed from the wallet address entered when connecting the wallet.
Continuous payments
Previously, the extension triggered payments simultaneously to many wallets, followed by long wait times between payments. Now, the extension pays each receiving wallet on a web page, one after the other, until all wallets are paid. Then, it cycles through the process from the beginning.
Embedded content
To protect a web monetized page from possible malicious behaviour where embedded content adds hundreds of monetization tags with the aim of taking a larger portion of the payments, the extension now prioritizes paying the main page. Here is an example page that has five monetization link tags, where two tags are on the main page, and three tags are in the embedded iframe.
The extension now handles continuous payments like this:
- Pay each receiving wallet on the main page, one at a time.
- For a container with web monetized embedded content, pay only one of the receiving wallets in the container, then continue paying the main page.
- In the next cycle, repeat paying each wallet on the main page. For the embedded container, skip the wallet that was paid in the previous cycle, and pay the next wallet in the container.
One-time payments
- Previously,
0.02was the minimum amount possible for all one-time payments. The limitation has been removed, and the extension allows any amount supported by the connected wallet, and the receiving wallet. - When a web page has multiple receiving wallets, the extension now splits the amount between the receiving wallets such that the extension does not exceed the amount entered. If any wallet is unable to receive its portion of the split amount, then the extension skips that payment.
Improved performance
The extension is more efficient and consumes less power by:
- Removing unnecessary network requests when connecting a wallet.
- Using a single payment timer within a browser tab. Previously, an open tab used multiple payment timers for each individual monetization tag found on a web page. This is no longer the case.
What’s next?
- We are revamping the publisher tools with the intention to give them a shared and refined visual identity.
- We're also working on bringing the Web Monetization extension to the Safari browser. Stay close for more on this!
Join us, please
You’re invited to the next Web Monetization Community Call is on July 17th.
- Please check your timezone
- Add to your Google Calendar
- Use this meeting link: https://meet.google.com/fjy-vjef-ogj
Come build with us on GitHub by contributing to these:
- good-first-issues for the Publisher tools
- good-first-issues for the Web Monetization extension
Thanks for reading. See you next time!
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