What We’re Learning from Coins on Paragraph

Why coins?

It’s been a little over a month since we shipped coins on Paragraph. As we mentioned in that post, we’re trying to find new, meaningful ways for readers to support and show their appreciation for great writing.

There are already several places to write on the internet, from platforms like Medium & Substack, to SaaS products like Ghost, Beehiiv, ConvertKit, and many more. All these platforms offer their own flavor of monetization, all of which have some hard trade-offs:

• Paid subscriptions require full-time writing and can feel transactional;

• Ads require a lot of effort and harm the reader experience;

• Tips and one-off payments rarely scale.

We’ve experimented over the last several years with numerous ways of helping writers earn, from crowdfunds to open edition NFTs.

We’re applying everything we’ve learned to our newest iteration we’re particularly excited about: coins. We hope coins will allow readers to:

• Turn up the volume on an idea that resonates with them.

• Express something about themselves through the writing they back.

• Find others who share their interests or values.

• Show their appreciation for great writing and encourage more of it to exist in the world.

What’s happened so far?

It’s still very early for coins on Paragraph, but we wanted to share a quick update on how things are going so far.

• 9,400 post coins have been created since launch.

• 5,000 readers have supported great writing by purchasing post coins.

• The combined market cap of all post coins exceeds $1.2 million.

• Many writers have said coins have brought them higher earnings than any of their past writing online, including Debbie, Jayme, and ETH Daily.

• Several posts have broken through, reaching wide audiences and gaining significant value. Here are a few examples:

  • The Death of the Yeoman Farmer

  • How 0xDesigner is designing a future we can’t yet imagine

  • A Shitcaster's Guide to Farcaster

  • Drink Tap Water

  • The Mirror that Speaks

  • Base’s Next Chapter

We’ve also launched a few coin-related features and already seen cool use cases:

• Coin pairing — we’ve seen writers pair their post coins with their creator coin and, perhaps even more exciting, community tokens, linking cultural movements with individual efforts.

• Remixing — when you come across a post that resonates with you, remix it and respond with your own post, building on the idea or taking it in a totally new direction. The coins of both posts are linked, so as one grows, both benefit.

We’re about a month from launching writer coins, a way to back writers across all their writing, beyond one post at a time. We imagine writer coins will open up a totally new stream of experimentation.

What we haven’t really tried yet

Our goal was to make coins a lightweight way to support writers instead of a speculative tool. We’ve done this by using approachable language, clear support tiers, and stripping out coin jargon and financial metrics.

But copy changes and subtle UX tweaks can only take you so far. We would love to find ways to lean further into non-speculative motivations:

• Self-expression & community. When readers support a post by buying coins, they could also receive badges, quotes, or limited-edition collectibles (like NFTs) they’d be proud to share. These might include highlighted quotes or images from the post turned into NFTs.

• Utility. Readers needing a certain amount of coins to read a post, comment, join a live discussion, or unlock some type of access.

• Being generous with coins. Finding more ways for coins to flow after a post is published, like rewarding people for reading, sharing, or commenting.

• Writer coins. Opportunity to develop deeper relationships between readers and writers, and to meaningfully reward early supporters. Perhaps there’s also compelling ways to encourage repeat coin purchases over time.

At the same time, we’d be remiss if we didn’t try leaning into speculation as well. But we’ll need to be thoughtful in how we run these experiments to avoid diluting the experience for folks seeking a non-speculative ecosystem.

The road ahead

We’re still in the very early innings of experimenting with coins and, more broadly, how we can help writers feel appreciated and supported in new, meaningful ways.

We’re thrilled by the early traction, but know there’s so much more space to explore, especially around how to unlock non-speculative support at scale.

We’ll keep sharing updates as we learn more. Let us know any questions or feedback in the meantime - send us a note at hello@paragraph.com.