As planned, the Chicago Sun-Times has put in place a paywall, as originally reported in January. The paywall, which isn’t much of a paywall at all, to be honest, is a 24-hour testing trial that allows users to donate bitcoin to the Taproot Foundation.
Users are able to “donate” a tweet or donate bitcoins in the amount of their choosing. But a donation is not required to view Sun-Times content, at this time.
San Francisco-based bitcoin paywall company BitWall is behind this, and the Sun-Times has become the start-up’s biggest client thus far. The trial is designed to provide both the Sun-Times and BitWall critical data as to how readers will use the products on such a high-profile news publication’s website.
The paywall is expected to remain enabled throughout the remainder of Saturday, presenting itself to all visitors of the site.