New Service Allows You to Get Tipped in Bitcoin to Read Email

As some estimates indicate that more than 333bn emails are sent every day, a new service, Reacher, aims to allow its users to get paid in bitcoin (BTC) to be reached, and potentially filter out a major share of their spam.

The project presents its functionality in five steps: 

1. you set up a free Reacher email address that forwards correspondence to your existing email address;
2. a sender emails you to your Reacher address;
3. they receive an email from Reacher with a request to tip you in BTC to make sure you see their email;
4. if they intend to do so, Reacher directs them to its website through which they can pay the tip;
5. once the payment goes through the system, Reacher sends you an email with the sender's message to which you can reply.

Reacher is an open-source project created by software engineer Sam Walker during one of the internal hackathons hosted by crypto payments app Strike.

Among some positive responses to the new product, Jack Mallers, CEO of Strike and crypto investment and payments company Zap, tweeted that, while the solution to spam has been theorized for many years, bitcoin’s emergence as the internet’s native currency could contribute to solving the problem.

“Now, we can solve the internet's biggest problems, like email spam. Those that want to contact me with inquiries, questions, etc. can do so at [email protected] I'll take the messages more seriously knowing they paid money to contact me and that my time is being compensated,” he said. 

He added that family, friends, and colleagues do not need to pay to contact a person as they have or will have the receiver's "real email."

Some users were cautious about how using a Reacher email address could impact their online activities.

“I order something from Amazon and they send me an email, then they get a response to pay sats and they don’t and then I never get the email?” inquired user Pirate Dead.

Another user, JW, argued that this solution doesn’t solve spam directly, saying that the same result could be achieved by getting the sender to solve a captcha. "It’s cool, but all it is in essence is a way to micro-charge for premium email delivery," said JW.

Meanwhile, others are trying to come up with ways to further enhance the product. “This is nice but I think it needs to go 1 more step. Where the recipient can create a "friend/approved list" those on the list don't have to pay,” tweeted user Sharingan Crypto.