Libre-Tip

free software · fair by design

Tips for the
open web.

Support the people who make the Fediverse, without Patreon, Stripe or tracking. Libre-Tip runs on GNU Taler: private for the supporter, fair for the creator.

Live demo: it pays real test money (KUDOS)

Tip the demo creator

KUDOS is Taler’s test currency; this costs you nothing, but the payment rails are real.

First time? Two minutes.

  1. Install a Taler wallet

    The browser extension on desktop, or the Taler app on your phone.

  2. Withdraw free KUDOS

    At the Taler demo bank: create an account, choose “Withdraw digital cash”, confirm in the wallet.

  3. Come back and tip

    Pick an amount above. The page confirms your tip within seconds of the wallet paying.

Your payment is anonymous: the creator gets the money and a thank-you, not your identity. Every line of this project is published under AGPL & MIT licences.

where this is going

A tip button today. A funding layer for the open web tomorrow.

  1. Now

    One-off tips

    Live on this page. Anyone can support a creator in seconds, privately, with no account, and with no platform taking a cut.

    For any creator with a page of their own.

  2. Next

    Memberships

    Renewable passes, so supporters can back a creator month after month, still anonymously, without a middleman setting the terms.

    For creators who want steady support, without Patreon.

  3. Then

    Where creators already are

    A Mastodon companion and a PeerTube plugin, so the tip lives on the platforms people actually use, not on yet another site to visit.

    For the Fediverse and its independent voices.

  4. The goal

    A public good, not a product

    Every piece is free software, reusable by any project: messengers, blogs, video tools. Libre-Tip should become plumbing the open web shares, not a brand that sits above it.

    For everyone who publishes, and everyone who wants to support them.

The person paying stays anonymous.
The person paid stays accountable.
That isn’t a compromise, it’s the whole design.

questions, honest answers

Everything you might wonder

What is GNU Taler?

A payment system designed at research institutes in Europe and developed as free software. Coins are cryptographically signed by an exchange, spent anonymously, and settled through regular banks. Think digital cash, not a cryptocurrency.

Is this blockchain or crypto?

No, deliberately. No blockchain, no token, no mining, nothing to speculate on, and the value is plain euros or francs, not a volatile coin. Taler is regulated digital cash: the payer stays anonymous (the coins are cryptographically blinded), while the creator’s income is visible to the tax office. It aims to replace cards and cash for everyday, lawful payments, a different goal from trustless cryptocurrencies.

There’s an “exchange” in the middle, isn’t that a middleman?

Yes, on purpose. A regulated operator holds real money in escrow and issues the digital coins 1:1, which is what keeps the value stable and the system lawful. But unlike a card network or PayPal, it is mathematically unable to see who paid whom: blind signatures unlink your withdrawal from your spend. So you get an intermediary for the money’s integrity, without the surveillance one usually brings. It’s a different trade-off from peer-to-peer crypto.

Is it used for real money?

Yes: in Switzerland a regulated operator already issues digital francs that real shops accept, and the EU funds work to bring Taler to Europe. This demo uses KUDOS (free test money on Taler’s public sandbox) so you can try the exact same flow without spending anything real.

Is the money in this demo real?

It is real payment infrastructure moving test money. KUDOS is the test currency of the Taler demo exchange, free to withdraw, worthless by design. The rails you use here are the same ones real currency would use.

When can I tip with real euros?

When a regulated exchange operator serves your region: pilots exist in Switzerland (CHF) and the EU. Libre-Tip is exchange-agnostic: point it at a live exchange and nothing else changes.

How is this different from Patreon or Ko-fi?

Those are platforms standing between you and your audience: they take 3 to 10%, hold your data, and can close your account. Libre-Tip is software you host yourself. Supporters stay anonymous, and nobody sits in the middle.

What does it cost to use?

The software is free, in both senses. Taler’s transaction fees are a fraction of a cent, set by the exchange: there is no percentage cut, because there is no platform.

Can I put this on my own site?

That is the plan. The embeddable widget works today (it powers this page); the packaged releases, Mastodon integration and PeerTube plugin are the funded roadmap. Watch the repository; everything lands there first.

What data do you keep about me?

None. No cookies, no analytics, no accounts. The server sees a tip order and whether it was paid, never who paid it. You can read the code to check; that is what free software is for.

Who is behind this?

An independent developer in Belgium. Libre-Tip has been proposed to the NGI Taler fund of the European Commission’s Next Generation Internet initiative; the demo and all code are public regardless.

Something didn’t work? Where do I report it?

Open an issue on Codeberg. Known quirk: the iOS wallet sometimes shows a decoding error after paying successfully; check your balance, the payment went through.