---
title: "Open Directory — Brad Jasper"
description: "Reddit on Bitcoin: upvotes were microtransactions paid to the person who submitted the link."
url: https://bradjasper.com/projects/open-directory/
---

[← Products](https://bradjasper.com/products/)

# Open Directory

Archived · 2019 · Bitcoin

It led directly to Bit.sv.

Reddit on Bitcoin: upvotes were microtransactions paid to the person who submitted the link.

- [Source on GitHub](https://github.com/synfonaut/Open-Directory)

![Open Directory: "organize the blockchain"](https://bradjasper.com/_astro/open-directory-promo.Cvt9AwQu_qVE4w.webp)

Open Directory asked what Reddit would look like if upvotes were money. Each upvote was a small Bitcoin payment to whoever submitted the link.

Its incentive model, the tip chain, paid everyone involved in creating the value: a tip on a reply also reached the reply it answered and the original post, all the way up the thread.

The themes were decentralized, uncensorable social media and open networks: anyone could publish, and no single company could capture the network effects. I came back to these ideas in later writing such as [Disintermediating Network Effects for Fun and Profit](https://bradjasper.com/blog/disintermediating-network-effects-for-fun-and-profit/). Building it showed me the same model could pay creators directly, which became [Bit.sv](https://bradjasper.com/projects/bit-sv/). I talk about both in [Building on Bitcoin #1](https://bradjasper.com/videos/building-on-bitcoin-1-isaac-morehouse/).

## Videos

[Building on Bitcoin #1 with Isaac Morehouse](https://bradjasper.com/videos/building-on-bitcoin-1-isaac-morehouse/) · Interview · October 2020 · [Watch on YouTube ↗](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F4kWu_6vVE)