1. Why Telegram Tip Bot?

The adoption of blockchain technology is often seen as the last obstacle to bringing digital assets into the mainstream. The total market value of cryptocurrencies is about 975 billion U.S. dollars and is still in its infancy. The daily use of tips is a way to make digital assets as common as ordinary banknotes. There is no better way to promote digital assets to the masses than by adding cryptocurrencies on popular social media platforms such as Reddit, Twitter, and messaging applications such as WhatsApp and Telegram.

In the case of the latter application, users can now tip each other algos using my recently launched bot called AlgorandTipBot. Using the Telegram app, the bot allows you to send digital assets via messages directly in a conversation. Chat and send money; easy as pie!

Telegram recently celebrated a new milestone of 500 Million active monthly users. The AlgorandTipBot allows all Telegram users to be introduced to Algorand through tipping. It’s based on Telegram Bot Platform which acts as an Algorand wallet and allows users to send and receive tips (small amounts of ALGO cryptocurrency) between Telegram users using only their handle. Connect to AlgorandTipBot, then fund this account to get started tipping and receiving tips from others.

One of the main goals of the tip bot is to reward contributors in the Algorand ecosystem. This tool will help tip fellow community members for their input, feedback, creative contributions, insightful questions and engagement in the Algorand ecosystem.The AlgorandTipBot is an easy to use tipping bot that can be added to any group chat on Telegram.

Key Features

1. Allows to rate other users ideas and answers with real value instead of
   “virtual likes”. This brings online conversation to a completely new level.
2. It is open-source software (OSS) and can be easy re-used and adjusted
   for your own project.

2. Getting started

Getting started is simple, just follow these steps:

First Things First

In order to interact with the AlgorandTipBot, you must:

• Have a Telegram @username, this can be set via your settings.
• Have installed Algorand Wallet application and have an address with ALGO cryptocurrency.

Join the Telegram Tipbot

The bot is live in Telegram, you can message it directly @AlgorandTipBot or join the Telegram group where AlgorandTipBot was added, for example you can join by clicking here. Also you can add it to your group or ask an admins to add it in any your favorite crypto groups.

2.1. How to get an address

First you need to create a wallet, the way to do this is to start a private conversation with the bot and /start. Your personal deposit address will be created automatically.

If you already did this before, you can issue /deposit to make the bot give you your deposit address again.

To be able to tip people, you first have to load up your wallet with a desired amount of ALGO. Now you can get started tipping other users using their @username.

2.2. Withdraw funds

The bot is not intended to serve as a custodial wallet, rather it only connects @usersnames, sender’s and recipient’s addresses to make the tipping process as easy as possible. So, the second thing that you need to do is to ask the bot to show you your secret 25-word passphrase with the /withdraw command.

After that you need open Algorand Wallet, choose “Add account” and recover an account with this passphrase. Thereby, you will have full control over your personal AlgorandTipBot address. You can even change the private key through the rekeying function, but in this case the bot will not be able to send transactions on your behalf, it will only be able to receive tips. For security reasons the bot will refuse to show you the passphrase in a group, so please start a private conversation with the bot to display your private passphrase. Always keep this safe and never share with others.

2.3. Checking your balance

Since all the transactions are publicly readable in the Algorand ledger, everyone is able to verify that all deposits and tips are processed. You can check your balance in one of Algorand’s blockchain explorers or asking the bot to show you your /balance.

2.4. Tipping someone

You must have ALGO sent to your AlgorandTipBot address prior to sending a tip to a @username. You may send from another funded account, or do something worthy of a tip to have your account funded by someone else using the AlgorandTipBot. Now you are ready for Tipping! You can tip someone in 2 ways:
Using the command directly in private chat with bot, in this case nobody sees your tip message, including recipient or running command in group chat and bot will answer with recipient’s @username mention.

Command: /tip @username amount

As of now the minimum tip amount is 0.1 ALGO, the bot will also alert you if you are trying to tip too little when you call /tip. If you send a tip to @username who does not have an AlgorandTipBot address yet, one will be created automatically for them and a notification sent.. Users are able to send tips to each other on group chats and send/receive value without any limits. You can send any amount of ALGO (provided your balance covers the amount and the fee) to any user.

Enjoy tipping people for their help or useful comments in discussions!

3. Who is behind the AlgorandTipBot?

The AlgorandTipBot (account @AlgorandTipBot) are created and maintained by Maksim Artemyev, Algorand Developer Ambassador (@MaksimF).
I saw message from Patrick B. in Algorand Telegram group who said:

We need do Algorand Tip Bot to show speed of system and super-low cost to send.

And so this project was born. To create this Telegram bot I have used Python Telegram Bot and Algorand Python SDK. In my app I am using VPS hosting on DigitalOcean, so AlgorandTipBot is ready to serve you 24x7.

The source code for this app can be found at AlgorandTipBot on GitHub. This is an open source project, demonstrating the capabilities of the Algorand blockchain. If you have any comments or suggestions regarding this bot please leave me a comment, I would like to know what you think about it. Contributions are welcome if you find it an use interesting case.

This flowchart is a visual representation of the sequence of steps and decisions needed to perform tip process.

4. Disclaimer

For legal reasons, I point out that this is only a beta version and I assume no liability or responsibility for financial losses will be accepted. While I tend to make the server secure there are many things I can’t forsee and it wouldn’t be fair if I don’t warn you that. Therefore, as with any hot wallet, you should keep the amount of ALGO you have in the bot’s wallet to an amount you feel confortable with and never use the service to store any significant amount of ALGO.

The information stored in the AlgorandTipBot database is nothing more than (a combination of) information that is already publicly available. The AlgorandTipBot only knows the Telegram username and it’s generated AlgorandTipBot wallet address and private key.