Web Monetization Guide / Uphold

How to Set up a Digital Wallet

New to Web Monetization? This is a step-by-step guide for creating an Uphold account so you can get a payment pointer to embed in your articles.

To collect micropayments, you need a digital wallet in which to receive the money. Here at Prototypr, we let content creators use our digital wallet, so you don’t have to sign up for one yourself. You can still set up your own digital wallet if you prefer, for instance if you’re also collecting micropayments from content on other websites. This guide will explain how to do it.

Uphold wallets receive micropayments from Web Monetized sites (e.g. Prototypr, Kult.pt, Dev.to, CodePen, and many more) via Coil.

The digital wallets that work with Web Monetization are Uphold and Gatehub. Uphold has no withdrawal fees so we’ll go with them for this guide.

Uphold is a platform for trading cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. It hasn’t been designed with Web Monetization in mind, so the platform has a lot of functionality that you’re probably not going to use, and the site can seem a bit overwhelming if you’re not into trading cryptocurrencies.

It’s still relatively easy and pain free to set up a digital wallet with Uphold and if you follow this guide, we’ll have you set up with an Uphold account in 10 minutes (or less!).

Step by Step

The first few steps are pretty generic, so we’ll spare you too many screenshots and details:

1. Go to Uphold.com and navigate to the sign up button. You can also download their app if you prefer, it has a similar navigation and UX.

2. Fill in the form with your personal details and a password of your choice. Uphold has a functionality similar to a bank, so they’re legally required to obtain your name and address -and to verify your phone number and ID -more on that later.

3. Answer questions on how you will use your Uphold account. These questions are mostly relevant to trading cryptocurrencies. We haven’t experienced that it makes much difference what you answer, but here’s what we found to be most accurate:

We suggest you choose "Transfers between users", since that’s effectively what’s happening.

Here we choose "Other" and write “Web Monetization.” You can’t know your annual income, so just input your best guess (Uphold will automatically choose your local currency).

Choose your region of residence, since that’s where you’ll receive the money.

4. Answer questions on your employment status and how Uphold may use your information. You can answer not now, yes to all, or deselect analytics and/or product improvement purposes.

5. At some point in the registration process, depending on your country of residence, you'll be asked to submit a photo of your passport or other identification. It’s very simple: You scan a QR code and take two photos. You can read about how Uphold handles your information here.

Tap start verification and it literally doesn’t take more than 2 minutes.

You need to find a valid ID document and the rest of the process is self-explanatory. You’ll receive an email confirmation when the process is complete.

6. Now your account is set up, and your last step is to retrieve a code called a payment pointer, which you’ll use to inform the Web Monetization technology of where to deposit your micropayments. Here’s what you do:

Navigate to the Transact pane and press “From”. This image is of the desktop version; it looks similar in the app.

Choose Interledger -you might need to scroll down. Interledger is the technology which collects your payments.

Now choose a currency for the micropayments you receive. If you haven’t connected a bank account or payment card, you can’t choose your local currency. We recommend you choose a Stablecoin like USD coin, which is tied to the value of the US Dollars. At a later point when you want to withdraw your money to your bank account, you can transfer them into your local currency.

Now you have your payment pointer. Copy the code into your Prototypr account and you’re ready to start receiving micropayments!

How to Withdraw Funds to Your Bank Account

This was all about how to set up your wallet to receive micropayments. At some point you’ll probably want to withdraw your holdings to your bank account in your local currency. How to do that depends on where you live. You can find Uphold’s guides for how to link to your bank account and withdraw funds at their website.