Alby Hub enabled Tunestr to deliver a seamless and reliable payment experience on their live music streaming platform by providing rapid integration, intuitive wallet management, and full control over funds.

Tunestr.io’s Mission and Objective

Tunestr.io empowers independent musicians by introducing them to a new revenue opportunity for their live performances, and in doing so, onboards artists to bitcoin and Nostr at low-risk and no-cost entry points. On Tunestr, a live stream with chat room is set up to not only create direct connection between fans and artists, but also creating the space for bitcoin to be exchanged. . Using a connected bitcoin wallet and Nostr account pair,  viewers of the V4V broadcasts can send micropayments from anywhere in the world over the lightning network, allowing transactions to be processed , while avoiding middlemen, ensuring instant settlements, and keeping fees low.

Challenge

Bitcoin, as a peer-to-peer digital currency, combined with the Lightning Network's low-cost, instant, global settlement capabilities, perfectly aligns with Tunestr’s vision. However, integrating this technology posed several challenges for the platform:

1. Simplified Payment Integration: Ensuring seamless integration without requiring in-depth expertise in bitcoin or lightning-specific code.
2. Support for Zaps: Enabling the receipt of zaps, a bitcoin payment standard on the Nostr protocol, to display successful payments within the chat room.
3. Payment Management: Easily managing incoming payments through a user-friendly wallet.
4. Full Control: Maintaining full control over the wallet to minimize risks associated with locked funds and ensure uninterrupted operations.

Solution

To address these challenges, Tunestr adopted Alby Hub, which provided a streamlined solution for integrating bitcoin payments into their platform. Alby Hub is a self-custodial wallet featuring the most accessible Lightning node, designed for seamless integration with various applications.

Combined with an Alby account, platform operators gain access to a customizable lightning address tailored to their specific requirements, including support for Nostr’s Zap protocol—key functionalities for Tunestr.

Alby Hub empowers operators to directly interact with the lightning network without relying on custodial intermediaries. This approach minimizes the risk of locked funds while ensuring continuous operations. Additionally, Alby Hub simplifies the process of running a lightning node with its one-click setup via Alby Cloud and intuitive interface, making self-custody accessible to everyone.

Outcome

Using Alby Hub, Tunestr successfully integrated bitcoin payments, including zap functionality, while retaining complete control over their funds. The Sats By SW weekend (www.satsbysw.com) of events included a variety of payments processed through Alby Hub also, including on-site donations, merchandise purchases, food vendor sales, and online zaps through the live stream. For both the Independent Music Summit Conference Day and Boostagram Ball Live Concert & Artist Showcase; Alby Hub payment integration performed flawlessly. Tunestr users and conference attendees were provided with a seamless payment experience that enabled Tunestr to compensate panelists, staff and artists with an innovative way to generate income.

Over the course of the two-day Sats By SW event, Tunestr processed a variety of payments totalling over 4.6M sats and over 430 transactions. The largest volume of activity came at the music event at Antone’s Nightclub, which generated 2.19M satoshis zapped through Alby Hub transactions in a 4-hour period as the 6 artists each took the stage.  

OpenMike, Founder of Tunestr:

The Alby Hub solution allowed me to focus on the on-site challenges of running the concert, onboarding artists and promoting the event with the peace of mind that the payment processing was in good hands. I knew that I had Alby team experts available and working on the back end to ensure that fans would be able to reliably zap the performances at the exact moment they were inspired to do so. While running my own node over Tor was an option, the Alby Hub and cloud-based node provided me the tools I felt most comfortable with for running a successful event.

In the music business, you have a short amount of time to generate the bulk of your revenue in a given night. In V4V, you have an even tighter window to engage fans to zap a performance of a live broadcast. You cannot afford downtime or failed payments if you want to show an artist what V4V is all about.

Are you facing a similar challenge? Let’s chat about how we can help you achieve the same success. Get in touch!”