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Treechat: The Social Network Where Posts Earn Bitcoin Instead of Likes

Social media has spent more than a decade competing for attention. Likes, shares, followers and algorithms determine what people see, while advertising remains the engine that keeps most major platforms running. Treechat is experimenting with a very different model.

Built around Bitcoin SV (BSV), Treechat combines social networking, micropayments, blockchain publishing, AI creation and digital collectibles into a single platform. Instead of asking users simply to “like” good content, Treechat allows them to put actual value behind that interaction. The idea is simple: what if a like was worth something? Replacing Likes With Bitcoin One of Treechat’s defining features is something it calls “Upvalue.” Rather than giving a post a traditional free upvote, users can send small amounts of BSV directly to the creator. These micropayments can be tiny measured in satoshis but they transform engagement from a vanity metric into an economic interaction.

A creator isn’t simply collecting 10,000 digital hearts. Their audience can financially reward the content they believe deserves attention. Treechat also uses this value as part of content discovery. In other words, money isn’t merely attached to the post after the fact; economic activity can help determine which content rises through the network. That creates an interesting alternative to the traditional social-media model, where creators often generate millions of impressions while the platform captures most of the economic value through advertising. Treechat says its platform operates without conventional advertising, positioning direct user-to-user payments as a central part of its ecosystem. Social Media That Lives On-Chain Treechat’s blockchain component goes considerably deeper than simply connecting a crypto wallet to a social-media account. Public content can be published to the BSV blockchain. That distinction matters. Traditional social platforms control their databases. If a company shuts down, bans an account, changes its API or removes content, years of posts can potentially disappear with it. Blockchain-based publishing introduces another possibility: the application displaying the information and the underlying information itself don’t necessarily have to be the same thing.

Treechat demonstrates this through its support for content originating from previous BSV social platforms such as Twetch and Hodlocker. Because blockchain data can remain available independently of the original application, another interface can potentially discover and display that information. It suggests a different concept of social media: the social network can disappear while the social data survives. That is arguably more significant than simply adding cryptocurrency payments to Twitter-style posting. AI Is Built Directly Into the Platform Treechat is also combining this blockchain infrastructure with generative AI.

Users can access AI tools for creating images, video, speech, music and other media. Voice-related functionality and text-to-speech capabilities are also part of the broader creative toolset Treechat is building. That creates a potentially powerful loop: Create → Publish → Own → Monetize. Instead of creating something with one AI service, publishing it on another platform, connecting a separate crypto wallet and then moving to an NFT marketplace to sell it, Treechat is attempting to bring those activities closer together. An AI-generated image or video can become more than another disposable social-media post. It can potentially become a blockchain collectible. Treechat’s NFT Experiments Go Beyond JPEGs This is where Treechat becomes particularly interesting from a Web3 perspective. The project has been experimenting with 1Sat Ordinals, a BSV protocol that allows digital assets to be inscribed onto individual satoshis. Some experiments go beyond static NFT artwork. Treechat founder Dmitriy Fabrikant, also known online as “metamitya,” has discussed experimentation involving interactive web applications and games stored through 1Sat Ordinals. That opens the door to an NFT functioning more like software than a picture. Interactive HTML and JavaScript experiences can potentially become blockchain assets. Developers within the ecosystem have also experimented with bringing technologies such as BabylonJS into this environment, allowing 3D experiences to interact with on-chain infrastructure. One reported experiment involved a small Treechat-related collection of fully on-chain 3D NFTs created after bringing the BabylonJS engine onto BSV. The collection consisted of only 21 pieces and reportedly sold out. Creators have also used Treechat’s AI functionality to build and sell limited digital collections, demonstrating how AI generation and blockchain ownership can exist inside the same broader ecosystem. Social Media for Humans and AI Agents There’s another aspect of Treechat that could become increasingly relevant as AI agents become more capable. Treechat isn’t designing its network exclusively around humans clicking buttons in an app.

It provides developer tooling that can allow software and AI agents to interact with the network programmatically. Agents can potentially read conversations, publish posts and create media through Treechat’s infrastructure. This introduces an intriguing possibility. Future social networks may not consist solely of humans talking to humans. They could contain humans, autonomous agents, creator bots and AI personalities participating in the same economic network. If those participants can also send and receive micropayments, social media begins looking less like a content feed and more like an open digital economy. But Treechat Still Has a Major Challenge Treechat is ambitious, but ambition doesn’t automatically create network effects. The platform remains heavily associated with the BSV ecosystem. That gives it inexpensive blockchain transactions and an existing crypto-native community, but it may also limit its immediate appeal to mainstream users unfamiliar with or uninterested in Bitcoin SV. Treechat therefore faces the same fundamental problem as almost every alternative social network: Why should someone leave the platforms where everyone already is? AI tools alone probably aren’t enough. Blockchain alone probably isn’t enough. NFTs alone aren’t enough either. The strongest argument may instead be the combination of all of them with direct monetization. If a creator can publish content, generate AI media, receive micropayments, create digital collectibles and maintain content on an open blockchain infrastructure without depending entirely on advertising algorithms, the proposition becomes considerably more compelling. A Glimpse at a Different Kind of Social Network Treechat shouldn’t simply be viewed as another “Web3 Twitter.” Its more interesting experiment is economic. Today’s social networks largely operate on attention → advertising → platform revenue. Treechat is testing something closer to: creation → attention → direct value → creator revenue. And its blockchain architecture adds another layer: content and digital assets don’t necessarily have to remain trapped inside one company’s database. Whether Treechat itself becomes a major social network remains an open question. Network effects are incredibly difficult to overcome, and the project will need to attract users beyond the existing BSV ecosystem if it wants meaningful mainstream adoption. But the ideas being tested are worth watching. If the next generation of social media includes AI creators, autonomous agents, micropayments, portable content and programmable digital collectibles, Treechat may be experimenting with pieces of that future already. The question isn’t simply whether people want another social network. It’s whether people will eventually expect their social interactions to have real economic value.