Answers & help.

Gather is a social platform where real-money tips in sats replace likes. Instead of chasing an algorithm, you share things people find useful, interesting, or entertaining, and when they value it they tip you directly in Bitcoin. The feed is chronological (no ranking engine deciding your fate), there are no ads, and support flows straight from person to person. It's built by Stri Labs and is currently in open beta.

Three big differences: (1) Tips, not likes - appreciation is real money, not a vanity metric. (2) No algorithm - the feed is chronological, so what you post isn't buried by an engagement engine. (3) No ads and no data-selling - Gather makes money when value changes hands between people, not by auctioning your attention. The result is a feed that rewards usefulness instead of outrage.

A sat (satoshi) is the smallest unit of Bitcoin - there are 100 million sats in one bitcoin. Because they're tiny, sats are perfect for small tips. Your wallet shows balances in sats and their approximate USD value, so you always know roughly what a tip is worth in dollars.

No. A Bitcoin Lightning wallet is built into Gather and set up for you automatically, and tipping is as simple as tapping a button. You'll see dollar values alongside sats, so you don't need to do mental math or understand the technology to participate. If you want to go deeper later, you can, but you don't have to.

Yes - creating an account, posting, browsing, and messaging are free. You only spend money when you choose to tip someone. Tips carry a small Bitcoin network fee (a few sats), and Gather's own fee is kept minimal so the value goes to creators, not the platform.

Gather is in open beta. Head to the sign-up page, create your account, and a wallet is set up for you automatically. From there you can complete your profile, start posting, and send or receive your first tip.

You must be at least 18 years old to use Gather, because the platform involves sending and receiving real money. See our Terms of Service for details.

From your Profile, add a display name, a short tagline for what you're about, your interests, a banner image, and any links you want to share. A complete profile helps the right people find and follow you. If you have several interests, you can list them together in the interest field. For a step-by-step, see the How-To guides.

Not yet - post editing isn't available today. If you need to fix something, delete the post and publish a new version. Post length can be up to 5,000 characters, and you can include images and video.

You can @mention up to five people in a post, and they'll get a real-time notification. Gather also has direct messages with a full inbox, so you can talk with other members one-on-one.

Every account comes with a built-in Bitcoin Lightning wallet, created automatically when you sign up. It shows your balance in sats plus an approximate USD value, and you can deposit and withdraw over the Lightning network. Tips you receive land here; tips you send come from here.

Your wallet has a seed phrase, a list of recovery words. Download it and store it somewhere private and safe (a password manager or offline note). It's the key to your funds, so treat it like cash. Gather staff will never ask you for your seed phrase - anyone who does is trying to scam you.

Open your Wallet and use Deposit to add sats over Lightning, or Withdraw to send sats out to another Lightning wallet. You don't need funds to start receiving tips - you can earn first and withdraw later. Step-by-step instructions are in the How-To guides.

When a post lands with you, tap the tip control and choose a preset amount: Good, Great, or Fantastic. Each is a larger sat amount than the last - pick the one that matches how much the post helped. The tip sends instantly, peer-to-peer, over Lightning, and shows up in the creator's wallet right away.

No. Bitcoin and Lightning payments are final once sent - there's no undo button and no chargebacks. That's part of what makes tips feel real. Double-check before you confirm, and only tip amounts you mean to send.

Your sats balance doesn't change on its own, but the USD estimate next to it moves with Bitcoin's price. So the same number of sats can look like a slightly different dollar amount from day to day. The sat figure is the real, stable measure of what you hold.

Possibly - tax treatment of Bitcoin and tips varies by country and situation, and you're responsible for any taxes that apply to you. Keep your own records of what you send and receive. This isn't tax advice; check with a professional if you're unsure.

Right now, posts on Gather are public by default - assume anyone can see them and that they may be shared or surfaced outside the app. A private/public toggle is on the roadmap but not live yet, so don't post anything you wouldn't want seen publicly. Direct messages are private between you and the recipient.

No and no. Gather doesn't run ads and doesn't sell your personal information or build advertising profiles of you. The business model is value moving between people, not attention sold to advertisers. See our Privacy Policy for the full picture.

Use a strong, unique password, back up your wallet seed phrase somewhere private, and never share your password or seed phrase with anyone, including anyone claiming to be Gather support. Be wary of DMs offering to "double your sats," asking you to move funds, or linking to look-alike login pages. When in doubt, don't click - contact us instead (below).

If you see content or behavior that breaks our rules - harassment, scams, illegal content - report it so the team can act, and block the user to stop seeing them. See Safety & reporting below for how, and our Terms of Service for what isn't allowed.