
π¬ Stamp β your inbox, finally worth opening Strangers stake real money to reach you. Legit messages get their stake back. Spammers fund your coffee. Stamp turns the most abused channel on the internet β your inbox β into a tiny marketplace for your attention. Every cold message arrives with a refundable USDC stake attached. You decide if it was worth your time. π‘ The idea in one sentence If a stranger really wants you to read this, they can put a quarter on it. A spammer can't afford to do that 10,000 times. A real founder pitching you, a recruiter with a real role, a customer with a real complaint? They'll happily stake $0.25 to skip the noise β and get every cent back the moment you tap Refund. πͺ€ Why your inbox is broken π¨ The asymmetry: It costs a spammer $0.0001 to send you a message. It costs you 30 seconds to triage it. Multiply by 50 a day. The economics force you to either drown or build aggressive filters that bury the real signal. π What we tried: Spam filters (false positives), unsubscribe links (ignored), CAPTCHA gates (insulting to humans), priority inbox AI (still has to read everything first). π° What actually works: Make the sender put up collateral. Real intent has skin. Spam doesn't. This idea isn't new β it was proposed in 1997 as "hashcash" (proof-of-work postage). It never shipped because the rails to move 25Β’ at near-zero cost simply didn't exist. Now they do. That's the entire thesis. β¨ How it feels to use As a sender βοΈ Sign up. A USDC wallet is created for you instantly β no seed phrase, no extension, no MetaMask popup. Compose. Pay a $0.25 stamp. Get refunded the second the recipient confirms you weren't wasting their time. As a recipient π Your inbox shows only stamped messages β every one is worth at least 25Β’ of someone's belief that you'll care. AI triage sorts the obvious spam in one tap. Refund the keepers. Forfeit the spam β that money is now yours. As a spammer π« You don't.
26 Apr 2026