Tessera is a support sidecar for open content (video, podcasts, posts, and more). Your audience can support creators and instance admins in USDC without forking the platform.
- Free content stays free: optional tip.
- Exclusive content (tutorial, course, masterclass): support by the second watched. If someone watches 10 minutes and leaves, they only support those 10 minutes. No full-course purchase. No fixed subscription.
Free stays free. Support is optional and fair to the time watched.
demo_tessera_web.mp4
Self-hosted platforms give you freedom, but keeping servers online is expensive. Supporting a creator with the usual options often means high fees or getting locked into a payment SaaS.
Tessera is not a tollbooth. It is a support layer for the free software ecosystem: optional tips, time-based support on exclusives, and a way for instances and creators to sustain what they publish.
| Who | What they get |
|---|---|
| Admins | Help keep the lights on (configurable split on exclusive / time-based mode) |
| Creators | Direct audience support (tips or by time) |
| Audience | Support only what they consume; leave anytime |
The resource stays open. Tessera only offers an optional USDC tip. Works for free videos, posts, photos, wikis, podcasts…
Tips go to the creator.
For tutorials, courses, or premieres: the audience supports while watching and can leave anytime. Ten minutes watched means ten minutes of support.
When the creator and the instance admin are not the same person, the default split is about ~90% creator / ~10% instance (configurable; helps cover hosting).
| Platform | Integration | Status |
|---|---|---|
| PeerTube | Plugin | Live |
| Owncast | Connector | In development |
| Jellyfin | Connector | In development |
Tessera runs alongside your platform (sidecar + thin connector). It does not modify the platform's source code.
With tips, any FOSS content can ask for support without locking the page: blogs (Ghost, WriteFreely), wikis (BookStack), photos (Immich), audio (Funkwhale, Castopod, Navidrome), and more.
Platform not listed yet? A connector is usually on the order of ~100 lines. Guide: Building a Connector.
On traditional rails, a small tip dies in fees. On Arc, gas is USDC and network costs are on the order of cents. With Circle Gateway, support runs off-chain while people consume, so you are not paying a network fee for every tip or every second.
More detail: Documentation · ARCHITECTURE.md
git clone https://github.com/JaDi03/tessera.git
cd tessera
npm install
npm run setupInstall, env, and deploy: Getting started.
Apache-2.0 - see LICENSE for details.