Micropayments through cryptocurrency mining

Sammanfattning: The monetary policies of states and systems built upon them do not naturally allow transactions of a very small value, as the transaction costs exceeds the actual value of the transaction. These types of transactions are called micropayments. This is problematic as it removes the possibility to monetize content that has a valuation that is so low that the costs of the transaction exceeds the value of the content. In this thesis we aim to create a system that allows micropayments to monetize low value content. We do so by developing a design theory based on Gregor and Jones conceptual model for design theories within Information Systems research. The system that we develop will use the end users computational power to generate a value, by running a cryptocurrency miner. We present the background knowledge required to fully understand the presented design theory. Within the design theory, we present a theoretical framework to base systems on that enables micropayments through cryptocurrency mining. We also present a developed proof of work prototype that proves the validity of the theoretical framework. Lastly we discuss our design theory. We conclude that the design theory enables transactions of a very low value, such as 0,0001 \$ cents. Transactions of such small value is not possible with systems built upon states monetary policies. We also conclude that the proposed design theory can be further developed to function independently of cryptocurrency mining. Instead the value for the transaction could be generated through solving complicated problems if institutions are willing to pay for computational power to solve them.