Shosho: Getting Paid Inside the Live Stream
Who's Shosho?
Shosho was founded by Rod Bishop, who set out to build a live-streaming marketplace where fans back the people behind the shows and where there is no barrier between creators and their audience.
Creators go live from their phones or any streaming software and sell products during the show. Viewers chat, follow, and catch clips and replays, while creators can stream through Shosho's server or host their own. For fans to back a creator mid-show, the money had to move inside the stream.
The Challenge
Until this release, Shosho viewers could only tip if they brought their own wallet and connected it. Most viewers don't have one, so the people most eager to pay at the best moment of a stream had no way to do it.
Cards rob the creators. A standard online card payment through Stripe costs 2.9% plus 30 cents, so a $1 tip loses 33 cents before the creator sees anything. Small tips are what feed live streams, but card rails make them almost worthless. Building a wallet in-house was the other option, which would bury a solo founder under months of payments engineering before shipping a single feature.
The Solution
Shosho integrated the Breez SDK directly into the live-streaming app. The SDK works as a payments engine between the viewer and the creator, invisible to everyone except Shosho.
For users:
- Speed: Users can zap creator mid-show and watch it land on screen while before the creator can say "Don't forget to share, like, and subscribe."
- Economy: A tip of a few cents is finally worth sending without card fees skimming a third of it on the way.
- Convenience: One balance covers zaps, paying anyone in a user's contact list, topping up streaming server credits, and checking out on what the creator is selling. Every account comes with its own @shosho.live Lightning address.
"It turns out building a bitcoin wallet into your application is way easier and faster than a Stripe integration."
Rod Bishop, Founder, Shosho
For developers:
One founder took Shosho from API key to a live in-app wallet on Android in 24 days with the help of an AI coding agent. The Breez SDK handles sending, receiving, Lightning addresses and checkout payments. There is no wallet infrastructure to run, and no nodes, channels, or liquidity to manage. Viewers who already have a wallet can still connect it, so nobody had to give anything up.
For growth:
Shosho is live on Android and iOS, and every new viewer now arrives with a wallet built in. Zap Goals give creators a target to stream toward, and products sell just when the audience is most engaged.
The best moment on camera is now the moment a creator gets paid.
Ready to Get Started?
Join Shosho and the world's best builders adding instant, non-custodial bitcoin and stablecoins with the Breez SDK.