Over 59.9 % of the population cannot imagine a day without surfing the web. This is evident, as social media and the worldwide web have become staples of upcoming generations. It became fairly recent to earn an income from producing content online, and that is partly owed to a particular person.

Stephan Thomas helped shed light on hard-working content creators and assure that their art does not go unnoticed and unpaid. With his innovative platform called Coil, every online content creator out there got a proper chance of monetizing their art form.

Coil is a platform that aids creators monetize their created content across the web. The monetization comes from an alternative option, similar to advertising, with linked subscription models. Coil uses a web monetization standard, which helps creators earn micropayments in real-time.

If you want to learn the fascinating story of a bitcoin fanatic, who has millions in store but forgot his password, read down below.

Promising Youth

Stefan Thomas was born in Stuttgart, Germany in the late 1980s, to a loving family. He was regarded as being very gifted, as his parents treasured his every little milestone. It wasn’t a surprise that Stefan caught on words particularly early in his childhood and could discuss serious topics at a very young age. Like many young geniuses out there, Stefan was fascinated by technology. His attention was always drawn by either the television or the computer. When he earned his first-ever PC, Stefan was curious to find out how these machines worked, and what’s behind the screen. The even bigger question was, how could the whole world’s knowledge be at a single click away.

Stefan excelled in school. He was quite clever, and always a step further from his peers. He knew things the other had not yet even thought of. He carried this intuition for the rest of his school years. Stefan’s love for computers and the sciences that utilized them continued when he enrolled at the University of Stuttgart. His plan was to complete his studies to earn his diploma in computer sciences but quickly enough, Stefan got bored. Later, the young man said that this period was influential in his life as he did learn many things connected to his passion. However, in 2005 he dropped out of the university to gain more freedom and a greater degree. This decision was pivotal to Stefan’s life as it would take him to a place where he always wished to be.

Moving to the States

In 2006, Stefan said goodbye to Germany to move to San Francisco in pursuit of greater opportunities. He believed in ‘the land of dreams’ and vowed that he would make up for his departure. Stefan expanded his efforts and chose a very different field of study when he enrolled at the Open University in California. This step was necessary, so Stefan could learn more about expanding his knowledge of computer science for a whole new business venture. He finally earned his BA in 2014, mainly because many unexpected turns and events came in between.

In 2010, Stefan discovered the currency of the century. He grew fascinated by this new type of currency that carries value over time. Stefan was one of the first discoverers who predicted the bitcoin future. He contributed with a few dollars here and there, patiently waiting for the world to learn of this new opportunity. He was the one that produced the ‘’What is Bitcoin?’’ video back in the day, which garnered popularity and brought millions of users. He created BictoinJS, the first javascript Bitcoin library for node.js and browsers. He also founded the page weusecoins.com where people could watch the video and invest in crypto-currency.

In the meantime, Stefan used his time to develop JustMoon, a platform that he created for his ideas and plans. The first time he tried to expand to the business market was in 2007, when he worked in Solutions Four Impact Ltd. His job was meeting clients, project management, and solving clients’ technical requirements. It was during this period that Stefan acquired even more knowledge from working with developers, designers, service providers, and many more.

Milestone after Milestone

In October 2012, Stefan joined the team at Ripple, where he would be in charge of designing new protocols for cross-border payments. He worked as a senior engineer and had to create a client application and smart contracts. A successful year later and Stefan was the CTO. He emphasized the ‘internet of value’, implementing a gateway for money and assets to move as freely as the information available to the user.

While working for Ripple, Stefan co-created Interledger. Many content creators today have Stefan to thank for their income as, without the Interledger, that wouldn’t be possible. The Interledger is an internet-similar protocol, acting as a money-transfer platform. Through it, content creators get assets without any sponsors or advertisements.

Finally, after years of gaining experience, Stefan was ready to begin his journey with Coil.

Coil was founded in San Francisco, in 2018, to create a whole new and improved business model for the Internet. Coil aims at helping creators and publishers monetize their work online through the Interledger.

Coil and Count

At first, Coil was misunderstood by its users. Not many quickly caught on to the opportunity or understood what was needed from them. But with time and development, alongside rising influencers and social media stars, Coil sprung into action.

In 2019, Coil raised $4 million from Ripple. This round was immediately followed by a $100 million grant with collaborations with Mozilla and Creative Commons. The grant was meant to boost the inclusive standards and innovations in web monetization for content creators.

It was a pretty well-accepted beginning, shining a light on Coil’s bright future. Coil had raised over $269M in funding by the grant.

To reach an even wider audience, Stefan expanded Coil’s branches to another investment, this time in Imgur. Stefan invested $20 million in Imgur, an entertainment platform with over 300 million users.

Over the years, apart from learning everything about computer science, and business, Stefan became a passionate supporter of financial access foundations and worked with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. His last investment in Imgur got him a chair at the board and thus, much recognition.

A Funny Story

Stefan’s story gets even more fascinating as the man who was behind the ‘What is Bitcoin?’ video, never picked up his holdings. After so many years and earning nearly 360.000.000 in bitcoin, he had forgotten his password. He attempted to retrieve it 8 times, before getting the devastating news of no more login options.

Although he is pretty well off today, that much money would not hurt his future ideas. If he had done so much by now, imagine what else could be possible with that amount of cash.

He finds the whole situation ironic, but Stefan is determined to recover his password, one way or the other.

Coil, Today

As it usually happens with popular apps and platforms, reaching stardom isn’t easy-peasy. To become the trending and successful platform that it is today, Coil had to make sure to shake off the competition.

Companies like CodeFuel, VigLink, QRails, and Blu Logix did their best to attract and attain a huge number of users and clients. Dabbing in the field of tech companies is always a challenge, since today, it’s all about doing business online.

Today, Coil is located in San Francisco, California, and has over90 employees and hundreds of members and users. As it gathers much attention from non-US citizens, Coil plans on expanding across the globe, with opening offices in other cities as well.

From 2018 onward, Coil has attracted creators from every field of the spectrum. From writers to podcasters, to musicians, to streamers, everyone can join and witness the fun with just a $5 monthly subscription.

Thanks to Coil, creative enthusiasts can publish exclusive content and automatically get paid for streaming. Through Coil’s creator page, users can monetize their art by just using a tag.

It has never been a more profitable time to be a content creator online than now. Coil is just another piece of evidence that the future lies in a world of e-commerce, where artists can get properly paid for their hard work. Coil reflects the inevitable future of online entertainment and provides the best haven where content creators truly feel appreciated.