PaperTrade

PaperTrade is an open-source BSV newsstand for pay-per-page publishing.

Readers can browse a public library, read page 1 for free, and unlock paid pages with a BRC100-compatible wallet. Authors can publish print-ready writing, preview rendered pages, and receive ledgered revenue. Operators can run their own PaperTrade server with editorial review, configurable pricing, platform commission, UserCom signals, and wallet-based administration.

Live server: https://papertrade.metanet.app

Source: https://github.com/p2ppsr/PaperTrade

Why It Exists

PaperTrade shows a complete wallet-native content commerce flow:

• no passwords;
• BRC100 identity for readers, authors, and admins;
• first-page-free discovery;
• per-page payment and entitlement checks;
• accessible page text with built-in read-aloud controls and optional auto-read;
• server-side publication rendering for PDF, docx, and ePub uploads;
• author balances and payout workflow;
• feedback and funnel telemetry through UserCom.

It is meant to be inspected, forked, deployed, and improved by builders who want real BSV application patterns instead of a narrow demo.

Try It

Open the live server and read page 1 of any public-domain work:

https://papertrade.metanet.app

Paid pages require a compatible BRC100 wallet browser or wallet bridge. The app links to wallet setup from protected flows when one is not available.

Use Reader settings to choose a device voice and reading speed, or enable automatic read-aloud whenever a page opens. PaperTrade extracts embedded PDF text and falls back to OCR for scanned/image-only pages. Speech uses the browser or device voice and does not send page text to a third-party speech service.

Run Locally

Requirements:

• Node.js 20 or newer;
• npm;
• MySQL or MariaDB;
• a reachable BRC100 wallet storage service, such as https://storage.babbage.systems.

Create a database, copy the example environment, and run the app:

cp .env.example .env
npm install
npm run migrate
npm run dev

The development server starts the Vite frontend and Express backend together. By default, the backend listens on http://localhost:3001 and the frontend is served by Vite.

For a full environment variable reference, see docs/local-development.md.

Useful Commands

npm run lint
npm run typecheck
npm test
npm run build
npm start

Docker

The application runtime uses LibreOffice, Calibre, Poppler, and Tesseract for document conversion, page rendering, text extraction, and OCR. Build the runtime base first, then the app image:

docker build -f Dockerfile.runtime-base -t papertrade-runtime-base:local .
docker build -t papertrade:local .

Project Layout

src/client/               React app, wallet integration, feedback, telemetry
src/server/               Express API, BRC100 auth/payment, rendering, ledger
src/server/public-domain/ Seed public-domain library texts and cover art
migrations/               Knex database migrations
infra/kubernetes/         Kubernetes manifests for the production shape
scripts/k8s/              In-cluster image build and deploy scripts
docs/                     Operator and contributor documentation

Deployment

The repository includes Kubernetes manifests and GitHub Actions for the live PaperTrade production deployment, but those workflows target Project Babbage's private infrastructure and production secrets. Self-hosters should treat them as a working reference architecture, not a one-command public deploy.

Start with docs/devops.md if you want to run a similar Kubernetes deployment.

Telemetry And Privacy

PaperTrade emits product signals and feedback to UserCom so operators can understand whether readers are finding, trying, and unlocking content. Telemetry payloads are normalized and sensitive-shaped fields such as private keys, passwords, tokens, signatures, raw transactions, and BEEF payloads are redacted before forwarding.

Set USERCOM_SIGNAL_ENDPOINT if you want server-side signals to go somewhere other than the default Project Babbage UserCom endpoint. Client-side UserCom endpoints are currently compiled into src/client/usercom.ts.

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome after the repository is public. Read CONTRIBUTING.md before opening a PR.

Security reports should follow SECURITY.md.

License

PaperTrade is copyright (c) 2026 P2PPSR and released under the Open BSV License. See LICENSE.txt.