Kickstarter, the world’s most famous crowdfunding platform, wants to dive head first into the world of blockchain, changing the technology behind its business model while delivering the same user experience.
The firm explained in an official blog post that this decision is part of an effort to find better tools to fulfill its mission of bringing creative projects to life through community collaboration.
Kickstarter wants to be decentralized and green
Kickstarter is not yet turning into a full blockchain initiative. To begin this new phase, the company created an independent organization tasked with creating an open source protocol that emulates the functionality of Kickstarter’s main platform but in a decentralized fashion.
This independent organization will be initially funded by Kickstarter PBC. Still, no details have been revealed about the amount of funds allocated to this new initiative or its name.
Kickstarter PBC was the Public Benefit Corporation formed after Kickstarter Inc migrated its business model in 2015.
Once the independent organization has concluded with all the necessary preparations, Kickstarter will then migrate its website to the new infrastructure. Kickstarter assures that users will not feel any change even though the technology will shift to a decentralized model.
Kickstarter will run on top of Celo, a carbon-negative Proof-of-Stake blockchain focused on minimizing environmental impact and capable of processing 7 million transactions per tonne of CO2 emitted.
Just for reference, according to Digiconomist’s Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index, it takes 191 tons of CO2 to mine 1 BTC, and a Bitcoin block concentrates between 1200 and 2400 transactions per block according to Ycharts data.
DAO and crowdfunding
The Kickstarter movement is perfect. The motivation of the platform is precisely based on decentralized decision-making. Funds are not deposited into startups unless the community has decided to support the initiative by donating the required amount of money.
And Kickstarter’s popularity has not waned. In fact, the platform has shown steady growth since its inception raising over 5.9 Billion USD since its creation.
However, there is a newcomer: DAOs, decentralized organizations of people who make decisions using blockchain technology without the need for intermediaries.
And as time goes on, more and more million-dollar DAOs are being created around various projects ranging from functional blockchain projects like the Ethereum Name Service to buying a copy of the U.S. Constitution.
It’s no wonder, then, that Kickstarter wants to test the waters – and maybe create a better way to support new businesses.
