By enabling people to join together to help bring creative projects to life, we’ve had a front row seat to how a large group of people — often strangers — can work together towards a common goal.
Since 2009, more than $6 billion has been pledged on Kickstarter, funding over 200,000 creative projects that otherwise may never have been made. These projects have been remarkably generative, creating an estimated 750,000+ part-time jobs, 80,000 full-time jobs, over 20,000 companies and nonprofits, and $13.5 billion in additional economic impact.
Yet, despite all the impressive numbers, there remains an endless line of talented and creative people waiting for opportunity. Our mission to help bring creative projects to life is a pledge to help unlock this latent potential in people and their ideas. To truly serve that mission, we need to build on what made Kickstarter so innovative in the first place: the power of a large network of people working together towards a common goal.
So, today we’re announcing our commitment to a more open, collaborative, and decentralized future. As a first step, we’re supporting the development of an open source protocol that will essentially create a decentralized version of Kickstarter’s core functionality. This will live on a public blockchain, and be available for collaborators, independent contributors, and even Kickstarter competitors, from all over the world to build upon, connect to, or use. We think bringing all that we’ve learned about crowdfunding since 2009 to inform the development of a decentralized protocol will open up exciting new opportunities for creative projects to come to life. In the coming weeks, a white paper will be released outlining the technology and plans for the protocol.
In the spirit of decentralization, we’re establishing an independent organization that will kick off the development of the protocol. Kickstarter PBC will provide this new independent organization with some funding, appoint an initial board, and commit to being one of the protocol’s earliest clients, meaning Kickstarter.com will be built on top of the protocol. As a user, the Kickstarter experience you’re familiar with will stay the same. You won’t “see” the protocol, but you will benefit from its improvements.
In addition, we're establishing an independent governance lab. Initially, this lab will be committed to overseeing the development of the protocol governance. Along the way it will publish research, share learnings, and generally seek to develop governance resources for the commons through openly engaging with the notoriously challenging problems and critically important goals of good governance. We are entering a significant moment for alternative governance models, and we think there's an important opportunity to advance these efforts using the blockchain. This lab will be led by Camille Canon, co-founder and most recently executive director of Purpose Foundation (US), an organization focused on developing and scaling alternative ownership and governance models.
We’ve chosen Celo, an open source and carbon negative blockchain platform, as the best technology and community on which to build the protocol. We’re inspired by the Celo ecosystem’s thoughtful approach to building the technology they want to see in the world. Like the internet in the early 1990s, the blockchain is a nascent technology whose story is not yet written. Celo’s efforts around minimizing environmental impact (and focus on global accessibility through mobile access to the blockchain), reminds us that the best way to get better systems is to build better systems.
* * *
The world has gotten a lot more complex in just the past couple of decades. From Covid to climate change, from financial crises to genetic engineering, the common thread of contemporary life is complexity. Navigating the levels of complexity we face today requires new systems. In particular, systems that — like those in nature — are more flexible and adaptable to change and unpredictability. Systems of collaboration that harness our connectivity — in new ways — to solve emergent problems.
Blockchain technology is a powerful tool to create and align decentralized and distributed networks of people — in effect, new forms of networked organizations and economies — at scales that only governments and mega-corporations can fathom. This is possible because:
It’s easy to reward participation. Just as the internet changed the world by making it easier to share information, the blockchain is revolutionary in the way it makes it easy to share value.
Composability. A key benefit of open protocols on the blockchain is that as software components, they can be mixed and matched or connected, like Lego bricks, to unlock completely new ideas, tools, and use cases.
Efficient participation in governance. Coordination requires a governance system — the rules and processes for how you propose ideas, make decisions, and resolve conflict. With its technical ability to securely confer voting rights to anyone, Blockchain is on the cusp of becoming one of the biggest R&D labs for governance that the world has ever seen.
* * *
In the coming years, we believe large swaths of the internet will be reconstructed from the ground up by open and decentralized networks of contributors, who participate in the design, operation, governance and even ownership of the technology themselves. We believe that helping build the infrastructure and tools that help bring creative projects to life is an important and exciting way for us to serve our mission.
Perry Chen, Founder and Chair
Aziz Hasan, CEO
SOURCE
Since 2009, more than $6 billion has been pledged on Kickstarter, funding over 200,000 creative projects that otherwise may never have been made. These projects have been remarkably generative, creating an estimated 750,000+ part-time jobs, 80,000 full-time jobs, over 20,000 companies and nonprofits, and $13.5 billion in additional economic impact.
Yet, despite all the impressive numbers, there remains an endless line of talented and creative people waiting for opportunity. Our mission to help bring creative projects to life is a pledge to help unlock this latent potential in people and their ideas. To truly serve that mission, we need to build on what made Kickstarter so innovative in the first place: the power of a large network of people working together towards a common goal.
So, today we’re announcing our commitment to a more open, collaborative, and decentralized future. As a first step, we’re supporting the development of an open source protocol that will essentially create a decentralized version of Kickstarter’s core functionality. This will live on a public blockchain, and be available for collaborators, independent contributors, and even Kickstarter competitors, from all over the world to build upon, connect to, or use. We think bringing all that we’ve learned about crowdfunding since 2009 to inform the development of a decentralized protocol will open up exciting new opportunities for creative projects to come to life. In the coming weeks, a white paper will be released outlining the technology and plans for the protocol.
In the spirit of decentralization, we’re establishing an independent organization that will kick off the development of the protocol. Kickstarter PBC will provide this new independent organization with some funding, appoint an initial board, and commit to being one of the protocol’s earliest clients, meaning Kickstarter.com will be built on top of the protocol. As a user, the Kickstarter experience you’re familiar with will stay the same. You won’t “see” the protocol, but you will benefit from its improvements.
In addition, we're establishing an independent governance lab. Initially, this lab will be committed to overseeing the development of the protocol governance. Along the way it will publish research, share learnings, and generally seek to develop governance resources for the commons through openly engaging with the notoriously challenging problems and critically important goals of good governance. We are entering a significant moment for alternative governance models, and we think there's an important opportunity to advance these efforts using the blockchain. This lab will be led by Camille Canon, co-founder and most recently executive director of Purpose Foundation (US), an organization focused on developing and scaling alternative ownership and governance models.
We’ve chosen Celo, an open source and carbon negative blockchain platform, as the best technology and community on which to build the protocol. We’re inspired by the Celo ecosystem’s thoughtful approach to building the technology they want to see in the world. Like the internet in the early 1990s, the blockchain is a nascent technology whose story is not yet written. Celo’s efforts around minimizing environmental impact (and focus on global accessibility through mobile access to the blockchain), reminds us that the best way to get better systems is to build better systems.
* * *
The world has gotten a lot more complex in just the past couple of decades. From Covid to climate change, from financial crises to genetic engineering, the common thread of contemporary life is complexity. Navigating the levels of complexity we face today requires new systems. In particular, systems that — like those in nature — are more flexible and adaptable to change and unpredictability. Systems of collaboration that harness our connectivity — in new ways — to solve emergent problems.
Blockchain technology is a powerful tool to create and align decentralized and distributed networks of people — in effect, new forms of networked organizations and economies — at scales that only governments and mega-corporations can fathom. This is possible because:
It’s easy to reward participation. Just as the internet changed the world by making it easier to share information, the blockchain is revolutionary in the way it makes it easy to share value.
Composability. A key benefit of open protocols on the blockchain is that as software components, they can be mixed and matched or connected, like Lego bricks, to unlock completely new ideas, tools, and use cases.
Efficient participation in governance. Coordination requires a governance system — the rules and processes for how you propose ideas, make decisions, and resolve conflict. With its technical ability to securely confer voting rights to anyone, Blockchain is on the cusp of becoming one of the biggest R&D labs for governance that the world has ever seen.
* * *
In the coming years, we believe large swaths of the internet will be reconstructed from the ground up by open and decentralized networks of contributors, who participate in the design, operation, governance and even ownership of the technology themselves. We believe that helping build the infrastructure and tools that help bring creative projects to life is an important and exciting way for us to serve our mission.
Perry Chen, Founder and Chair
Aziz Hasan, CEO
SOURCE
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