Bitcoin and Crowdfunding: An Impossible Love Story?
Preliminaries: How did you two meet?
It could have been due to a fortuity that both Bitcoin and Kikstarter, which is considered the “the largest and dominant crowdfunding site”, were created simultaneously at the beginning of the global financial crisis of 2008. But apart from the timing, both internet-based modes of exchange seem to share certain features, such as the alleged absence of intermediaries besides themselves (Groshoff, 2014: 549) or the supposed empowerment of crowd decision-making. However, although it seems logical that a funding platform that depends on the internet uses a payment method which is specifically designed for online transactions, Kickstarter has hitherto refused to accept Bitcoins as a mode of exchange.
In spite of the similarities that one could find between Bitcoin and Kickstarter at first glance, while the first is a system created and owned by its users, the second is dependent on governments regulations and financial institutions. Besides, Kickstarter is also reliant on a payment processor in order to collect and handle the money transactions. Contrary to what Groshoff asserts, those companies do act as intermediaries, charging a fee to each transaction (3-5%) apart from the steady 5% that the platform gets for each funded project. That makes small donations impossible and makes Kickstarter subject of possible external pressures.
Kickstarter <3 Bitcoin?
Kickstarter has however being used to launch several projects related to Bitcoin. On July 2013, "Life on Bitcoin – a Documentary Film” was successfully funded. The movie featured Austin and Beccy Craig, a newly wedded couple who was intending to only use Bitcoin for living during the first 90 days of their marriage. The project raised $72,995 USD, but it could be argued that the fact that they were using dollars for the development of the film was already contradictory to the intentions of the film.
Four days after "Life on Bitcoin" was funded, Andrew Wong also posted his own Bitcoin project on Kickstarter. “Bitcoin: The Movie” was supposed to be “a documentary on the socio-economic impact of the currency around the world” was suspended with any explanation just two weeks after it was launched. “We were not told what the issues were”, Wong Said, “that’s why we paused all Bitcoin-related activities, trying to figure out what’s going on at this moment”.
According to Kickstarter policy, projects can be suspended if it:
- Violates or acts inconsistently with the letter or spirit of the Kickstarter Guidelines orTerms of Use.
- Materially changes the stated use of funds
- Makes unverifiable claims
- Exhibits actions that are more closely associated with fraudulent or high-risk activity
Until now, nobody has pronounced about the reasons for the project´s removal, and it is still more intriguing given that the platform kept helping Bitcoin-related projects to be found right afterwards.
“Deep Web: The Untold Story of Bitcoin and The Silk Road”, for instance, was successfully founded in December 2013. According to its campaign, the project wanted to analyze the Deep Web, Bitcoin and the Silk Road as “an exploration of a pivotal moment in cultural history”. The project raised $78,700 USD and was released in the US on March 15 2015, getting ratings up to 7,5/10 in Imdb.
In July 2014, “Bitcoin: The End of Money As We Know It” was also funded through Kickstarter. In the campaign it was specified that the film was “intended for the mainstream audience and is scripted in an easy-to-understand language to illustrate how revolutionary this technology can be”.
