Kickstarter to Start Blockchain-Based Crowdfunding Project on Celo

Kickstarter is creating a new company to build a crowdfunding platform on the Celo blockchain, the company said in a blog post on Wednesday.

• In order to serve its mission of allowing as many people as possible to pursue their creative projects, Kickstarter said it is developing an open source protocol to create a decentralized version of its platform’s core functionality.
• The protocol will live on the carbon negative blockchain platform Celo and be available for collaborators, contributors and even crowdfunding competitors to build on and use.
• New York-based Kickstarter said it chose Celo because of “its efforts around minimizing environmental impact (and focus on global accessibility through mobile access to the blockchain).”
• Once the protocol is ready, Kickstarter will switch its existing website to the new system.
• The company is also establishing a governance lab led by Camille Canon, co-founder and most recently executive director of Purpose Foundation, to oversee the protocol’s development.
• Bloomberg first reported the story on Wednesday. According to Bloomberg, development of the new protocol will start in the first quarter of 2022, and Kickstarter expects to transition its site to the protocol sometime in 2022.

UPDATE (Dec. 8, 20:26 UTC): Updates with information from Kickstarter, including the choice of Celo as the blockchain platform.