Kelly Robertson
Crowdfunding has been with us for quite some time now, helping artists find supporters, and product makers sell their stuff even before they were; big companies have also experimented with the concept, using it to test out new products before committing big resources for mass production.
The market for crowdfunding product development is dominated by Kickstarter and Indiegogo, with specialty sites like Patreon and Gofundme serving other kinds of customers (not necessarily entrepreneurs).
Now, we have a decentralized project coming to challenge the market leaders. Called Acorn, it is based on the Ethereum blockchain, seeking to create an open, global community and marketplace for crowdfunding. That “open and global” part is especially emphasized, as Acorn will let just about anyone participate in its marketplace, as opposed to certain limitations that are put in place on centralized platforms like those mentioned above.
How Acorn works?
As noted, Acorn works — actually it will work once it’s alive — on the Ethereum blockchain, which in turn lets it run smart contracts. And that’s its key selling point, to automate the entire process and use cryptocurrencies for payments in a move that would let the service and its users overcome geographic, political and economic borders and barriers.
The project will have its own cryptocurrency, marked as OAK, featuring extremely low fees — as opposed to “the traditional three to five percent transaction fees and five percent platforms fees normally associated with other crowdfunding platforms,” as the Acorn white paper has put it.
The service will have a few components: the Acorn Hub which will be used to facilitate crowdfunding services (crowdfunding infrastructure), and the Acorn marketplace for post funding product sales. Also, there would other services not directly related to the online experience, including marketing support and POS payments app to allow OAK transactions via smartphone.
The Acorn ICO pre-sale is now under way and will last through February 19th. If you ever wanted to crowdfund some project, now could be your chance to do so.
But before you push the button, you should know that existing crowdfunding service providers are not sitting on their laurels…
Indiegogo offers ICO services
Indiegogo is now letting companies use its platform to conduct ICOs. The crowdfunding giant has introduced this option after having a positive experience with its Equity Crowdfunding service that has helped some 30 companies raise more than $7.5M from 1100+ investors globally. Extension to the ICO market seems like a logical next step.
For the ICO gig, Indiegogo has teamed-up with MicroVentures to offer a platform that includes what they think are three key elements of a successful (ICO) service: accessibility, compliance, and curation.
Meanwhile, Kickstarter said it is not interested in ICOs…
