Crowdfunding platform Kickstarter planning move to blockchain. How will it work? Your guess is as good as ours

In an appropriately nebulous blog post, Kickstarter, the non-profit crowdfunding site, has announced it will move to a decentralised model via the dreaded blockchain. Some online reaction to the announcement was justifiably bemused, with some comparing it to "word salad." It contains little solid technical content – so, fairly …

[trevorde]

Kickstarter Non-Starter

They're missing AI, ML, VR and quantum computing, so immediate loss of credibility and it's a hard pass from me

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Kickstarter Non-Starter

" 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'

'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ "

[Anonymous Coward]

Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall...

and all the king's hackers, and all the king's men couldn't put the blockchain together again...

[ShadowSystems]

Re: Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall...

LDS, they just needed a better shell script. =-D

[Chris G]

Re: Kickstarter Non-Starter

"They're missing AI, ML, VR and quantum computing"

Perhaps they need some kind of fundraising ploy so that they can create an agile system to incorporate all of the above without disrupting their core operation.

[katrinab]

Re: Kickstarter Non-Starter

And clouds. Don’t forget clouds.

[breakfast]

A bit of a mess

If blockchain was so good, you would think that companies would be using it already (the technology is far from new) without making a big song and dance about the whole thing.

But if they are using it for publicity, why is everyone I follow on Twitter who has previously kickstarted things saying they want nothing to do with this disaster? It's really hard on creators who have benefitted from Kickstarter's market lead and marketing power to make successful projects in the past and now find they have to choose between stepping away or working with the kind of company who does... this.

[ecofeco]

Lol wut?

So from bad to worse, eh?

[Pascal Monett]

"The public benefit corporation"

Okay, I went and viewed the link. It's a nice fuzzy way of calling Kickstarter a company.

Only in the USA can you have a company not called a company.

Public Benefit means shareholders and for-profit. There is no "public benefit" to be found over other companies like IBM, Intel or Walgreens.

Honestly, this tip-toeing around the bush in a strongly pro-capitalist country is shameful.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Faster horses"

I am always reminded of what Henry Ford said his customers would have asked for if he'd left it up to them.

No idea what exactly Kickstarter are doing, but folk need to remember (and that *is* a not so subtle note that "folk" is a very small number of people who have an opinion on blockchain) that blockchain is a fully specified state machine - in effect a computer in it's own right.

My guess is that Kickstarter will be creating smart contracts linked to the performance of a project. With the possibility to sell/transact a contract as a derivative or futures asset.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: "Faster horses"

"creating smart contracts "

What's a "smart" contract? How is that different to normal contracts?

[katrinab]

Re: "Faster horses"

A smart contract is another word for a computer program.

[Bevendi]

Re: "Faster horses"

Imagine if computer code was legally binding, including any bugs and exploits. That's what smart contracts are.

[Ian 55]

Re: "Faster horses"

Until the big boys lose money, in which case it's "We think we better think about it again" and they do a fork back to the old position.

See Ethereum and the DAO.

[brotherelf]

Re: "Faster horses"

This. With all the many many flaws you can point out about the judicial system of many many countries, they mostly in their intent want to do better than "liberty and justice for whoever has 51% of processing power".

[Deanamore]

Carbon fibre nanotubes

I hope their move to blockchain is done in a sufficiently innovative and market disrupting manner facilitated by quantum machine learning algorithms running in the hybrid cloud, controlled by ethically sourced and GM free AI, powered by carbon fibre nanotubes and operating out of a CO2 neutral datacenter.

[Jimmy2Cows]

Re: GM free AI

Don't forget vegan. Any respectable AI these days is vegan.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: GM free AI

and dolphin friendly too. Never forget the cute smiling dolphins. They are our ticket out of here when the world goes titsup.

[DS999]

Re: Carbon fibre nanotubes

What, no 5G or IoT? You don't want them to be left behind in the stone age do you? DO YOU?

[Winkypop]

Quantum quantum quantum

There’s supposed to be a huge quantum!

[Jimmy2Cows]

Re: huge quantum

Simultaneously both huge and tiny, and all sizes in between.

[Chris G]

Re: huge quantum

But, if you know how big it is, you won't know where it is.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: huge quantum

Size doesn't matter...

[BackToTheFuture]

BlockBrain

What, no agile symmetry? Guess you can only milk a dead cow once.

[Ian Johnston]

What is the point in decentralising something run by a single organisation? Are they saying that they don't know how to run a database or that they do know how to run a database but can't be trusted to do so? 'Cos it's one or the other.

[Securitymoose]

Just get out all your money in cash...

...and leave it behind the third washbasin along at Kings Cross Station.

I can see this as the very end of Kickstarter.