Topic: crowdfunding (Read 546 times)

https://bitcoinstarter.com/ is the other one I am aware of.

I do hope people are going to use these for their appropriate purposes. For a business startup it makes more sense to use an asset exchange (bitfunder.com or btct.co or the like) - I'd love to get a few shares of the next Apple  . But the crowdfunding platforms are great for things where there isn't any expected return on investment, like an art installation or if someone ever figures out what Tesla wanted to do for distributing free power.

OK I stand corrected there is a system out there and its looking good. Only three projects though but that's a start.

Nice that's not quite what I meant but there's a forth crowdfunding option where the donations are invested forming a trust fund that pays part of its interest over time to cover a permanent project like funding someone's kidney dialysis or paying someone's disability pension. It would be created by crowdfunding but needs a lending function, preferably peer to peer with some way to crowdsource collateral asset checks.  The fourth crowd funding mechanism is my own, as yet unimplemented, idea. 

www.coinfunder.com

This is the only one I know of off hand.

Thank you that's useful information. Nice to see I've got the ball rolling.

BTCJam may not be exactly te same as some other site that you are use to but they certianly fit the bill.

NOt all crowdfunding uses the all or nothing approach. Many of the larger platforms let you keep whatever you raise, even if you do not reach the goal (IndieGoGo etc).
Only thing needed would be automatic addresses generated, so you can trace the amount sent back to the backer and extra fields to be sent as description, name and address.

There are cryptographically strong methods of creating escrow contracts on blockchain, they just haven't been fully implemented yet.  Anything that escrows funds at the client level is doomed to fail.

You can't do crowdfunding with bitcoin yet. I noted there's no comments on that so I've started one off.
To do crowd funding you need a pending transaction function. Most cards have it but bitcoin is instant and non reversible so its difficult. You may have a crowd funding vendor that tries it but you have to trust him to escrow the money properly and refund properly on failure to reach quorum.
As Satoshi said bitcoin is about avoiding the need for such trust.

I can see how to fix it by building two escrow systems into some or all wallets for crowd funding and for dominant assurance contracts. The pledge is sent by sending a tiny percent of the promised funds. I.e. 0.1% or so; and storing the rest in a locked file so you can't accidentally spend it. This way your only risking a tiny amount. [The escrow file should also store the two parties, and the completion date of the fund.] these escrow files are never sent anywhere.

When the time is up the system sends you a tiny transaction that flags the three possible states: Project cancelled, Quorum not reached, Quorum reached. Only in the last case does the full amount transferred. If the Assurance contract is a dominant one the contracts creator escrows some bitcoins in the participation benefits file. If the quorum not reached results occur then this bitcoin amount is divided by the number of participants and that quantity of bit coins is sent back. 

Crowdfunding and assurance contracts are going to be very important in the future. You can do most public goods and start many private projects using them. You could also crowdfund the bitcoin mining process after 2040! And you could crowdfund Arbitrators to sought out disputes, detectives to find hackers and lawyers to put the case for liberty.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assurance_contract
and
 http://appliedimpossibilies.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/crowd-funding-government.html