Kickstarter announced intentions to create a decentralized protocol based on Celo, a mobile-centric blockchain, on Thursday. A new open-source and decentralized paradigm, according to the Kickstarter team, would make it “possible for people to begin and support creative projects anywhere.”
Kickstarter can eliminate the need for intermediaries and gatekeepers by using a blockchain like Celo. The company claims that doing so will minimize friction and make fundraising easier for millions of unbanked people around the world.
The Kickstarter community, on the other hand, has reacted angrily to the company’s blockchain aspirations. Kickstarter’s own users, including well-known artists and designers, have chastised the platform for considering a blockchain approach.
A blockchain flip might be a significant growth driver for Kickstarter. However, based on recent events, it’s evident that many of the company’s current users are highly opposed to the proposal. In response to the company’s blockchain plans, disgruntled users vented their frustrations on social media sites such as Twitter and Reddit.
Users’ purported allegations that Kickstarter’s blockchain plan will be harmful to the environment have sparked criticism. Despite the fact that Celo is a Proof-of-Stake blockchain that operates various environmental programs in order to be a “carbon-negative” project, this is the case.
In a tweet, Jeeyon Shim, a Korean American game creator, expressed his disappointment in the relationship between Kickstarter and Celo and urged Kickstarter to reconsider its decision. Shim said that “environmental stewardship” was one of their basic values. Elizabeth Hargrave, another critic of the Kickstarter-Celo alliance, wrote: “Oh hell no. “Blockchain is a nightmare for the environment, and I will never support a board game based on it.”
While environmental worries about Proof-of-Work chains like Bitcoin are legitimate, it’s important to distinguish Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work from Celo’s Proof-of-Stake consensus process, which uses far less energy. Instead of employing energy-intensive computations to validate blocks in Proof-of-Stake, blockchain validators safeguard the network by securing transactions with tokens as a stake.
“Putting the rest of crypto under one umbrella is overgeneralizing,” Brian Li, a core developer to Celo-based applications like as UbeSwap and NomSpace, argues.
Despite these facts, Kickstarter users jumped to judgments quickly. Discord and Ubisoft recently received similar backlash from their respective communities after simply exploring the possibility of incorporating non-fungible tokens into their systems.
Kickstarter has yet to respond to users’ complaints. According to their latest update, Kickstarter intends to release a whitepaper outlining their proposed decentralized crowdfunding platform.