The Lighthouse bitcoin-powered crowdfunding app has launched, allowing those who like to pay in the virtual currency to fund campaigns without paying cash.
Initiatives listed on the site include charity fundraising and bitcoin development projects, but the company doesn’t want to limit its user base to just those who know about the bitcoin currency.
Lighthouse developer Mike Hearn said: “I think its perfectly usable for people who are comfortable with bitcoin, but aren’t developers or are tech-savvy. You could crowdfund, you know, me and my friends go to a concert and we’ve got to ‘group buy’ concert tickets, or group buy a laser tag day or something.”
“It’s not a tool that I want or intend for only bitcoin developers to use, even though that may be where it starts.”
To use the platform, users will need to set up their wallet and deposit bitcoins. They can then browse projects, download the file from the website and upload it to their wallet, where they’ll see details about the initiative. They can also decide how much to pledge at that point and get involved with the community around that project.
Creating a project is simple too, with a predefined template. You can set the total funding target and the minimum pledge, plus add a picture, set the title and a description for your campaign.
Hearn told CoinDesk: “Lighthouse is really only about moving money around, and I think this is going to be one of the things that people find confusing about it. It’s not Kickstarter in a downloadable app that’s peer to peer to peer. It’s the way of handling bitcoins.”
Although he doesn’t think people wil flock to using the platform becausethe bitcoin community is pretty niche, he thinks what is attractive is there aren’t the huge fees associated with funding a campaign as there is with a traditional Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign.
