Introducing Geyser: fixing crowdfunding with Bitcoin

5 min readJan 24, 2022

Crowdfunding is a powerful mechanism for enabling innovation and supporting social enterprises. Platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo have spearheaded the internet crowdfunding movement, which has led to the creation of several billion-dollar tech startups like Oculus, and have raised billions of dollars for thousands of causes.

Through these platforms, online communities have been able to join forces and mobilize resources at an unimaginable speed and scale. But only up to a point. Crowdfunding today is dramatically narrowed by its reliance on legacy finance — which limits the vast majority of the world from accessing it and limits its potential.

The crowdfunding revolution that was started on the Internet can now go parabolic with Bitcoin, which can dramatically increase the size of the ‘crowdfunding pie’, and lead to an unimaginable impact on lives all around the globe.

This year we’ve witnessed some successful experiments in Bitcoin crowdfunding. Geyser wants to accelerate this, and thereby bring Bitcoin to the outer reaches of the world.

Crowdfunding is broken

Crowdfunding’s major issue is its reliance on the legacy financial infrastructure, that is not only costly but globally fragmented.

If we look at the major crowdfunding platforms out there today like Gofundme, Indiegogo and Kickstarter, they only operate in roughly 30 countries. And you guessed it, these are only developed economies. The main reason for this is their reliance on payment providers like Stripe, which offer limited reach due to the highly fragmented global payment networks, and an exclusive regulatory financial system.

This also means that the costs of operating crowdfunding in this network are very costly, due to the many mediating third parties involved. Which is why the average crowdfunding platform charges up to 8% fee per successful project. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Another limitation of this reliance on legacy financial infrastructure is that so little can be done with it on the financial rails! Take for example the fact that with current crowdfunding platforms there is a limit of $1 or even $5 per donation. What if, instead, we allowed anyone to fund cents, micro-cents, or nano-cents to incentivize more people — i.e. the ‘crowds’ — to donate?

All these issues point out that current crowdfunding are lacking and limiting the ‘crowds’.

Bitcoin fixes this.

The crowdfunding revolution that was started on the Internet can now go parabolic with Bitcoin — which knows no borders.

Bitcoin can thereby massively increase the size of the ‘crowdfunding pie’, and in so doing unlock access to capital around the world.

And Bitcoin can do it in a way that no other ‘crypto’ can do: because Bitcoin is the most technically and socially scalable money we have.

Not only is it the most rapidly adopted asset in the world, but Lightning makes it possible to utilize Bitcoin as a means of exchange, with near-0 fees, instant settlement, and transactional scalability.

To go further, we see many protocols being built on Bitcoin which will be of great value to a crowdfunding platform in the future.

From ‘hodling’ to ‘giftling’

In the past year, you may have noticed the spawning of crowdfunding projects featuring social and humanitarian projects in emerging economies — most of them supported by the team at BTCPayserver. A popular one that went viral was Bitcoin Smiles, raising over 2 BTC for supporting dental care in El Zonte. Another recently launched project is Kivéclair, a development project that educates people about Bitcoin in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which reached over 70% of its target!

People around the world are looking to the bitcoin community to support their efforts and bitcoin-oriented goals. And in the thousands are responding by supporting these causes, and turning previously impossible dreams into reality.

What all this highlights is the importance and power of ‘bitcoin giving’ — or should we say ‘giftling’ — for planting the seeds of Bitcoin around the world, (after all, the origin story so far shows that bitcoin was ‘gifted’ to the world by Satoshi). Giftling also grounds and connects this global community on common ethics, and helps the community orient resources towards a common goal: bringing about a world of freedom, resilience, peace and prosperity through Bitcoin adoption.

A crowdfunding platform can bring the community together, and make the community act like a decentralized organization.

Hello, Geyser

Inspired by the endless stream of ideas, projects and ‘Bitcoin Beaches’ spawning around the world, we decided to build Geyser. A bitcoin-native crowdfunding platform that allows anyone, anywhere, to start their own crowdfund with ease.

Whether it’s helping a new Bitcoin company take its first steps, support a humanitarian emergency, fight a social cause, we believe Bitcoin to be the best monetary and cultural platform to build on. To do so, we’ve outlined the following design choices to help guide us on the way:

Lightning first: we will operate with the assumption that the majority of mainstream Bitcoin users will be on Lightning.
Non-custodial: ensure project creators to own the keys to their funds (WIP).
Bitcoin design for the newbies: make it as easy as possible to create, fund and track projects — through a seamless user experience.
The crowdfund experience: let’s be clear, crowdfunding is not just opening a ‘tip jar’ for people to fund you. It’s about getting people to join a common vision and goal. It’s about going viral in the community.