As DAOs redefine crowdfunding, Kickstarter is shifting its platform to the blockchain

• Crowdfunding platform Kickstarter is heading to the blockchain, it said in a blog post Wednesday. 
• Kickstarter said even its competitors will be able to use its open-source tools. 
• The move comes amid a rise in decentralized autonomous organizations raising funds for projects. 

Kickstarter, the crowdfunding platform that helped jumpstart Oculus VR and Peloton, is moving to a blockchain, with the change coming alongside the rise of decentralized autonomous organizations, or DAOs, that have raised money to buy everything from the US constitution to an NBA franchise. 

“We are entering a significant moment for alternative governance models, and we think there’s an important opportunity to advance these efforts using the blockchain,” said Perry Chen & Aziz Hasan, Kickstarter’s co-founder and CEO, respectively, in a blog post Wednesday.  Plans for the move were first reported by Bloomberg. 

Kickstarter, which has hosted pledges of more than $6 billion for projects since 2009, will start a separate, yet-to-be-named company to create a crowdfunding system that will run on the Celo blockchain. 

When that’s completed, Kickstarter’s website will move to the new blockchain system. Open-source tools will “be available for collaborators, independent contributors, and even Kickstarter competitors,” wrote Chen and Hasan. 

The $2.4 trillion cryptocurrency market has seen a recent uptick in DAOs raising funds for specific projects. One high-profile example is ConstitutionDAO, a group of people who banded together to bid for one of 13 remaining copies of the US Constitution put up for auction by Sotheby’s last month. 

Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firm a16z has previously said DAOs will have an “enormous impact” on the next phase of the internet known as web3 or the metaverse. 

A DAO “enables online communities to form, pool resources, and coordinate towards common goals – all run trustlessly via code,” Ali Yahya, a crypto general partner at a16z, previously told Insider. That code runs on blockchain technology and enforces the rules that govern the group. It’s also cheaper and faster to set up than an entity such as an LLC, he had said. 

Kickstarter said in the coming weeks, a white paper outlining the technology and plans for the protocol will be released.

The winning bidder of the Sotheby’s auction was Ken Griffin, the founder of Citadel Securities.