Bitcoin Crowdfunding — uncensorable and self-hosted Kickstarter Alternative powered by BTCPay Server
At BTCPay, we love eliminating intermediaries. Our core belief is that everyone deserves the right to have total control over their finances and that trusted third-parties are security holes.
We build open-source tools for self-sovereign individuals and businesses.
Today, we’re introducing a brand-new tool integrated into our self-hosted payment-processor.
Crowdfunding is an application which you can launch from BTCPay Server interface that allows you to create a self-hosted funding campaign, similar to Kickstarter or Indiegogo. Unlike traditional crowdfunding platforms, the creator of the campaign is the owner of the platform. Funds go directly to the creator’s wallet without any fees.
The goal is to extend to use-case of BTCPay and cater content-creators, charities, developers, and entrepreneurs who need funding and take their product, service, content from dream to reality.
The app was developed by Andrew Camilleri. If you want to support the app developer visit his crowdfunding page.
Crowdfunding Features:
- Self-hosted, open-source and free (no fees)
- Non-custodial (P2P Bitcoin and altcoin payments from backers to organizer directly, without the middleman)
- Lightning Network support
- Real-time updates
- Contribution Perks
- Soft cap/Hard cap Goals
- Customizable campaigns (Custom CSS)
- Adjustable goal contribution methods
- Resetting Goal at X Duration
- Animation/sound when payment received
- Progress bar
- Disqus Forum Support
You can easily alter the design of the page to fit your needs. The layout and basic features are quite similar to centralized platforms. Remember, all the money you raise goes directly to you. You’re the bank and your own crowdfunding platform.
At the back-end, it all starts with a simple text editor which can help you tell a perfect story and ends with lots of customizable features.
Campaign Demo
We created a few fun campaigns to showcase how different users can use the platform.
- Product crowdfund demo
- YouTube Content creator Demo
- Developer crowdfund demo
- Charity crowdfund demo
- Voting system demo
Getting Started
Now that you’re hooked let’s create your first campaign. Even if it’s a test, it’ll be fun.
If you already have BTCPay Server installed, you only need to create a new app and customize it — bam.
To quickly test the Crowdfund app
If you don’t have BTCPay yet:
- Go to our demo server (Mainnet or Testnet) or select one of the free hosts
- Register, Create a store and add the public key (xpubkey) from your wallet. (Getting Started instructions)
- Go to Apps > Create New
- Customize your app and publish it.
We recommend that you use our demo server or third-party hosts only for testing purposes. The ultimate self-sovereignty and censorship-resistance come with running your own BTCPay (which includes running your own Lightning and Bitcoin node). You can launch a self-hosted BTCPay in under 2 minutes. Check deployment docs. If you’re tech-savvy, you can host the server on your own hardware.
Check out our other apps (payment button and Bitcoin PoS). If you’re in need of a Patreon alternative, take a look at Librepatron, a self-hosted alternative which has BTCPay integrated.
Summary
We hope you enjoyed the quick showcase of the crowdfunding app. If you have any questions, feel free to join our growing community on Slack or Telegram. We have extensive documentation where you can learn more about BTCPay and why it matters. We’re an open-source project and if you’re a developer check us on GitHub.
Made your first campaign? Please share it with us on Twitter.
Thanks for reading!
