What is GiveStation?
GiveStation is a multichain decentralized crowdfunding protocol that enables founders, teams and organizations to raise funds in cryptocurrencies while rewarding the donors for contributing.
Problem?
The main driving factor for the success of crowdfunding was the ability to raise funds by just making some short description of what you want to raise funds for and then submit it on platforms like Kickstarter, GoFundme, etc.
However, later it turned out that this model was polluted and centralized crowdfunding platform does little or no background checks and follow-up on the projects.
The crowdfunding community is too centralized and while the donors are being screwed for donating and trusting a project/idea, they end up not seeing the impact of their contributions.
There is almost no room from transparency by default. This a huge challenge for every of the traditional crowdfunding ecosystem, and that is what we are here to fix.
Lesson learned:
We have learnt that web3 is the tool needed to solve this problem once an for all.
Donors should be empowered by recurring incentives for the value they create according to the level of impact.
Donors are the backbone of every crowdfunding system
Most teams are not going to raise a dime without them.
Solution
Our mission is to instill transparency, reward and protect the donors while making sure that the funds allocated to this founders and teams are used in the right way without relying on the same old centralized entities.
Incentivization
To encourage donors to participate in funding projects and to also experience a better community while contributing to the GiveStation’s ecosystem, we have put together a reward mechanism.
To paint a better scenario - At the end of each funding round, donors will receive GIVS token as additional rewards for donating their resources. These rewards may be regarded as “thank you for donating”. The system becomes fully valuable and useful for its two way reward method - the project owner getting donations while the donor gets rewarded for donating.
The main goal of this is to serve as a crowdfunding platform that has a solid potential to be successful in the emerging web3 fundraising space. To illustrate the said potential, we target an increase in the proportion of traffic of users who are ready to change the world to double in size. The numerical results of this mechanism is to demonstrate that a web3-incentivized fundraising built by a decentralized community is far better than the traditional system and it’s coming with a temporary fix.
Governance and Decentralization
Clearly, web3 is an evolving technology and blockchain governance makes sure that everything works seamlessly and that is what our system relies on. On GiveStation, the community governing system which most of its missions and goals are largely influenced by votes and users are granted flexibility and control not otherwise seen with traditional crowdfunding models.
If donors matters a lot in the crowdfunding system then introducing a transparent way to raise fund is the best way to raise funds and this it will not only protect the donors, it also creates an atmosphere of trust where the donors know where his/her donations go to and how its being used.
As it seems at the moment, a DAO for the crowdfunding ecosystem is going to prevail even though it requires some great amount of hardwork and dedication.
Overview
How GiveStation works
GiveStation’s rationale is encoded into smart contracts and other web3 innovations and that is why it requires next to no confide in any individual or communites to function.
List an idea - A team, project owners, communities, organizations, etc has this great idea they believe will change the world but they need funds to bring this idea to real life. One common way to do that is through listing thier projects on our crowdfunding protocol.
How we verify projects - GiveStation is fully decentralized which means anyone can post their idea/project any day, anytime. However, before the end of the each round, you are required to submit your KYC as this is used to verify who you are and to also prevent fraudulent activities from those that may want to use the platform to raise funds only to abscond with the contributions.
Before the end of every round, our carefully selected GIVEagents from the GiveDAO which serve as “officers” will do some thorough background checks on all this projects and their team(s).
This is done to protect the donors. If we suspect any foul activities going on with the project, it will be flagged, removed from the platform, stripped of their raised funds and further actions will be determined by the governance team.
Who can raise funds on GiveStation - GiveStation is accessible to everybody as long as you have a great idea. Regardless of your country, tribe, race, etc.
Progress
In Decemeber 2021, GiveStation launched the beta version of the crowdfunding protocol on Ethereum mainnet and Polygon.
While we were at this stage, we saw what bringing the protocol to other chain could mean for the crowdfunding ecosystem and what the subsequent version will look like including features like:
D aily GIVS rewards (For donors)
GiveDAO (Giveagents) Governance
Give Virtual Hackathon
Some of this these features will be updated while some will be launched together with the new version.
Differentiation
The platform is not limited to developers and web programmers alone as we have made the platform available for everybody as long as they need funds to bring their ideas into reality.
Any user can visit the platform, pick any idea or project they believe in, contribute directly to this life changing projects and in doing so, they get rewarded in GIVS token.
Ask
10,000 DAI & your help
Funds
In the Gitcoin round 12 and 13, GiveStation was able to raise $6,000 and $33 respectively inclusion funds from the team’s pocket.
The requested funds will serve as a bridge to launch the new, ready-for-prime-time version of GiveStation. Expenses include:
Design and branding .
Governance, airdrop, staking, liquidity and mining contracts .
Compensation to contributors
No part of these funds will be held by the team. It will be spent promptly to draw the protocol nearer to delivery.
Team
Olusegun Micheal - CEO/Founder (https://twitter.com/mikkithegenii, kowskicoder (Micheal Onaolapo) · GitHub)
Tobin Jude - co-founder - (https://twitter.com/CryptoJude01)
Ankit Bagre - CTO - (https://www.linkedin.com/in/rrg-software-7672b0189/, rrgsindore (Ankit) · GitHub)
Malek sehboub - Head of marketing- (https://twitter.com/cryptomantrade, Malek Sehboub - Chief Executive Officer & Founder - Dtechport | LinkedIn)
Conclusion
GiveStation’s mid to long-term vision is to become the go-to platform for turning dreams into reality.
Leveraging on the swift and scaled Polygon network, we see the future of decentralized crowdfunding being the major factor that will bring the change the world needs, backed and governed by the community .
We are building our infrastructure to backbone the vast, prosperous economy of fundraising, Our journey is just beginning. Join us.
Visit givestation.org to use the protocol.
Stay tuned in on our updates in the Twitter, Telegram group , github