PLEDGECAMP: CROWDFUNDING INTEGRATED WITH BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY

INTRODUCTION.

The business sector started evolving and Entrepreneurs came into the space, as an entrepreneur you're automatically the boss as the business or business idea is created by you but most time these bright entrepreneurs don't always have the funds to start up the business/project themselves and thus turn to banks for loans and loans for such a case is highly risky as the business have a 50/50 chance of succeeding/failing and because of such risks these entrepreneurs turn to potential investors who will already know the involved risks to fund their business idea/project make it come true and both parties will benefit financially from it.
The process of getting these potential investors have been made very easy for entrepreneurs with the inception of the internet through a process known as Crowdfunding.

Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project, venture or a prospective business idea by raising money from a large number of people who each contribute a relatively small amount, typically via the Internet. For instance, musicians, filmmakers, and artists have successfully raised funds and fostered awareness through crowdfunding.

Crowdfunding did spice up and as well as boost up the business and finance sector as both the entrepreneur and investor make great amount of profit, it has particularly been seen that companies, organizations, firms and even individuals that participated in crowdfunding generated revenues amount in billions and as well favored the community as charity donations were made and it also created employments for the masses.

Examples of successful Crowdfunding projects are;
• Oculus Virtual Reality Headset.
• Pebble Wearable Devices.
• SkyBell Video Doorbell
• Tile App Locator for Missing Stuff
• Bragi Wireless Headphones.

For instance, Pebble was able to raise over $10 million from nearly 69,000 backers on Kickstarter, smashing its $100,000 goal early on the first day of the campaign. The company has gone on to generate sustained success from this initial product launch, creating numerous wearables that quickened the current trend toward Internet of Things (IoT) connected devices. This is a unique technological advancement as well as others above and it did contribute to the tech space.

However, with the advantages offered by crowdfunding not many projects initiated by every bright entrepreneur sees the light of the day not all becomes successful few actually fail due to low funds but most does not even thrive because of the risk of trust associated with crowdfunding, in crowdfunding both parties (entrepreneurs and investors) do not have a physical meeting all introductions and meeting are done online as well as even funding the project and as such the trust issue of both parties are doubted and in most cases fraud comes into the situation and because of this issues associated with crowdfunding it is fairly used as a fundraising method and most of these bright entrepreneurs die with their awesome business ideas.

Problems Preventing The Success Of Crowdfunding.

TRUST: This is the major reason as to why crowdfunding keeps failing, there is no assurance of investor funds unlike loans whereby if the borrower is unable to pay within the stipulated time the bank will collect collateral worth the amount that the borrower should return, loans are tied tied to a secure asset but in crowdfunding investor’s funds are not even tied to a string of asset. With trust issues still floating around, crowdfunding will never succeed unless it is completely dealt with.
TRANSAPARENCY: This is another issue dragging back the success of Crowdfunding. The investors that risk their funds for these projects do not really have an in depth knowledge of what the project is all about and this is from the side of the entrepreneur they do not give these investors tangible reasons on why they should invest in their business ideas all they are interested in is to get funded and earn massive profits. If this problem isn’t completely dealt with, crowdfunding will end as the cannot be relied on and who will provide funds to a non-reliable entrepreneur.

With the problems outlined above crowdfunding even with the advantages it brings to the finance and business sector will soon become a thing of the past as it will completely crash and wipe off the face of the business world, to save it a team of genius long-term entrepreneurs, experts and professionals in the business and blockchain space came together and created a solution known as PLEDGECAMP.

WHAT IS PLEDGECAMP?

Pledgecamp is a decentralized, blockchain based crowdfunding platform created to eradicate all of the problems challenging the traditional crowdfunding system.

WHY THE BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY?

In this modern time you can agree with me that the application of the Blockchain technology to any industry, businesses and ecosystem always give off magnificent results and this is as a result of its unending benefits it is best in terms of integrating it with any business models and also the best financial tool. The blockchain technology offers benefits such as;
• Decentralization
• Transparency
• Security and,
• Fast transaction speed.
With Pledgecamp being integrated with the unique benefits of the blockchain technology crowdfunding will experience an amazing revolution as it will share all of the benefits outlined above making Pledgecamp the best crowdfunding platform in the universe.

ADVANTAGES OF PLEDGECAMP.

• Guaranteed Transparency: In traditional crowdfunding, transparency is often a huge problem as the investors do not see but are often told where their money goes into and as you know “seeing is believing”. With Pledgecamp this issue is completely eradicated as it guarantees transparency to every participant/investors of that project and this is because of its integration with the blockchain technology, this will give the investors the complete ability to see where their funds go to and be certain that is being put into good use.

• Decentralization: The world including every ecosystem, asides the blockchain technology, is centralized which is a huge disadvantage to the masses as centralization only favors few people. Now, the blockchain technology is a decentralized tool and with its integration with Pledgecamp, Pledgecamp also shares the decentralization benefit too and unlike centralized ecosystem that favors just the few, decentralization favors everyone alike and thus the beginning of a decentralized crowdfunding ecosystem will arise.

• Security Is Guaranteed: Herein, the major issue that threatens the success of crowdfunding is completely wiped off and yes, all thanks to the unique blockchain technology which makes it possible. With the implementation of Pledgecamp, investors no longer need to fear that their funds are being misused and this is the first time that investors are kept at heart and all thanks to Pledgecamp. Investors will be able to flow with the entrepreneur on how the funding are being used on the growth of the business venture/project and for this step by step process to be possible, entrepreneurs will not get funded for the projects all at once instead it will be funded step by step, when a new project target is to be met it gets funded and gets pursued in such manner and the investors will also see how the funds are being spent and makes sure they are well spent. With this process, the entrepreneurs are ensured of doing the right thing and investors will get convenient when releasing funds for the project as they too can monitor progress of the project.

BACKER INSURANCE

This is a security feature unique to Pledgecamp that enforces accountability by empowering backers to monitor the usage of their contributions. A smart contract holds a percentage of campaign funds in escrow, which is released to the entrepreneur as project targets are met. These targets are defined before funds are raised so that the expectations between creators and backers are transparent from the start.

PLEDGECAMP ECOSYSTEM.

The Pledgecamp ecosystem is made up of;

MARKET NETWORK: This is a decentralized marketplace for services where entrepreneurs can hire professionals to work on their projects. The use of the Market Network will provide remarkable benefits to both entrepreneurs and investors concerning trust and payments.
KNOWLEDGE CENTRE: This is a forum and database designed by Pledgecamp which offers crowdfunding knowledge and because the team at Pledgecamp understands the importance of information created this knowledge centre because great access to information is the beginning of success. This knowledge centre will catalogue the expertise of the crowd especially as it pertains to entrepreneurship, product development, and crowdfunding.

TOKENOMY.

Pledgecamp introduces a two token economy system that encourages trust and long-term staking and these tokens are PLEDGE COIN (PG) and CAMP SHARE (CS).

PLEDGE COIN (PG): This is an ERC20 token on the public Ethereum blockchain that enables key features of the platform and are used for;
• Payment
• Security
• Reward and
• Staking.

CAMP SHARE (CS): This a non-exchange token that allows users to achieve Moderator status and earn compensation from the listing fees collected by the platform. Staking PLG to acquire CS acts as a “sink”, a term described by Vitalik Buterin above, by effectively reducing the circulating PLG supply as demand for CS increases.