PICISI: Crowdfunding Evolution

Crowdfunding is the practice of collecting small contributions, typically via an online platform, from a large group of people wanting to fund a popular idea or project.

According to A Brief History of Crowdfunding, written by David M. Freedman and Matthew R. Nutting, crowdfunding was first popularised in 2003 by Brian Camelio. Camelio, a Boston based musician and computer programmer launched ArtistShare, where musicians could raise funds from their fans.

The first ArtistShare project, Maria Schneider’s jazz album “Concert in a Garden,” was a huge success. Schneider’s campaign raised over $130,000, which funded the production of her album, studio space and paying musicians. In 2005 the album won a Grammy Award for best large jazz ensemble.

"Unlike other companies we build the model around the artist while providing the best fan support in the industry.  ArtistShare projects have received countless awards and accolades including 9 Grammy awards and 18 Grammy nominations."
— – ArtistShare

Indiegogo followed ArtistShare, entering the crowdfund space in 2008, and Kickstarter followed shortly after, in 2009. With a variety of cryptocurrencies now available, further tailoring to niche markets is attracting interest.

The cryptocurrency industry has seen a variety of different crowdfunding platforms, each with their own flavour. Swarm hit the ground running with their first project, Bitcoin: The Hunt for Satoshi Nakamoto. The project made waves in the crypto community, and was a great success. The team behind the comic asked for 40BTC, and raised 64BTC.

PICISI are looking forward to similar successes for their campaigns. Their platform is based on the motto "Promotion, promotion, promotion." PICISI is designed to promote their site, sponsors, campaigns, and currency, and most of their promotion will be done by Promotion Contractors.

The Promotion Contractors are self-employed individuals or entities who complete PICISI assignments to earn Pi, also known as NUMUS, the native currency of PICISI. “The more people know about PICISI the more contractors, sponsors, campaigns, and donors we will have,” said the PICISI team in our interview.

Pi was created on NXT’s Monetary System, which allows users to launch new currencies, securing them with the Nxt blockchain. Using the second-generation cryptocurrency’s established network provides developers with the time to spend on their own projects, rather than requiring developers create a coin from scratch and bootstrap it with its own network.

“Pi was created for a very specific purpose, to be used for the business operations of PICISI.  It will allow us to operate more smoothly particularly during times of capital demand (start-up, and operational licenses) and it will allow us to pay for assignments, all while branding PICISI.”
— – PICISI

A recent company announcement described how Pi will drive the PICISI platform in four key ways: It will act as a fundraising vehicle, a means to buy promotion services internationally, a cryptocurrency option for organizers, and be a cryptocurrency option for purchasing sponsorship packages.

PICISI explained that Sponsors are a key area of difference with the new platform, when compared to other crowdfunding examples. “Our sponsors are not simply advertisers, many of them will work to promote various campaigns in addition to providing the campaign with funding because they believe in the project and realize that campaign success is very good for their [cryptocurrency].”

The PICISI team initially had a goal of acquiring 20 sponsors, and already have 23 onboard. “It started from those who were closest to us, specifically the pool of sponsors involved with the Havekes project (EMC2, HYPER, and others), from there it grew to those who understand our vision and/or supported our message.”

HYPER is a gaming digital currency which allows players to earn crypto through popular games such as CounterStrike. HYPER recently announced their acquirement of GoldPieces and their Sponsorship of PICISI. “Both HYPER and GoldPieces are proud to be official sponsors of this project. After launch, anyone will be able to crowdfund to raise funds to develop HYPER and GP supported games,” said a Hyper press release.

PICISI management will approve campaigns which could be matched to at least 3 sponsors. From these sponsors the campaign can select a host currency.

“When HYPER or GoldPieces is the host currency, all other digital currencies will be converted into HYPER and GP; potentially raising the exchange rate as well as expanding the HYPER and GP ecosystems and community.”
— – Hyper

According to PICISI the platform fees for fiat will be very competitive, and lower than traditional platforms. Indiegogo charges a 9.0% fee on the funds raised by a campaign, if the goal is reached,  5.0% is returned to the campaign, for an overall fee of 4.0%.

PICISI will convert all their collected fiat fees and use the funds to buy Pi at public exchanges. “If we have an exchange sponsor we will buy Pi exclusively at that exchange,” said the PICISI team. “We will do what we can to make Pi very strong.”

PICISI will not restrict their campaigns, and may employ the assistance of other crowdfunding platforms. “Community allows for thoughtful consideration of major issues, they tend to make better decisions which is why larger groups are often sought when making critical decision (jury, supreme court, board of directors, etc …) ,  and community allows for combining of resources for the betterment of the community,” said PICISI