Crowdfunding has its own difficulties. After raising millions of dollars, many large projects either flopped, never kept their promises, or completely disappeared. As a result, a huge number of people lost their money along with their belief in crowdfunding. As many as 80-90% of crowdfunded projects never deliver their product.
The main problem in crowdfunding is that backers are completely unprotected and there are no guarantees that they will not lose their money. Problems that campaign creators have to deal with are equally challenging. Launching a Kickstarter campaign requires a resident to be present in one of the countries of official work, and there is also a lot of paperwork to fill out. As a result, many creators have no access to large crowdfunding platforms, limiting their fundraising opportunities, and narrowing the reach and diversity of the platforms.Crowdfunding is now dominated by astroturfing campaigns run by large, well-funded companies, rather than indie developers. This inversion of the intended purpose of crowdfunding happened for financial as well as legal reasons. The hidden costs associated with running a crowdfunding campaign are not commonly recognized:
5% fee to the platform
3-5% for payment processing
Costs of rewards for backers
Fee to a platform residence based intermediary (if the project is not based in the country where the fundraising platform operates)
Professional PR services to promote the campaign
Taxes on funds raised
In the end, creators are only left with 60-80% of the funds raised. This is one reason so many crowdfunded projects fail to deliver on their promises; there is not enough money left over after paying the expenses of the campaign. Some crowdfunding campaigns even end up costing the creator more than they raise.
Solution: KICKICO
KICKICO's Platform is an online blockchain technology-based crowdfunding platform which provides its Users (project authors, backers, advisers, escrow-agents, translators, designers, advertisers) with online fundraising tools that operate through decentralized blockchain technology and smart contracts.
These tools provide opportunities to:
launch ICOs, pre-ICOs, and crowdfunding campaigns
provide various support services related to the launching of ICOs, pre-ICOs, and crowdfunding campaigns
ensure the safety of PreICOs, ICOs and other crowfunding campaigns, using KickCoin cryptocurrency for internal payments
Versatility
The KICKICO platform supports three kinds of fundraising campaigns: ICO, crowdinvesting, and crowdfunding. No other platform can boast the same flexibility and freedom of choice. In the case of pre-ICO and ICO, when backers buy tokens, they always receive the unique currency created by the KICKICO platform itself - KickCoins.
Therefore, when they support pre-ICO, ICO, or crowdinvesting campaigns, backers receive two currencies at once, which gives them a double benefit, and when they support crowdfunding campaigns, they receive KickCoins, insuring them against the failure of the project.
Financial Benefits
Unlike other platforms that charge a 5-10% commission fee for placement, not to mention another 5% given to the payment system and 10-30% paid by creators as fiat money taxes, funds on KICKICO are transferred to campaign creators practically in their entirety in the form of cryptocurrency. The platform charges 4% for ICO campaigns and 4% for crowdfunding campaigns. This fee is taken when the project has successfully finished fundraising. In the case of ICO campaigns that mint new tokens for backers, KICKICO additionally takes 4% of the tokens or cryptocurrency produced by that campaign. This fee is transferred to the KickICO reserve fund (see Fund section below).
Comparison of various commissions and rates to attract backers from all over the world (including bank account fees)
All other funds are immediately transferred to a campaign creator who decides where, how, and on what terms their taxes will be paid. Therefore, many creators of crowdfunding campaigns launched on KICKICO pay only 4% fees in ETH as compared to a minimum of 15%-40% if they are launched on first-generation crowdfunding platforms.
KickCoins
KickCoin digital token is a virtual currency, which is designed to be used by project authors for mutual settlements inside KIСKIСO to pay for the launch of their crowdfunding projects, to purchase services for crowdfunding projects, and for other internal processes and payments within the infrastructure of the KICKICO and KICKONOMY. KickCoin is a cryptocurrency awarded to backers who support preICO, ICO, or crowdfunding campaigns.
KickCoins are generated by the smart contract automatically when backers support campaigns that are launched on the platform. Therefore, KickCoins are never 'made out of thin air' but are always backed by other currencies, as well as by campaigns successfully completed on the platform. Additionally, KickCoins will never be in excessive surplus. They are always backed not only by other currencies but by campaigns themselves, and only by those that were successfully completed on the platform.
The only exception is the initial pre-generation of KickCoins. A total of 800 million KickCoins have been generated, including 30 million to conduct preICO, and 600 million to conduct ICO. 10% of total KickCoins supply will be generated and shared between the founders of KICKICO, and the rest have been generated for advisory, lottery, bounty, seed backers and PR pools. KickCoins are not mined by users or any other companies.
KickCoin Emission
For ICO campaigns, the platform fee will be 4% of collected ETH, and 4% of the campaign's tokens. In return, we provide from 4 to 8% of the KickCoins (in effect, selling our KickCoins to the campaign creator in exchange for the fee). Those KickCoins will be given to backers, together with the campaign tokens.
For crowdfunding campaigns, we give backers from 4% to 20% of the value of their contribution as KickCoins, depending on their reputation on the site (Karma scores). This rate is being taken from exchanges, but will never be less than 0.0005 ETH per KickCoin.
This system ensures that in both ICOs and crowdfunding campaigns, the backer gets cryptocurrency for their contribution. We have two requirements for creators of crowdfunding campaigns that want us to provide KickCoins to their campaigns:
They must provide us with a photo ID, and proof of address in the form of a utility bill or bank statement (as when verifying with a payment system), so we'll know they are real and who they are;
An ICO campaign must raise at least $50,000. Smaller campaigns are too risky, because they may become targets for a recursion attack, in which someone creates a campaign, pays his own money (through dummy backer accounts), receiving his own money, AND our KickCoins.
For crowdfunding campaigns with the goal less than $50,000, KC will be generated in accordance to their funding fees, i.e. 4%.
Fund
KICKICO charges a fee from successfully completed campaigns in two versions: 4% in ETH and 4% of the project tokens which were emitted by it (in cases where the project issues their own tokens). 4% of the fees go to ensuring the maintenance and development of the platform, and 4% of the tokens will automatically be sent to the KICKONOMY reserve fund .
As the platform develops, more and more tokens of third-party projects will accumulate in the fund. By 2019, we project that there will be at least five hundred different tokens in the reserve fund. In the event, even if only 10% of these tokens show multiple growth, the value of the reserve fund will increase many times, and with it the value of KC.
In the future, we plan to register a non-profit foundation as a separate entity. This will be feasible when all necessary regulatory approvals are clarified, primarily the SEC and MAS. After that, the fund will be officially registered as a separate legal entity (fund), and management will be decentralized and transferred to the community, which annually elects its representatives - delegates.
Delegates will receive the right to manage the fund: transfer of "garbage" tokens into the reserve fund, improvement and strengthening of the fund's portfolio, and other organizational functions. Management will be carried out by voting, with a 51% consensus among the voters.
KICKONOMY
This term defines the ecosystem of projects that accept KickCoins. If a project launched on the platform has the KICKONOMY banner, it means that after its release it will accept KickCoins for payment. Thus, the more campaigns involved in KICKONOMY, the more liquid and popular KickCoins become.
Economic platform system
KICKICO is a platform on which users will be able to launch fundraising for their ICO, crowdfunding or crowdinvesting projects. Users can also ontribute in ICOs, preICO campaigns, or support crowdfunding. Fundraising is carried out in Ethereum (ETH), so both authors and those who contribute in their campaigns (further backers) can be from anywhere in the world.
KICKONOMY ideology
It is important that the relationship between authors, backers and the community be mutually beneficial and strong. KICKICO expands the framework of the platform, creating a transparent ecosystem to unite the community, backers and projects. Long before the launch of the platform, we created the principles for organizing the relationships between all participants of KICKONOMY.
The balanced and limited issue of KickCoins is tied to campaigns successfully being completed on the platform. The KickCoin = ETH starting rate for emissions after the release of the platform will be fixed at the level of 1 KickCoin=0.0005 ETH, which forms the value of the token in the eyes of the backers participating in the campaigns. However, with the growth of the exchange rate, the emission rate will be adjusted for the market, so the emission rate on the platform won’t reduce the market value of KC.
We are organizing rules of circulation that stimulate demand, thanks to unique goods, services and privileges for users, minus the limited emission.
Business - KICKONOMY open environment, and KickCoin free currency, any business can easily use KickCoin as a means of payment within the platform, and attract a new, loyal, solvent audience to their projects
KickCoin is the fuel of KICKONOMY, a freely circulating cryptocurrency, and a convenient payment instrument
Community - backers, activists, consumers of project services.
Projects are already functioning businesses or projects that are at the launch stage who are in the process of crowdfunding or crowdinvesting campaigns;
Marketplace is an internal platform service that combines products and services for projects, including unique ones. Allows projects to receive an influx of a new loyal audience and funds, which increases the liquidity of KickCoin
Services - KICKICO plans to create a self-regulating KickCoin community reward system for useful activities such as translations, surveys, localization and promotion, by giving project authors a convenient tool to attract community
Exchange is a tool that supports the liquidity of KickCoin and the liquidity of the project's tokens
Fund, as a separate entity, governed by the community
An important key to encouraging participation in a community, currency or an economy with a free market is a fair accounting system that fully reflects the contribution of each participant. The given decision will allow the organization of an effective decentralized, self-regulating environment, by means of a system of motivation, ratings, and voting by participants.
The ability of each member of the community to participate through voting, along with the ability to extract dividends as a result of the operation of the nodes, will create an additional incentive to possess KC, and will additionally support the platform.
The rating system on the platform will allow users to get additional motivation for the development of the platform, as well as its separate services: this thesis has been well tested on the Steem platform. The KICKICO team develops its own system of degrees of popularity and numerical evaluation of user activity based on existing experience, but using its own unique algorithms.
The reputational system allows minimal effort to correct with the necessary precision the actions of each of the participants in the system, as well as of individual groups and even the entire community as a whole, which, of course, positively affects the evolution of all components of the environment.
The visualization of KICKONOMY
Platform Earnings
KICKICO platform will take 4% commission from crowdfunding campaigns from all received ETH. The commission is transferred to the KICKICO account after successful completion of the fundraising. This comission goes to ensuring the maintenance and development of the platform Also there is a comission of 4% emitted tokens of any project (the only exception is pure fundraising, where no tokens are produced) that automatically is sent to the KICKONOMY Reserve Fund.
As a result, this Fund forms a cryptocurrency basket, in which may be thousands of different cryptocurrencies. Furthermore, a 4% commission on tokens of crowdinvesting campaigns means that KICKONOMY Reserve Fund will become a minority "cryptoshareholder" of each company, which has successfully completed the fundraising on the platform, and will receive "cryptoincome" from such companies. The portfolio of the Fund is managed by professionals and the community, only reliable and prospective tokens with high growth potential are left, which will increase the capitalization of KICKICO, and support the cost of KickCoins (KC).
KickCoins and KICKONOMY
KickCoins (KC) is a ETH-based token that follows the ERC-20 standard. KC is generated in two versions. The first, generally accepted option is the generation of pools for the needs of the company, such as payment for localization services, referral programs, bounty awards, etc., as well as pre-sales for pre-ICO and ICO.
KC received by people who financially supported the campaigns on the platform (backers) will be accepted as payment in a variety of projects, such as those that successfully collect funds on our platform and become participants of the KICKONOMY. For existing and functioning ones,a special department will be formed for dealing with agreements with interesting companies. Games, applications, platforms, exchanger, and even offline projects will become participants in the KICKONOMY network. We already have a number of such companies that will be launched right after the platform release in October 2017, along with those already functioning and interested in cooperation. For those that will be running on the platform, this is necessary for functioning on the platform (which gives a lot of traffic and visibility), placing projects in the KICKONOMY directory, and to get completely free traffic and customers willing to spend not only their KC, but other money. In addition, we will use our marketing budgets to support precisely these campaigns because it is more profitable for us than to simply advertise the platform itself. The more successful projects we have, the better and more attractive the platform will be. This indirectly positively affects the course of KC.
KickCoins use in Kickonomy
Important part of KICKONOMY is how KickCoins are used to create the circulation of currency and create supply and demand mechanisms.
KickCoins are useful in multiple use cases in the ecosystem on the platform:
For authors
Payment for a review - get a qualified review of the campaign from selected memebers of community.
Draft moderation - a low fee (just symbolic) to moderate a camapign. Part of the fee will be allocated to a quality-checking moderator
Moderation before launching - every campaign goes through moderation before launch. Initially it will be made by platform officers, then moderation will be performed by those who are chosen by community as well as by campaign advisers
Paying for smart-contract deploy - the creation of smart-contracts for tokens and crowdsale will also require a fee
Guarantee of getting into our digest - there will be different types of digests: daily, hot, new ones (which are just launched), community choice, editor’s choice, week’s best, etc
Payment for translation and proofreading services - to be successful globally many languages are required, so there is an option to receive such services from the community on the platform
Payment for creative content - visual assets, video assets, voice overs, and advertising materials are critical for a project that wants to get noticed
Payment for the services of community advisors - get support for your project from qualified advisors and increase attention to the campaign
Autobounty - paying for actions of community members to spread the word about the campaign
For community
Election of community advisors - voting for advisors requires symbolic sum to cast a vote
Electing moderators - same as previous, voting for moderators requires symbolic sum to cast a vote
Voting for a project - an additional option for a campaign to get higher position and become ‘the choice of the community’ campaign
Social benefits - it is actually for fun, some decoration, such as a ‘golden frame of the avatar’. It could be a special, unusual font in comments, the background of a user’s profile, or something else which lasts for some period of time
Fine and penalty payments, set by moderators - penalties for swearing, spam, flood, indecent actions, and other actions that break the code of conduct. The sum of penalty may grow if the inappropriate actions are repeated by users
Virtual gifts - the option to exchange interactive gift among users on the platform, like flowers, a glass of tea, a lucky ticket or something else
With the platform development more uses of KickCoins will be adding to increase the liquidity