It is said that the crowdfunding method started with the intent of authors to obtain support for their books: authors and publishers would advertise book projects in subscription schemes. If enough subscribers wanted to pursue the book then the work would continue.

People becoming direct supporters of personal projects is not a new trend since there were cases like the Irish loan fund established by the nationalist Jonathan Swift in the 70s that allowed poor people to receive support in the form of donations from wealthier citizens. Yet, everything changed with the spread of new technologies. Now every person around the world, without distinctions, has the possibility of accessing the network to let the world know about who they are.

Crowdfunding on the internet

Internet-based fundraising became popular between the arts and music communities first. In 1997 the very first online crowdfunding took place in the music industry when the British rock band Marillion, raised US$60,000 in donations by means of a fan-based Internet campaign. The film industry also took the idea, such was the case of the website created in 1997 by the independent writer/director Mark Tapio Kines which has the purpose of obtaining funds for his first feature film Foreign Correspondents which successfully raised the money to finish the filming. It was in October 2003 that the first official so-called crowdfunding platform was launched with the idea of becoming a place for musicians to obtain support to finance their albums or go on tours by the hand of their fans, though at that time the word "crowdfunding" wasn't yet used because according to the website Wordspy, the first written record of the use of the word Crowdfunding was in an article published by Michael Sullivan on his blog "fundavlog" 3 years later on August 12, 2006. But little by little many other platforms started to show and the term "crowdfunding" became popular, emerging quickly as a popular option for entrepreneurs to validate their ideas, gain exposure, and acquire funding. They were joined also by people who were looking for promising projects to offer support hoping to obtain something in exchange.

The effect of the financial crisis

The housing market crash which affected the financial industry: mortgage, credit, hedge fund, and foreign bank markets, opening the doors to the subsequent recession in the United States in 2008, forced people even more to seek funding by alternative means, since traditional banking institutions were no longer able or willing to provide the same loans as they were in the past it resulted in people turning to the internet and to each other for sustainability. Using social media platforms to interact and to share what's important to them, allowing other people to feel related emotionally to the needs of others, and naturally develop human bonds that could eventually become the support of personal ideas and initiatives, creating places where donors come together to build an online community around a common cause to help fund services and programs in a variety of subjects and issues including healthcare, research, technological development, and even more personal aspects like a surgery, a thesis, to record a song or shoot an animated film, or even travel to be a student of exchange.

A new thing: Cryptocurrency

The game for crowdfunding started to change once again thanks to the arrival of technologies like blockchain which started with the introduction of bitcoin; creating a new horizon for monetization through the internet. Before, people weren't able to issue their own money or create a token/coin that could represent their projects and sell them to a worldwide community without the limitations of fiat money. This left the majority unable to reach the masses in a fast way or set a price for their work that truly corresponds to its value and the fluctuation of the market in their own respective niches.

Abusing the system

It is known that, within the months following a successfully funded project, backers receive their rewards, but research shows that many of the rewards are late in their delivery, also many projects funds are held under unreasonable conditions and high fees, which is an issue that blockchain addresses directly by offering fast transactions and almost immediate withdrawal. But withdrawals aren't the only issue pertaining to crowdfunding platforms today to which Blockchain technology offers solutions: questionable security is another big problem that blockchain addresses since thanks to proof of work and its decentralized characteristic, fake data can be easily detected and transactions are hardly misleading. Also, blockchain removes the need for an intermediary in transactions, allowing people to have complete control of their assets offering the chance to avoid founding limits, and overall, blockchain allows everyone to participate, since usually crowdfunding platforms have high standards or requirements that are impossible to reach for very new creators. Innovative ideas are sometimes hard to assimilate due to ignorance and have it hard to find a space in crowdfunding platforms, but blockchain is there to offer more equality and acceptance among people.>

Proposed solutions

Platforms like mintMe.com, based on blockchain technology, want to give the world a better view and expand the possibilities for people who are looking forward to monetize their projects in an easy and secure way but also for those who would like to become sponsors and truly help people also holding the possibilities of earning on it. The major aspect of donor-based crowdfunding is that there is no reward for donating; rather, it is based on the donor's altruistic reasoning, which is why reward-based crowdfunding made its appearance to offer people more reasons than just philanthropy to fund a project, but going further means to create a place where you not only can get a special reward but actually be able to other people's projects, donate, be rewarded and monetize yourself. This is what mintMe represents: a place where you can invest in people like in stocks, and become a trader as well as a donor. Isn't this the aim of the market and the best alternative to obtain funds for your personal projects? Using the newest technologies that provide the best options for everyone who enters the crowdfunding world pursuing a dream.

By Mary Schwartz