Kickstarting Movies on the Blockchain, meet WeiFund
BRAID, a psychological thriller, is the first major project to be fully financed using crowdfunding platform Weifund. Funding movies through crowdfunding campaigns on Kickstarter or Indiegogo is not that new, but Weifund is introducing a disruption in the field of crowdfunding. Token holders can now be equity holders, entitled to share in the profits the movie makes. 100% of BRAID’s adjusted gross proceeds will be paid out to token holders until they recover their initial investment, plus 15% interest. Once that is done, token holders will also receive 30% of profits (source).
What is Weifund?
WeiFund is a crowdfunding portal built on Ethereum which hopes to establish a beachhead in decentralized crowdfunding. It intends to be ultimately supportive of campaigns and platforms by providing the initial code, interfacing and resources to make crowdfunding a fundamentally accessible and free utility for everyone (source).
Why Weifund?
Conventional crowdfunding is centralized and resembles a traditional corporation. It provides a service, charges a fee, and acts as a middleman or matchmaker. The critical difference in decentralized crowdfunding is that it will accomplish the connective matchmaking and initial service by replacing that corporation with software at a fraction of the cost it takes to run that traditional business. The technological stack it uses is uncensorable, unalterable and more secure than any possible combination of the technology previously available before it (source).
WeiFund is not just a crowdfunding utility for merely raising capital. It is extensible and modular so that other smart-contracts can interface interdependently with its core. For example, this will allow individuals to start equity crowdfunding campaigns where the headache of share issuance, management and ownership is a thing of the past. With this utility Weifund aims to let us collectively organize our ideas and resources efficiently , outside of the baggage that has followed economic behaviors in the history of investment (source).
WeiFund is particularly useful for launching tokens that can be used in new applications and protocols. The WeiFund contracts implement the core mechanics of crowdfunding—contributions with refunds if the campaign goal isn't met—with customizable hooks for issuing tokens to contributors as needed. The WeiFund web app makes it easy to start accepting contributions, and has hooks to allow you to reuse the user interface with custom contracts, if necessary. With a strong focus on security and smart contract best practices, Weifund makes it easy to launch a safe campaign that works in the Weifund user interfaces (source).
BRAID
The BRAID ICO can be seen as the first high-profile token sale for a ‘real world’ project, outside the cryptosphere. So why didn’t they use Kickstarter?
First of all, the BRAID team saw a possibility to stay true to the ‘creative vision’, not being backed by major Hollywood productions does have its perks of having more freedom. Secondly, the film wants to be among the first of its kind to reward its early supporters with a part of the profit. Where Kickstarter funders get a t-shirt or a poster, they lack the incentive and dedication of having a financial upside to investing. With BRAID, token holders will have the first rights to all revenue (income) the film generates up to $1.95 million (a 15% return on investment) before any revenue is taken by the production team. The remaining income (revenue) above $1.95 million will be split with 30% going to the token holders and 70% going to the production team.This is outlined in the purchase agreement that can be found at the bottom of the campaign page
It will however be interesting to see how BRAID will extend the crypto economy to such a real world project. The challenge will be to ensure investors that their investments are safe, or even profitable. Profits will come in cash and will – after switching to crypto - have to be manually send to the token holders, so some trust issues may occur. It seems everything is running smooth until now.
About BRAID
To conclude, some more info about BRAID. The movie follows the story of two artists who move to New York City to pursue their dreams. Instead, they get caught up in the world of drug dealing and prostitution and need to come up with $80,000 to repay a vengeful drug lord in two days. The artists' plot to steal from their wealthy childhood friend quickly turns into a "deadly maze of hallucinations, role play, torture, and murder (source).