Before crowdfunding, the most common methods for raising funds involved raffles and events. However, the emergence of platforms such as Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Catarse, and others revolutionized this process. These platforms allowed entrepreneurs, artists, and organizations to obtain funding directly from supporters around the world, offering rewards in return. Yet, these platforms still face challenges such as geographic barriers, political censorship, and the need for financial intermediaries.

It is in this context that Geyser emerges, inaugurating a new era for crowdfunding. Combining the best technologies available—the internet, Bitcoin, the Lightning Network, and Nostr—Geyser breaks the limitations imposed by traditional platforms.

Therefore, it eliminates geographical barriers, introduces new forms of contribution, and enables anonymous, instant, and direct donations, without the need for intermediaries.

In this article, you will discover how Geyser works and learn how to enter your project to start raising funds in bitcoin!

What is Geyser and how did it start?

Geyser is a Bitcoin-based crowdfunding platform. 

Launched in 2022 by founders Mick Morucci and Stelios Rammos (photo below), the platform is integrated with the Lightning network and allows anyone, from anywhere in the world, to create and finance different types of projects.

In just two years of existence, Geyser’s numbers are impressive: more than 70,000 users have financed projects, more than 1,800 projects have already been registered and a total of more than 34 BTC have been donated.

So much growth it’s no surprise, that the advantages of using Geyser are several, especially compared to traditional crowdfunding.

Advantages of using Geyser

As mentioned, registering your project on Geyser offers several advantages compared to traditional crowdfunding platforms, such as:

Global access

While traditional crowdfunding is only available in 30 countries and has limitations due to restrictions on the use of local fiat currencies, Geyser is accessible to anyone around the world, simply by having internet access to participate.

Furthermore, Geyser uses Bitcoin, a global and decentralized currency. This means project creators can raise funds from supporters anywhere, significantly expanding their funding reach.

No intermediaries

Geyser enables supporters to send money directly to the project creator’s wallet via the Bitcoin lightning network. This way, transactions occur instantly, eliminating the need for intermediaries like banks and payment processors.

Therefore, creators do not need to wait for the balance to be released, receipt is immediate.

Censorship resistant

Bitcoin is a decentralized technology, which makes it resistant to censorship. On traditional crowdfunding platforms, a project creator’s accounts can be blocked or frozen. On Geyser, this does not happen because the funds raised are not held by the platform, but are sent directly to the Bitcoin address of the project creator.

Low fees

The Geyser fee is 4% of the total amount collected. However, if you operate your own Lightning node, the fee is zero. This is a great incentive to run your own node!

Furthermore, there are no costs to register a project on the platform.

Open source

Geyser innovates by positioning itself as an open-source platform.

But what does this really mean?

It means that Geyser’s source code is open, ensuring full transparency. Anyone can review, contribute to, and improve the platform, fostering community trust and collaboration. This encourages continuous innovation and reduces dependence on a single controlling entity.

In this way, Geyser is fully aligned with Bitcoin’s decentralized principles, ensuring that the platform remains accessible and evolves with the needs of the global community of creators and supporters.

What projects can I create on Geyser?

On Geyser, you can create projects in a wide variety of areas, such as events, communities, open source software, content creation, and more.

Furthermore, projects do not need to be directly related to Bitcoin.

Some examples include:

• Financing for startups;
• Collective art exhibition;
• Financing for a music festival or an independent film;
• Organization of events and meetups;
• Development of open source software;
• Raising funds for social projects;
• Book publishing;
• Game launch;
• Support an independent content creator.

Now that you’ve seen that there are countless possibilities, let’s see in practice how to register a project on Geyser.

Step by step to register your project

1. The first step is to access the website geyser.fund and click on “Start Your Project” in the top menu:

2. Then you will connect to Geyser using an email or social network like X, for example, and click on “Continue”:

3. Once that’s done, it’s time to describe your project.

As a global crowdfunding platform, we recommend registering your project in English so that more people can understand and support your initiative, increasing your chances of success.

However, if you prefer, you can register projects in different languages. If you want to do that just click on your profile and then on the button indicated by the arrow (image below):

The website’s language options will appear:

So let’s move on…

In the project description, you will add a title, briefly describe your goal, include a photo of the project, and provide a contact email.

Please note that when you add your project name, Geyser will create a Lightning address for you where funds from backers will be received and then directed to your own wallet. However, don’t worry about that, we will explain this later. 

After that, just click continue.

4. In the next tab you can add project links, related tags, and the region:

5. The next step is to describe your project in more detail.

In this section, you can add photos and videos to help supporters better understand what you already do and learn more about your proposal:

6. Moving forward, you can offer rewards to your supporters, such as a project member badge, an experience, or a physical product. This serves as a thank you for your support and can also encourage larger donations.

If you prefer not to add rewards, simply click “Skip” and continue:

7. Now comes a very important part: adding your Bitcoin wallet to receive the funds.

On the screen, there is an explanation that a Lightning address has been created in Geyser with the name of your project, but you need to provide your own wallet, where Geyser will directly send the collected funds.

In other words, Geyser does not maintain custody of balances but routes Lightning transactions for you.

You can use lightning wallets such as Wallet of Satoshi, Blink, and Alby, which we have already shown here on the blog, or you can use any other you prefer.

If you are an experienced Bitcoin user and already have a Lightning node, click the “Lightning Node” button to connect your node to Geyser.

Therefore, let’s insert a Lightning Address created in the Blink wallet here:

Transaction limits

See that “Wallet Limit” information appears. Depending on the wallet you use, there are transaction limits. In this case, it showed that the minimum value is 1 satoshi and the maximum is 100 million satoshis. 

Currently, one satoshi is equivalent to less than a cent. The maximum value of 100,000,000 satoshis is currently equivalent to around $56,000. Remembering that these values ​​in fiat currency fluctuate according to the price of Bitcoin.

8. It’s time to launch the project to the world!

On the next screen, you can launch or save the project as a draft:

And ready! Your project is live!

Now it’s time to spread the word, keep supporters informed of the project’s progress, and monitor the campaign’s progress!

Get inspired

Want to get inspired? Here are some amazing projects being funded through Geyser:

Hero of Bitcoin

Anyone from the 90s must remember the Game Boy and even feel nostalgic!

For those who don’t remember, the Game Boy is a portable console developed by Nintendo that became a cultural icon.

Released in 1989, it quickly took the world by storm and became one of the most popular and iconic video game consoles of all time. The original Game Boy, with its monochrome screen and interchangeable game cartridges, brought a new dimension of fun and portability to gamers, setting the standard for future generations of portable consoles.

Inspired by Game Boy games, which have an 8-bit graphic style, the Hero of Bitcoin project recreates the atmosphere of the 90s with a game inspired by Bitcoin and that works on both Game Boy and cell phones and computers.

The game is a story inspired by Bitcoin culture and takes place in El Salvador. The scenery passes through iconic places such as Bitcoin Beach, the volcano, and much more.

The game follows the journey of a young man named Hero, a new bitcoiner, who travels to El Salvador wanting to help Bitcoin fight on the front lines. One of the goals is to help President Bukele and other Bitcoiners ensure that sh*tcoiners, bears, bankers, and others do not get in the way of Bitcoin adoption.

The crowdfunding campaign launched on Geyser in December 2022 and has received more than 20 million satoshis (approximately $11,000). In June 2024, Hero of Bitcoin was officially launched, check out the pre-sale announcement:

Bitcoin For Fairness

Bitcoin For Fairness is a non-profit initiative that aims to increase awareness and understanding of Bitcoin for people in emerging countries and disadvantaged communities. 

The project was founded by Anita Posh and accelerated with the help of funding started at Geyser in October 2022. Since then, the project has received help from several supporters, totaling more than 85 million satoshis (or approximately 17 thousand dollars). 

Save Gaza and donate for children in Gaza

In a war, citizens can easily lose access to their bank accounts, see their assets destroyed, and run out of money for basic items like water and food. We previously mentioned how Bitcoin crosses geographic barriers, and here is a great example of how this works in practice.

The Donate for Children in Gaza project aims to raise donations to help families in vulnerable situations amid the war between Israel and Hamas. The values ​​reach the project creator’s wallet directly, which can instantly convert them into urgently needed items.

Led by Yusef Mahmoud and launched at Geyser in May 2023, the project has already raised more than 266 million satoshis, the equivalent of $148,000 or 740 thousand reais. Supporters can follow how the amounts raised are being used through posts made by Yusef on Geyser.

While no one wants to be in the middle of a war, it’s comforting to know that Bitcoin can provide crucial financial access when it’s needed most.

Conclusion

If traditional crowdfunding paved the way for thousands of projects to flourish, integration with Bitcoin and Lightning is taking crowdfunding to a new level.

Geyser has shown us that it is possible to make crowdfunding more accessible, efficient, and inclusive, driving a truly decentralized economy. And if this was already a major disruption, the coming years promise even more surprises: Geyser is looking to add mainstream payment methods, in-app and email notifications, and more tools for creators to succeed in their fundraising efforts.

I hope you enjoyed learning more about Geyser. Remember to launch your project—Geyser can really help make your ideas happen!

Until the next article and opt out!

The post Geyser: understand how Bitcoin crowdfunding works appeared first on Area Bitcoin.

The first question business owners ask is:

Why should I accept Bitcoin as payment?

If it’s much more comfortable to use banks, card machines, debit cards, and even instant bank transfers which are received immediately, why accept Bitcoin payment, which most people still do not use daily? Well… this question makes sense when you don’t know there’s a better, more efficient, and cheaper system to implement in your business. Before I tell you why Bitcoin saves you from card machine fees, I’ll explain several reasons why you should accept Bitcoin as payment in your business.

1º Bitcoin is safer than other forms of payment

This is because once the transaction is registered in the blockchain and the confirmations are made, it’s practically impossible to reverse the transaction. The customer cannot chargeback the card and request a refund, as ill-intentioned customers might do with credit cards, for example. The same applies to the Lightning Network; once the transaction hits your wallet, the Satoshis are yours and nobody can confiscate or steal them from you if you take good care of your keys. Precisely because it is decentralized, there is no way for intermediaries to dip into your balance.

2º Bitcoin is permissionless

Another thing you should know is that Bitcoin is permissionless, meaning that anyone can download a wallet and start using it without needing to ask anyone for authorization. You don’t need a commercial proposal, nor do you need to sign a contract and be tied to a payment company. And also, no government or company can close your account. There are several examples of this type of censorship increasing worldwide, check this out.. Steam and PayPal were blocked by the government in Indonesia. The article says that due to the blocks, many PayPal users in Indonesia lost access to their accounts and funds.

And here’s another example where the population got screwed by political decisions. Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and American Express suspended operations in Russia amid the war. Imagine how Russian business owners felt about this decision… Overnight, their entire established payment operation was wiped out due to arbitrary decisions.

If you’re seeing these news popping up on the internet, you can’t just sit back and hope that it never happens to you. And just for this, I’m glad you’re reading this article, giving me a chance to alert you to what’s happening around the world and also to explain why you should accept Bitcoin as payment in your business.

3º With Bitcoin, you save on fees

There are two significant partners in your business: the payment processor and the government. But regarding payment processor fees, I have a good solution to offer. With Bitcoin, fees are much lower. Even better, the small processing fees are paid by the buyer, not you. Considering that you currently lose about 3% of your revenue to bank fees on debit transactions, with Bitcoin, you don’t pay any fee to receive directly in your wallet, and it’s without intermediaries.

But then you might argue that with Bitcoin it’s not the same because customers can’t make payments in installments. This installment culture exists mainly in developing countries. It’s the fiat mentality deeply entrenched in society. It’s the banks profiting from people with little or no financial education, offering credit for people to get into debt using money that isn’t theirs, and then charging exorbitant interest for it, leaving people even poorer and stuck in the rat race. Accepting Bitcoin means accepting payments upfront and starting to shift this erroneous mentality centered on debt.

4º Receiving in Bitcoin is the smartest way to accumulate

Receiving in Bitcoin is the easiest, cheapest, and smartest way for you to accumulate Bitcoin for the long term. It’s easy because you directly exchange your product or service for the strongest form of money that exists, which cannot be diluted through money printing like what happens with real, dollar, euro, peso. It’s cheaper because you avoid all the fees involved in the buying process via an exchange and sending to your wallet. Even if you optimized the process, by receiving directly into your wallet, you save quite a few Satoshis that could be worth a lot in the future. It’s smart because it’s a clever move to exchange your product or service for Bitcoin. You’re making one of the best deals out there.

Bitcoin is scarce, tends to transform into the future financial system, and you can use your profit margin to acquire Bitcoin cheaper than if you purchased via other platforms.

Entrepreneurs who catch this window of opportunity are incredibly smart. They’re building generational wealth simply by converting work into Satoshis since Bitcoin tends to appreciate over time. But of course, the most critical point is dealing with volatility. Every entrepreneur who has followed Bitcoin for a while understands that’s how it works, volatility rewards those who save with a focus on the long term.

It’s like going back in time, to the story of the first pizzas that were paid for with 10 BTC each! Who wouldn’t want to have been the pizzeria owner who swapped their pizzas for about 2 billion at today’s prices? Back then, no one paid attention, but nowadays when Bitcoin Pizza Day comes around, lots of people comment.

The question remains: Are most people once again missing this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?

5º Companies that hold Bitcoin break away from traditional markets

Few people are looking at the data, but if we observe, companies that keep Bitcoin in their cash reserves end up having their long-term performance correlated with it, especially if it’s a publicly traded company, like Microstrategy. I’ll show you the data in a moment, but if you didn’t know, Microstrategy is Michael Saylor’s company, a famous Bitcoiner who in 2013 was a harsh critic of Bitcoin, but who ended up going down the rabbit hole and becoming the biggest advocate of Bitcoin and of companies holding Bitcoin in their reserves.

It’s crazy how the pricing dynamics of Microstrategy changed dramatically after Michael Saylor went public defending Bitcoin and added Bitcoin to the company’s treasury. Notice how until 2020 Microstrategy, in the yellow line, had a normal fluctuation, following the Nasdaq index in blue, which is that of the main American stocks.

But from 2020, when the company announces that it added Bitcoin to its reserves, Microstrategy starts behaving more in line with the movements of Bitcoin than with the Nasdaq!

Crazy, right?! This shows us two things:

• Companies that insert Bitcoin into their cash reserves break away from the traditional market in both performance and how other investors view the company. In the image, we can observe the change in behavior of Microstrategy before and after adding Bitcoin to its reserves.
• Companies that hold Bitcoin and are listed on stock exchanges end up becoming an indirect way for corporations to expose themselves to Bitcoin. Because there isn’t yet an ETF or regulation allowing institutionally managed funds to buy Bitcoin directly. That’s why a significant part of fiat investors and traditional asset managers end up buying correlated assets because that’s what’s currently available. That’s also why the U.S. SEC is stalling to approve its spot Bitcoin ETF, as it could facilitate institutional access to Bitcoin and would demonstrate there’s high demand. Something that Central Banks and institutions like the SEC are trying to delay as long as possible.

And it’s not only Microstrategy that already has Bitcoin in its reserves. Other publicly traded companies have seen the potential of Bitcoin and are already holding Bitcoin in their cash reserves. Check out this cool research. It shows that Marathon, Elon Musk’s Tesla, and Jack Dorsey’s Square are at the top of this ranking.

But for you, the entrepreneur, what does Microstrategy’s story show you?

That you cannot only rely on the ice cubes that are governmental currencies. If your company accepts to receive ice cubes, you need many more strategies to prevent them from melting in your hands due to inflation. Inflation has an enormous impact on your business. It forces you to compress your margins to the maximum to stay competitive. It’s always you, the entrepreneur, who absorbs the economic impacts of expansionary monetary policies.

Bitcoin doesn’t have to be 100% of your assets, and you also don’t need to receive Bitcoin as the only solution. Bitcoin can be a small part that gives you more alternatives, both as a source of revenue and as a long-term asset class that protects you from the risk of dilution of governmental currencies.

Bitcoin helps any entrepreneur achieve business sovereignty.

Moreover, not depending on banks to receive payments and being able to move funds even if a calamity occurs in the financial system, is a measure of protecting your assets. I know this may seem far-fetched, something very distant. But it happens all the time in history and in various countries, as I just showed you with two events from 2022. I don’t know if something similar will happen in your country, but if by chance it happens one day, you will want to have thought of a way to protect yourself, to have created a life buoy for yourself, and Bitcoin is that life buoy.

So these are the advantages of accepting Bitcoin as payment in your business:

1. Bitcoin is a safer payment system than the banking system.
2. With Bitcoin, your company saves on fees and becomes more efficient.
3. Bitcoin makes you a sovereign entrepreneur, as you decide what to do with your own money independent of central banks and payment processing companies.
4. And Bitcoin doesn’t leave you as exposed to the financial system that looks more like an ice cube melting purchasing power through inflation

Ways to Accept Bitcoin

Below we list the available ways to start receiving bitcoin:

Payment Processors:

Companies like OpenNode, CoinOS, and protocols like BTC Pay Server act as intermediaries, enabling businesses to accept Bitcoin and lightning payments and convert these payments into a traditional currency if desired. It is possible to integrate them with online stores and point of sale software.

Bitcoin Wallets:

You can accept Bitcoin payments directly into a non custodial Bitcoin wallet that you have installed on the company’s mobile phone. This is an interesting way because it’s without intermediaries. However, a basic understanding of how Bitcoin wallets work is required. Some options you can use are the Blue Wallet and the Breez Wallet.

But knowing all of this is useless if you don’t believe. The main reason to accept Bitcoin in your business is because you believe in it.

And if you believe, you want Bitcoin to be adopted and benefit not just you but people all over the world.

The post Is it worth accepting Bitcoin as payment? appeared first on Area Bitcoin.