Kickstarter exec on the blockchain controversy: “We’ve learned a hell of a lot in the last couple of months.”

As we’ve been reporting for a few months, Kickstarter’s announced plan to move to a platform built on the blockchain protocal set off an immediate and vocal backlash among both creators and backers. Since the December announcement – amid creators leaving the platform – Kickstarter representatives have promised more information on the move would be forthcoming. Yesterday, a statement and an updated FAQ on the plan were released – while they provided some more information, many observers are still unsatisfied with Kickstarter’s reasoning for the move. Still, Kickstarter seems to be tapping the brakes on the move, promising more investigation of how it will work, and acknowledging some of the existing flaws in in the blockchain.

Beat reporter Sean Z. was given an opportunity to interview Kickstarter COO Sean Leow about these issues, with a few questions added by Beat editor-in-chief Heidi MacDonald. As far as we know it is the first time a Kickstarter executive has spoken publicly on the blockchain move. Leow’s answers may not satisfy everyone, but at least Kickstarter is starting to address the many troubling aspects of their announced new platform.

For the creative community I'm sort of involved in (independent tabletop roleplaying games) there has been a lot of interest in Kickstarter as a way to fund creative projects, but also a lot of vocal anti-crypto sentiment, so the controversy over this was pretty hot in my twitter feed. To me this quote from the article is really the key issue:

Does this solve problems for users? Does it help advance our mission? I think we look at these technologies, we think they are relevant and not going away. And then you have two choices: you have a choice to shy away from them and hope they go away. Or you have a choice to try to, you know, thoughtfully engage with them. Challenge them, find the opportunities, and shape them towards our mission, which we think is really important compared to the profit maximization that some of the bad actors you see in this space are doing.

I think a lot of anti-crypto people are still of the opinion that they have an opportunity to kill crypto in the cradle, so the debate ends up being more fiery than one might expect.