Core Bitcoin developer Mike Hearn is preparing to go live with his ‘Lighthouse’ crowdfunding project, switching to main net for the first time ahead of an imminent public Beta.

The lighthouse project has been eagerly awaited by many decentralization enthusiasts within the Bitcoin community. It is hope that it could one day replace the centralized role of the Bitcoin Foundation in funding and guiding the direction of the coin’s core development with a public, transparent, and more decentralized alternative which seems to be more in keeping with the Bitcoin’s character.

Rather than being a separate crowdfunding service using Bitcoin, the crowdfunding functionality would be built into Bitcoin transactions themselves. This means that there is no central service provider to charge the high fees currently associated with crowdfunding – often around 10% of the total amount raised. It would also mean that the peer to peer contractual agreements would be as transparent and secure as any other type of Bitcoin transaction.

In addition to providing a way for independent developers to gain funding for specific work on the coin’s core code, this kind of low cost crowdfunding platform would also open up a wide range of new use cases which aren’t possible with today’s technology. On example of this would be small scale uses where the functionality of a crowdfunding site isn’t needed. Another could be when a group of friends or colleagues put money into a kitty to buy something, and they don’t need to pay for a crowdfunding site whose main purpose is to publicize their campaign through a central website.

You can opt-in to updates to be notified when the public beta launches here: https://www.vinumeris.com/