Mining cryptocurrencies is frequently associated with expensive hardware, facilities that consume heavy amounts of energy, and, last but not least, hackers that steal processing power from unaware users. But, there is a startup that aims to turn things around with a philanthropic twist.
“I think it is important to realize that in our lives, at some point, we all will be fundraising”, says Jacob Piotrowski, CEO, and founder of Give Bytes, a project started in March of this year.
His crowdfunding platform will mine through a browser to support a cause chosen by the user. Mined coins are based on CryptoNight algorithm (a proof-of-work algorithm designed for ordinary PC CPU). Anyone can contribute, no matter the size of their pocket. The only two things necessary is an internet connection and willingness to help. Just go to their website givebytes.com and choose either to mine or donate straight away.
Ihodl spoke to Piotrowski at the backstage of the Malta Blockchain Summit at the start of the month.
How did you come to blockchain?
I was born in Poland, but I live in London now. I graduated in Business Management at Warsaw School of Economics and I had my second degree in Healthcare Administration in Japan.
I have been now in the blockchain space for about two and a half years and I am really fascinated with the solutions that this technology can offer us. Not just on the financial aspect, like cryptocurrencies.
Being a big fan of decentralized and autonomous solutions, I really like the fact that it is becoming easier and easier to use smart contracts for various things.
And I think that blockchain technology will help to shrink the inequality gap between the richest people and the poorest people. Thanks to blockchain we can help people in countries where they have no privileges, no access to banking.
What did inspire you to start your project?
My Eureka moment was when I read one article about some hackers who prompted some malicious JavaScript on a media website. Whenever somebody was reading the articles and consume the contents, this website would be harnessing their computing power without the reader knowing it.
And I thought: “This is unethical. This is illegal. Love this technology! I need to use it for something good”.
A different take on cryptojacking, so to speak…
Exactly. If you let people decide and they agree to give away and donate their computing power for a cause that they choose, then it is fine. It is with user’s consent and it is contributing something good. So that was the moment Give Bytes was born.
How did you expand this idea?
Well, all of us are going to spend a lot of time in front of computers anyway. We want to build a solution that will use the unused excess of your computing power.
With Give Bytes, when you start mining, you have a control mechanism that will let you decide the percentage of your CPU you want to donate.
Most of the time, you probably only utilize 10–30% of your CPU. And whenever your CPU operations spike and go above the limit you set up, the mining will pause; so, Give Bytes will never slow down whatever you are doing.
What’s next for Give Bytes?
Until now we managed to lay down the roadmap, sticking to the milestones that we have there and we delivered the MVP in September.
We are currently planning to build a smart contract based solution that will make it possible to match the donations from each individual with money from corporate companies.
This smart contract based solution will tap into corporate funds and match the donations from corporate budgets. So, on one hand, it will redistribute wealth from big companies and on the other, it will incentivize companies taking on CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) programs.
Are charity and CSR the only territories covered by your company?
No, anyone from rock bands to video game developers can create a campaign.
We are living in times when many young people have great ideas. We are slowly drifting away from the corporate model where you work from 9 to 5. More and more people become entrepreneurial and are looking for ways to use the internet to create something of their own and create value on their own. And they will face the challenge of fundraising at some point. They will have to pitch their ideas, they will have to tell their stories.