Okay Kickstarter isn't actually nervous. They don't know I exist.
But hear me out.
The problem with crowdfunding platforms today
Someone has a idea. A real one. They build a campaign, post it on Kickstarter or Indiegogo, and people start funding it. Thousands of people. Real money. Real trust.
And then — Kickstarter takes 5%. Payment processors take another 3-5%. The creator waits weeks for the money to clear. The platform can suspend the campaign if they don't like something. The funds sit in an account controlled by a company you've never met.
You trusted the idea. You're also trusting the platform. You don't get to choose.
That bothered me. Because the platform isn't the product. The idea is the product. Why does the middleman get 10% and this much control?
So I decided to build the version without the middleman.
What I'm building
A decentralized crowdfunding DApp on Ethereum.
Here's how it works:
- Anyone can create a campaign — set a goal (in ETH), set a deadline
- Anyone can fund a campaign — send ETH directly to the smart contract
- If the goal is hit before the deadline → funds release automatically to the creator
- If the goal isn't hit → every contributor gets their money back. Automatically.
No platform holding your funds. No approval process. No 5% cut disappearing into a company's revenue.
The contract is the platform. The code is the rulebook. And anyone can read it.
The stack
Here's what I'm working with:
Solidity — for the smart contract. This is where the actual logic lives. Campaign creation, contribution tracking, goal checking, fund release — all of it written in Solidity and deployed on Ethereum.
Hardhat — for development and testing. Think of it as the environment where I write, compile, test, and deploy contracts without touching real ETH until I'm ready. If Remix was training wheels, Hardhat is the actual bike.
Web3.js — the bridge between the frontend and the blockchain. When someone clicks "Fund This Campaign" on the UI, Web3.js is what talks to their MetaMask wallet and sends the transaction to the contract.
React — for the frontend. Campaign cards, contribution forms, progress bars, wallet connection. The part users actually see.
Four technologies. One DApp. Starting from zero.
Why I'm documenting this as I build
Here's the honest reason.
I learn better when I write. Writing forces me to actually understand what I'm doing instead of copy-pasting from Stack Overflow and hoping it works. When I have to explain something, I find out fast whether I actually get it or just think I do.
So this isn't a finished tutorial. I'm not going to pretend I built this perfectly and now I'm graciously sharing my wisdom.
I'm building it right now. You're reading it as it happens. When something breaks — and things will break — I'll write about that too. When I don't understand something, I'll say so.
That's the deal.
What's coming next
Here's what we're building, piece by piece:
Next — The smart contract. Writing the core Solidity code that handles campaigns, tracks contributions, and moves ETH. This is the heart of the whole thing.
After that — Setting up Hardhat. Getting off Remix, writing real tests, deploying to a testnet.
Then — Connecting MetaMask. Making the frontend actually talk to the contract.
Finally — Wrapping it all together. The full DApp, live on testnet, with everything working.
One feature at a time. One post at a time.
The part that genuinely excites me
Here's what I keep coming back to.
When this DApp is done, there's no server I'm running. No database I'm maintaining. No backend that goes down at 3am and pages me. The contract sits on Ethereum, and as long as Ethereum exists, the DApp exists.
I write the code once. I deploy it. It runs.
Forever.
No AWS bill. No downtime. No "we're performing scheduled maintenance." Just a contract, on a chain, doing exactly what it says.
That's the thing about building on blockchain that web dev can't give you. You don't just build a product. You build something that genuinely doesn't need you anymore once it's live.
For a third-year CS student who can't afford servers — that's pretty great.
Come build this with me
If you're learning Solidity, this is a good project to follow along with. Not too simple to be boring, not too complex to understand.
If you're not learning Solidity — that's fine too. The concepts transfer. What does it mean to write logic that handles real money? What does it mean to build without a backend? These questions matter regardless of your stack.
I'm building it in public. All of it — the working parts and the broken ones.
Let's see what happens.
I'm Srashti Gupta, building in the Web3 space. I write about blockchain, real builds, and things I'm figuring out as I go. Let's connect on LinkedIn.
Top comments (0)