This creates a credible commitment where the charity receives funds if and only if a matcher steps in. So the matcher can be confident that their donation actually caused the charity to receive the funder’s contribution.
It looks to me like you can’t be confident that the matcher who steps in is someone other than the funder, and the funder being their own matcher-of-last-resort destroys the counterfactuality.
Let’s say I intend to donate $2X to a charity. I use your system, with a pot of $X. If people donate $X, I send an additional $X to my charity some other way and it receives a total of $3X. If people donate $0 I anonymously use my second $X to meet the terms of the smart contract, and it receives a total of $2X (same as if I’d not set up this match). My $2X went to the charity regardless, and no one who contributed to the matching campaign affected the distribution of my funds.
I think you’re probably right. The possibility of the funder being their own matcher-of-last-resort probably destroys the scheme. I hadn’t thought about this before, thanks for pointing it out.
One potential way to fix this would be to require the identification of donors, so that you cannot fund anonymously. But this would make the proposal a bit more complicated.
It looks to me like you can’t be confident that the matcher who steps in is someone other than the funder, and the funder being their own matcher-of-last-resort destroys the counterfactuality.
Let’s say I intend to donate $2X to a charity. I use your system, with a pot of $X. If people donate $X, I send an additional $X to my charity some other way and it receives a total of $3X. If people donate $0 I anonymously use my second $X to meet the terms of the smart contract, and it receives a total of $2X (same as if I’d not set up this match). My $2X went to the charity regardless, and no one who contributed to the matching campaign affected the distribution of my funds.
I think you’re probably right. The possibility of the funder being their own matcher-of-last-resort probably destroys the scheme. I hadn’t thought about this before, thanks for pointing it out.
One potential way to fix this would be to require the identification of donors, so that you cannot fund anonymously. But this would make the proposal a bit more complicated.