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Kreosus (or Creosus) is a combination of two Latin words: The first one is creo, which means "creativity" in Latin. The second one is susteo, which means "sustaining" or "continuing together" in Latin. But this word also has a funny coincidence: Kreosus is mainly built by people with Turkish origin and people who love Turkey. Turkey is a country which lies on Anatolia, a geographic region in Western Asia that unites Asia with Europe, and had been home to many civilizations that shaped the path of humanity. By rearranging just two letters in Kreosus, you get Kreosus (or Croesus), who had been the legendary king of Lydia between the years 560 and 546 BC. Lydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern western Turkish provinces of Uşak, Manisa and inland İzmir. Not only this, but also King Croesus was famous for his wealth. Lydians had printed the first gold coin during King Croesus' reign in their capital Sardis, which is a part of Manis, Turkey today. In our world, we do not see kings like King Croesus; however, we believe that the collective power of the people is stronger than any king that has ever existed. Kreosus is built to convert this potential to reality.

You can browse and discover new creators through Kreosus and monetarily support them in a way that it will not hurt your budget. You may support them one time, or through a monthly subscription. By doing this, you help them be sustainable.

You can create a Kreosus creator account and allow your followers to support you monetarily so that you can continue creating what you create.

If you choose to support a creator monthly (subscription option), your card will be charged the very first time you choose to become a supporter, regardless of the day you start your pledge. After this, your card will be charged on the first day of every month. If this monthly charge attempt fails on the first day, a second attempt will be made on the 9th day of the month. If that fails too, one last attempt will be made on the 16th day of the month. If any of these are successful, these retries will not be conducted. If all three reattempts fail, that month is assumed a failure and the process restarts the next month. If your card fails for three months in sequence, your pledge is automatically cancelled. Of course, you have the right to cancel your pledge at any time.

If you choose to support a creator one-time, your card will be charged only once. This charge will not repeat.

You may switch between monthly subscriptions and one-time pledges, you may change your monthly pledge tier (increase or decrease), you may pledge an additional one-time support to your monthly subscriptions, or cancel your monthly subscriptions at any time.

The logic behind crowdfunding is straightforward but a brilliant one: Maybe 1 supporter may not be able to pledge you 1000 dollars per month; but 1000 supporters can pledge you 1 dollar per month. The entire logic of crowdfunding is based on allowing a large group of people making a project sustainable, together. To get a bit more insight, we can divide the crowdfunding platform landscape into two parts:

• Project-Based Crowdfunding: These are what we call the "1st Generation Crowdfunding Platforms". The most common examples are: Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, and GoFundMe. In these systems, there is a product idea (e.g. a new drone or a new board game), a project idea (e.g. a new website), or a dream (a world tour or collecting funds to treat a disease). The person with this idea or dream needs monetary support to make it real. These people make their project or dream public, instead of trying to find more traditional means of monetary support such as a bank loan or an angel investor. In this format, you can think the general public as a collective angel investor. People who think the idea is viable, or think it is worth supporting, choose to support these projects, ideas, or dreams by selecting a support tier, even if the project is not realized yet or it only has a prototype (with no mass production). They support these people using their credit or debit cards. By doing so, they can have access to or own parts of the project, idea, or dream "ahead of production". For instance, the owner of the idea/dream may say: "If you pledge 1000 dollars, I will give you 1 of these products when its production is completed." They may also say: "If you pledge 10 dollars, you will not the entire product when it is finished, but we will give you a special t-shirt for free." These promises are usually attached to pledge tiers, and some of these tiers may be limited (e.g. there can only be one hundred 1000 dollar supporters). This allows the idea owner to limit what the supporters can get. An idea/dream owner becomes fully responsible of delivering their promises when someone chooses to support their idea/dream at a pledge tier that is predetermined. This can be considered as a contract between the idea owner and the supporter, and there actually are some legal consequences if the idea/dream owner fails to deliver on the promises. Websites named above are the "third party warranter" of these promises. This type of crowdfunding websites prioritizes the goal to reach to a certain amount of money (e.g. 100,000 dollars). If this amount can be achieved, the project proceeds. If not, usually one of two things happen: 1) Everybody is refunded. 2) However much is collected, that amount must be used to create the product (finding the rest of the money is the responsibility of the idea/dream owner). The details of this process changes based on the website and the project. But the key point is this: First generation crowdfunding websites focus on a idea/product/dream and monetary support are given to these people by general public, usually with some promises in return.
• Crowdfunding of Creators: This is what we call the "2nd Generation Crowdfunding Platforms". These are more recent and the most famous representative of this category is Patreon. The content you see online (blog posts, videos, audio recordings, podcasts, amateur music recordings, columns, photos, etc.) are mostly created by amateur content creators. Normally, the ad revenue is supposedly used to support these creators; however, recent cuts on ad revenue by platforms such as YouTube make it impossible for the creators to sustain their work. Therefore, the audience who are already following certain creators can choose to monetarily support these creators so that they can continue creating the work they love consuming. In other words, in this 2nd Generation Crowdfunding Platforms can be separated from the 1st Gen Platforms by this very important difference: There are no promises for a product or an idea. The only expectation of the supporters are for the creator to continue creating content that is already free to public. They pledge to these creators so that these creators can sustain their ongoing work. This is a completely free choice because content creators who use this type of crowdfunding already give their content for free. The monetary supporters may get some small things in return (such as early access to videos which will be open to public in a few days anyways or little gifts of appreciation). The key is, even if these supporters do not support these creators, they will still get access to all the content for free, albeit a little later. The monetary support is to show appreciation towards the creator. In other words, in this form of crowdfunding, what you do is akin to tipping a waiter or tipping a street artist by leaving some coins in his/her hat! It may be difficult to grasp why someone would like to pay money for otherwise free service; however, digital content is an indispensible part of our modern lives. These supporters are people who do not want their beloved creators to be forced to stop creating because of the need to make money in the current economic system. This is why they choose to share their income with them. It is not too different from paying Netflix for its services; however, remember that Netflix would never show its content for free.

Of course the 1st Gen Crowdfunding websites may evolve to partially or fully incorporate aspects of the 2nd Gen Crodwfunding websites, and vice versa. These systems are evolving rapidly and the business plan of each differs - and it is impossible to predict their direction.

Kreosus is a 2nd Generation Crowdfunding Platform through which you can choose to support creators within the limits of your budget, one-time or monthly.

Yes! In the Kreosus Support Module that you will see in creators' websites or Kreosus profiles, you can choose "One-Time" option to pledge to these creators for only one time. You can come back and pledge again at any time. By doing this, you can control when and how much you are pledging. You may switch to monthly subscription at any time.

On the other hand, the reason for Kreosus to exist is to help creators collect money from a large community, without hurting the budget of anybody, as we explained here. Therefore, instead of pledging 1000 dollars to a creator one-time, it would be way more sustainable for our creators to receive 10-20 dollars per month. As a result, the biggest contribution you can make to our creators is the monthly subscription option. Remember that our creators use Kreosus to make a lot of money, but to sustain themselves as long as possible. Remember the "-sus" part of our name.

But if you choose to pledge one-time, our system allows you to do that.

No! Aside from the credit cards, you can use debit cards or virtual credit cards too! Please remember these two common problems:

• Make sure your credit card allows international payments (if you are outside the U.S.)
• If you choose to use a virtual card, make sure your card has enough balance and also make sure the limits of the card is greater than your pledge amount.

You can use any Visa, MasterCard and American Express credit card. You may also use Japan Credit Bureau (JCB), China UnionPay (CUP), or Discover & Diners credit card depending on your location. You can also use Apple Pay and Google Pay.

Yes! You can create however many different creator accounts with a single Kreosus account.

What happens if your card is declined depends on the type of support:

• If the supporter is a one-time supporter, if their card is declined, they will be shown an error message immediately, so that they can try again with a different card. There will be no reattempts for a one-time payment, unless they change their credit card and try again themselves.
• If the supporter is a monthly subscriber, if their card is declined, they are still considered a subscriber. If the error occurs on the first attempt, an error message is shown to the supporter. Once the subscription account is successfully created, reattempts will be made for three months, three times in each month. After that, if no successful payment can be created, the subscription is cancelled. Please refer to here for more information on the monthly payment reattempts.

The supports, both one-time and monthly, pledged to each creator are accumulated in Kreosus. The share of each creator is stored separately, so no mixing of funds can occur.

Kreosus works with Stripe, one of the top credit card processing companies in the world. The most current fee structure of Stripe is 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. In other words, Stripe takes 2.9%-3.9% of the entire transaction (either one-time or monthly payment), as well as a fixed fee of 0.3$ (30 cents). You can find the most current fees for Stripe by clicking here.

Stripe stores all payments in U.S. Dollars (USD, $). No matter which currency you choose to collect your support, Kreosus will convert each amount to USD via Stripe. This conversion is not made by what the banks offer for foreign exchange which seeks profits. Stripe does this conversion via Open Exchange Rates, which provides the current, mid-market value of the exchange rate. You can think of this number as what you get as the conversion rate if you enter two currencies on Google. Therefore, neither us nor Stripe seeks profits from this conversion. The exact equivalent of the support is converted to U.S. Dollars and accumulated.

Stripe send the accumulated amounts to the J. P. Morgan Chase Bank account of Tree of Evolution LLC, the parent company of Kreosus. This transfer is completely free of charge.

Kreosus implements a 4% fee on each pledge, after the Stripe fees are taken out of each transaction. This implementation guarantees the maximization of pledge flow to the creator and these fees are used to improve Kreosus and sustain itself.

At this point, the cash flow will depend on your choice of payout. Currently, we offer or are working on the following options:

• Direct Transfer to Your Bank Account (TransferWise): If you choose this option, your balance will be paid out to you via the Borderless Account of Tree of Evolution LLC that is kept under TransferWise. Here, your balance is converted to your choice of currency using the mid-market exchange rate again. By doing this as frequently as possible, we ensure no losses or gains are incurred from fluctuating exchange rates. The fees for this exhange rate is determined by TransferWise and it changes based on your choice of currency (it is usually at a rate of 0.65% + 3.50$. You can see the most current fees for Transferwise by buradanclicking here.
• PayPal: If you choose to send your balance to your PayPal account, the fees change based on your location. If you live in Canada or Europe, the fees are $0.99 for $0-$49.99 , $2.99 for $50-$99.99, and $2.99 for any amount after $100. If you live in any other country where PayPal can be used, the fees are $0.99 for $0-$49.99 , $2.99 for $50-$99.99, and $4.99 for any amount after $100
• Payoneer USD Account: If you choose to use a Payoneer USD account, you can receive your balance for free.

Yes! Kreosus had no security issues since its inception. You can verify the security of this website using a third party tool such as VirusTotal. Of course it is not possible to know what is to come; however, at Kreosus, we work diligently to protect your data. For instance, we do not keep any of your credit card information on our servers. Also, as per our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy we promise that we will not sell any of your data to third parties.

The easiest way to solve this problem is contacting your bank and asking why these charges are being rejected. Some banks may prevent charges to companies that they are not familiar with. This usually takes less than 5 minutes, depending on your bank. There may be other reasons for credit card declines:

• If you are using a virtual credit card, your card might have been expired. The only thing you need to do is to update your virtual card information and re-enter them to Kreosus.
• One of the most common causes of card declines is the use of virtual cards with low balance or low payment limits. If you are a monthly subscriber to a creator with a virtual card, please be reminded that you need to reset your available balance every month to prevent declines.
• You may have entered the wrong credit card information. Please update your information.
• You may be living outside the U.S. and your credit card might be blocked for international payments. You can call your bank and order them to open your card to international payments.

You can change your pledge amount at any time! After signing in to your Kreosus account, all you need to do is to go My Subscriptions page and then click on the "Update Support Amount" button. Here, you can either select a tier from the dropdown menu or enter any custom amount and hit "Update" to finalize the change.

Yes, you can cancel your monthly subscriptions at any time! After signing in to your Kreosus account, all you need to do is to go My Subscriptions page and cancel your subscription from the list of creators you are supporting.

This is a case-by-case situation. In principle, we can only refund your pledge within the first 5 days after your pledge. After that, you can only cancel your pledge so it does not repeat next month. Note that the Stripe fees incurred on your pledge will not be refunded.

We cannot give you tax advice. Therefore, we cannot walk you through the form. You can get help from the information buttons next to the form items in the Tax & Payout Information section of your profile. If you have any questions, please refer to a tax expert.

A W-8BEN form, or the “Certificate of Foreign Status of Beneficial Owner for United States Tax Withholding and Reporting (Individuals)”, is an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) form that provides foreigners with an exemption from specified U.S. information return reporting and backup withholding regulations. You can access to a copy of the form by clicking here.

As Kreosus, we use the information you enter in your profile the fill the form on your behalf.

If you do not fill this form properly, there will be a 30% tax withholding on your payments.

We cannot give you tax advice. Therefore, we cannot walk you through the form. You can get help from the information buttons next to the form items in the Tax & Payout Information section of your profile. If you have any questions, please refer to a tax expert.

W-8BEN-E is an important tax document which allows businesses operating outside of the U.S. to claim tax exemption on U.S.-sourced income. The official document title is Certificate of Status of Beneficial Owner for United States Tax Withholding and Reporting (Entities). You can access to a copy of the form by buraya clicking here.

As Kreosus, we use the information you enter in your profile the fill the form on your behalf.

If you do not fill this form properly, there will be a 30% tax withholding on your payments.

Both of these forms are secured among Kreosus documents and if the IRS requests us to show who we pay, we will provide these to the officers.

All you need to do is to sign in to your Kreosus account, hover over the "Supporter" menu, click on the "Edit Supporter Profile" button. From here, you can click on the "Payment Method" tab and click on the "Change Card" button. Our system will prompt you to enter the new card number, expiration date, and CVC number. After making sure that this information is entered correctly, you can finalize the change by clicking on the "Save" button.