KIN: A Cryptocurrency Ecosystem for the App Economy
You may be familiar with Kik, the instant messaging app, but if you haven’t been following them closely you may not be familiar with Kin, their recently launched cryptocurrency that provides a new platform for application developers to seamlessly and easily integrate crypto in their apps.
A Quick Kik Background
Kik was founded in 2009. After a few pivots they landed on an instant messaging platform that would compete initially with BlackBerry Messenger, and eventually with the WhatsApp’s of the world. Kik’s initial growth was extreme, gaining over 1 million users in the first 15 days, and now hovering north of 300 million subscribers with over 15 million monthly active users. While they are not quite the behemoth that WhatsApp or WeChat are, they are still a global and widely used platform.
For some time Kik has been toying with reward systems in its application, and in 2017 they firmly pivoted this attention to launching their own cryptocurrency called Kin in a successful $100 Million dollar ICO. It’s a make or break move for Kik, and a step forward for crypto platforms.
What is Kin
Kin: a decentralized ecosystem of digital services for daily life
At its root, Kin is a cryptocurrency based on an ERC20 token from the #2 crypto platform Ethereum, however Kin has a few interesting characteristics that differentiate it from the crowd and make it a cryptocurrency platform worth paying attention to.
Let’s take a closer look at these interesting aspects:
1. Created as a Foundation
Rather than use the Kin ICO as a fund raising effort for Kik, Kin was launched as a foundation that is arms length and not directly tied to the business or trajectory of Kik. The foundation is being run in an open fashion, with transparent goals around governance, research and development.
The decision to launch Kin as a separate foundation ensures there is no bias in relation to the Kik app or company, and provides a stable base upon which to build a decentralized digital services ecosystem.
2. Designed as a platform for App Developers
Instead of a fund raising tool or utility token for Kik itself, Kin is designed as a platform for all application developers. This means that app developers who are interested in introducing cryptocurrency capabilities into their applications don’t need to go through the hassle and expense of creating their own coin, but rather can simply integrate with the Kin platform.
While running an ICO is all the rage, the last year has proven that more than 80% of ICO’s are scams, and many others simply fail. Sprinkle in the legal issues around tokens and securities, and the sheer cost of running a successful ICO campaign, and you’ve got a significant uphill battle to come out on top. Rather than trying to run this gauntlet, app developers can simply do what they do best and integrate with a platform that has already done the heavy lifting.
3. “Mining” is engagement driven
Perhaps the most interesting aspect is that Kin deviates from the typical crypto mining model, instead creating an incentive system that is based on engagement, appropriately called the Kin Rewards Engine (KRE).
Underpinning KRE is an algorithm that calculates daily rewards for app developers based on the Kin transaction volume within their apps and user base. The result is rewards, in the form of Kin, moving to application developers that drive the most amount of engagement and are continually innovating within their apps.
This is a novel concept that shifts the flow of value to applications and user bases, instead of, for example, intermediaries or advertisers.
For more details you can dive into Kin and the foundation in the whitepaper here.
Why Is This Relevant?
If the beginning of 2018 was a bubble pop and market correction (manipulation?), the later half of 2018 has a focus on delivering real and valuable platforms and applications.
While the characteristics of Kin are unique in their own right, what this signals is a move to a more sane integration between cryptocurrency and the application economy, and increased evidence that Blockchain 3.0 applications are immanent.
The Kin Developer Program
On that note, Kin is ready for the next step and has opened up their developer program to the community at large. If you’re an application developer interested in introducing cryptocurrency based incentives and rewards in your application then this is a program you should take a look at.
Kin is incentivizing their developer program by committing $3 Million dollars towards helping developers integrate and build out their applications. Beyond monetary incentives the Kin Foundation is promising additional promotion, tooling and support to help app developers make the most of their Kin integration.
The program is open now for applications with the first phase and incentive deliveries being targeted for Oct 2nd, 2018.
More details here.
What to keep an eye on
If you’re not an application developer, there’s still plenty to keep an eye on, including:
- The progress of the developer program and who the winners will be
- The overall market adoption of Kin as application developers integrate
- The resultant price of Kin in relation to its adoption (currently sitting at $0.000211 USD, up 15% in the last 24 hours)
While there was a flurry of activity a year ago, we are now firmly entering the phase of real platforms and applications built on blockchain and powered by cryptocurrency. The decentralized Kin Foundation ecosystem marks another milestone for cryptocurrency platforms and the application economy, and further shows the importance of Ethereum as a platform that will underpin many of the critical blockchain initiatives moving forward.
