2018 Q2 Kin Highlights
Kin is well underway in the race to become the most used cryptocurrency in the world. In Q2, we saw exciting progress on all fronts, specifically continuing to make headway with the Kin Blockchain and partner integrations.
Without further ado, let’s jump in.
Product and engineering
We announced that we are building our own blockchain. The Kin Blockchain powers all Kin transactions and has a unique design that makes it both secure and scalable. It’s a combination of two blockchains: the Ethereum blockchain for liquidity and eventual payouts of the Kin Rewards Engine; and the consumer blockchain, which is a custom fork of Stellar developed by Kin, for consumer experiences within the ecosystem. The Kin Blockchain recently achieved 1.2 million transactions per day at a rate of 20 transactions per second.
The Kik team also came to Tel Aviv to continue work on their integration of Kin. This resulted in new earn and spend experiences inside of Kik. Kik users can now earn Kin by completing tasks, including a tutorial, quizzes, and polls. These users will then have access to premium themes that customize a user’s chat screen.
We also continued to make improvements to the Ecosystem SDK, adding native earn and spend functions in both Android and iOS.
We continue to make headway with Kinit, a beta version of a standalone app where we can accelerate learnings of consumer use cases of Kin. The beta test yielded strong results:
- 98% of users completed the first task;
- 84% of users completed four tasks;
- 75% of users completed 10 tasks;
- 66% of users competed 21 tasks; and
- 65% of registered users were still active on the third month!
Blackhawk redemptions also became available, allowing users to spend Kin on e-gift cards, and new features include phone verification, transaction history, peer-to-peer tipping, and the ability to send Kin to a friend as a gift.
In addition, we held our first Kin Hackathon in Tel Aviv. During the two-day event, we worked hand-in-hand with small teams of developers as they designed and built Kin experiences. We held this event with the hope of creating real use cases for Kin inside working applications, receiving feedback on our Core Blockchain SDK and gaining firsthand insight into the challenges and opportunities developers encounter as they explore integrating Kin.
Four teams participated in this event, which produced Kin integrations for a content creator platform, an in-action gaming marketplace, a charitable organization use case, and a prediction market platform. Watch the presentation of first place winner Vlogr:
Partnerships
The partnerships team worked on bringing two new partners into the ecosystem: Blackhawk Network and IMVU.
Hawk Incentives, a Blackhawk Network business will provide gift cards to certain users in the ecosystem via an integrated order API. This creates an automated, customizable way for certain apps in the Kin Ecosystem to offer broadly appealing Kin “spend” offers to users directly through those applications. Users of those apps will be able to spend their Kin on ecodes from a host of desirable brands.
IMVU, the world’s largest avatar-based social network, will provide their users with the ability to transact in the Kin Ecosystem. The company has a very active user base (users spend 55 minutes per day customizing avatars, connecting with friends and having shared experiences in a virtual community) and already generate more than 15 million transactions, spending nearly ten billion monthly in the platform’s existing native currency, IMVU Credits.
In addition, the partnerships and product teams went to Korea and Japan to continue working with the Unity teams and the Kin Gaming SDK. The first stop was Unite Seoul 2018, Korea’s largest developer conference, where the team saw first-hand how developers use Unity’s technology. The team then went to Unite Tokyo and continued meeting with potential design partners, developer-collaborators, and other gaming industry experts.
Community
We had some exciting community activity in Q2. On April 11–12, we invited 28 of our most active community members from 13 different countries to New York to the first-ever Kin Ambassadors Event. Ambassadors were able to learn directly from Kin projects leads, and sessions included a fireside between Ted and CoinDesk reporter Brady Dale, a session on product vision with VP of product Alex Frenkel, a preview from the Kik team on initial thoughts on integrating Kin, and an intimate discussion with USV partner and Kik board member Fred Wilson.
Following the event, the community has stayed active, holding meetups in Korea, London, and Russia. We also launched a pilot of the first Kin Ambassador Program, and 17 members were onboarded to the pilot phase. We hope to learn more so that we can turn this into a recurring program where we work closely with our top community members. We’ll share more information as the pilot progresses.
We are also excited by the addition of community moderator, Ben Landis, who has hit the ground running and is already active in all community channels.
And the last exciting update for us was hitting 10,000 people in the Kin Subreddit!
Growing the Team
We’re still continuing to grow the team. We’re currently filling the following positions in New York and Tel Aviv:
- Server developer (Tel Aviv)
- IOS developer (Tel Aviv)
- Blockchain expert (Tel Aviv)
- Devops engineer (Tel Aviv)
- Technical writer (Tel Aviv)
- Content manager (New York or Tel Aviv)
If you’re interested or know someone who is a fit, please email careers@kinecosystem.org.
Communications Highlights
With several projects to announce and a packed week at Consensus, we had a busy Q2. Ted spoke on a panel at Consensus titled, “Before Crypto, After Crypto,” where he and others discussed the transition to becoming a decentralized company. Dany Fishel, president of Kin, also spoke on a panel titled, “Transitioning Consumer Companies into Blockchain.” Here’s an interview Ted did with CoinDesk Live at the conference:
Alex Frenkel, VP of product, also spoke on a panel titled, “Diving into Digital Currencies,” at Collision Conference:
Q2’s top read content focused on various news announcements and product updates.
- IMVU to Deliver Native Crypto Experiences in 3D Social Networks by Sergio Silva (June 8)
- Unlocking Product Opportunities for Kik by Laura Newton (June 27)
- Blackhawk Network Joins the Kin Ecosystem to Provide ‘Spend’ Offers to Users in the Digital Sharing Economy by Matt Hibberd (April 19)
- Product Insights from the Kinit Beta App by Sarit Airel (May 24)
- The Kinit App — What’s Next? by Sarit Ariel (June 4)
- Scaling Kin Blockchain — Status Update by Tanya Rofman (June 7)
In the news:
- Kik Is Creating Its Own Blockchain for Its Cryptocurrency Kin, AdWeek
- Messaging Giant Kik Brings Kin Crypto Tokens to Avatar-Based Social Network IMVU, CCN
- A Chain of Its Own: Mobile App Kik to Fork Stellar for Fee-Free Blockchain, CoinDesk
- Despite Caution Over Cryptocurrency, Investors Are Bullish, The New York Times
- Kik Tests its Kin Cryptocurrency with 1,000 Random Users, VentureBeat
- Kik Founder Plots a Rebel Alliance Against Facebook’s ‘Death Star,’ Wired
What’s next?
Over the next three months, we will continue work on the Kin Blockchain and partner integrations. As always, we will continue updating our Reddit, Telegram, and Twitter accounts, and of course, Medium.
