Bringing the Kin Story to Life
Kin was born a year and a half ago out of the realization that the digital world had become broken and unfair. Rather than a space of openness, accessibility, and opportunity that it had been imagined as being, the digital world has become a space dominated by a few large players who were crowding out competition, stifling creativity, and turning users into products to be monetized. Even developers with well established and well loved apps were finding themselves in a place where they had to choose between compromising their values or shutting off the lights.
While there were countless solutions developed to help with monetization, they were all based on an inherently unfair model that put developers’ and users’ interests in conflict with each other, ultimately creating a competitive landscape in which only the few companies who either turned users into zombie scrollers, violated user privacy, or offered broken, ad filled user experiences could win. For most developers this was a compromise they did not want to make. Even if they were willing, without a user base that could rival the giant 5 tech companies, success was still a nearly unachievable goal.
This all started to change with the rise of blockchain and crypto. These new technologies began what could be seen as a paradigm shift in how we think about, and distribute, value online. But, like all new technologies, understanding the best way to use them, and unlocking their full potential requires time, thought, and significant development. This is exactly what we have been working on since Kin was announced to the world in 2017.
Over the course of the past year and a half, we haven’t simply been building an SDK, we have been carefully creating a whole new model for the digital world. The Kin squads have done extensive industry and user research, developed a consumer ready blockchain, built easy to implement SDKs, refined use cases, worked closely with partners to understand their unique challenges, and onboarded developers from around the world to begin to establish an ecosystem in which everyone can succeed together, where developers and their users are finally on the same page. Kin wasn’t created to replace old technologies with blockchain, it was created to fundamentally shift the paradigm of the digital world.
I’m proud to say that all of this hard work is coming to fruition. In the past few weeks, a number of important things have happened. The first, which you can read more about here, is the recent announcement of the migration from ERC-20 tokens to a native Kin token on the Kin blockchain. While exciting in itself for the technological achievement it represents, it is even more so for what it means. Kin is now listed on major exchanges, creating liquidity, and making it easier than ever for any developer to begin to participate in the Kin ecosystem. In a sense, with the new Kin token, the ecosystem is fully “open for business”.
The second is the ability to move Kin from app to app within the ecosystem. While still in its early stages, this new capability means that each app is connected to each other in a system that benefits everyone. Practically, this means that apps move from being in it alone, something that is just shy of impossible in a digital world dominated by corporate giants, to having an ecosystem of like minded developers that can support each others success and create a level playing field. David may have succeeded in taking down Goliath on his own, but think about how much easier it would have been if he had others at his side.
Along with the advances in the blockchain and SDK, we have also seen significant growth in the ecosystem itself with major partners joining and new Kin based experiences being developed everyday. Along with this, our second developer program is currently running, and another specifically for Unity developers will begin soon. All of this has contributed to Kin being one of the most used cryptocurrencies in the world, a status that everyone should be proud of because it means that together we are showing the real transformative power of cryptocurrencies.
The last development I want to mention, and one that in many ways shows how far we’ve come, and exactly where we are headed is the release of Kin’s new website and branding. For those who haven’t had the chance to see it yet, I encourage you to go check it out: kin.org. The website, and new branding represent more than a change in our style, visuals, and language, they represent a way to truly introduce the Kin project and vision to the world, something summed up well on the about us page, “This isn’t just a new way of doing business, it’s a new way of thinking that puts people at the center while focusing on creativity, experience, and connection.” Through the use of bold colors we wanted to show that this project was not one among many, but rather something that was driven by high ideals and a powerful vision, while the use of hands throughout the website was meant to serve as a metaphor for human connection that we believe can be built even in digital spaces.
We should all be proud of the progress we have made. When I say ‘we’ here I don’t mean just the team helping to build the project, I mean everyone involved in it, from the largest partners to community supporters. It is together that we are building this, and it is together that we will create a better digital world.
