Kin Q&A: Takeaways from Ted’s September 2018 AMA
As he does every month, Ted sat down to answer thoughtful questions from our community members and provide progress updates on some of our big wins since the last AMA. This month, Ted opened by sharing his perspective on the industry and insights into three of the most pressing topics in the community: the Kin Rewards Engine, Wallet #4, and Kinit in iOS. We’re giving you a quick snapshot of the AMA below, but check out the full video to hear everything Ted discussed.
The KRE launch is unblocked
The Kin Rewards Engine (KRE) is an algorithm that looks at the overall Kin economy each day, and determines which app or developer creates the most economic activity in the Kin Ecosystem. Once it has done this, it splits a daily payout between these developers in amounts proportional to how much they’ve contributed to the growth of the overall Kin economy. This is the fundamentally new monetization model for developers that will help make Kin the most used cryptocurrency in the world. But how do you make this work? Here’s what Ted had to say:
We are now in a position to unpause the development of the KRE, and that is what we have done. We have a scalable blockchain, our fork of Stellar that can support real mainstream transactions. We also have the Kin Developer Program with 40 developers selected out of a pool of 200 applications from 38 different countries who are going to bring that diversity of transactions to the economy so we can see all sorts of different developers with different types of users using Kin in different ways. With those two things, we are now in a position to unpause the development of the KRE.”
What happened with Wallet #4?
Wallet #4 is the term used for a Kin wallet holding a large amount of the currency — so much of it, that it’s easy to recognize when its holder begins moving their Kin around. Recently, a large amount of Kin was sold from Wallet #4. The sale caused Kin’s ranking on Coin Market Cap, which was quickly breaking into the top fifty coins, to drop significantly. Those of us who are close to the project understand why this happened, but someone on the outside might not. Ted broke this down very simply:
“Wallet #4 is someone who bought Kin during the pre-sale. For privacy reasons, we cannot say who, but it is obvious that no one owns that much Kin other than pre-sale buyers. We talk to all pre-sale buyers, and when we do, we are very careful not to share any non-public information. Why? Because that would be unfair. From our analysis, we can’t see any indication of any manipulation. So what is going on? We reached out and we asked. And the answer we received was that the sale had nothing to do with the holder’s excitement or lack of belief in the project, but there were business needs that required the holder to sell their Kin. So while it has been incredibly painful to watch this supply come into the market, it is something we simply need to work through. And the nice part is, we’ve worked through most of it. There’s only so much left to go before that person will no longer be able to sell.”
The only app on iOS for earning and spending cryptocurrency
Kinit, the first publicly available app dedicated solely to Kin, was released in July on Google Play for Android users. Through our close work with Apple, it was later approved in August for iOS users via the App Store. Of all of our accomplishments that have happened in the last month, this is what Ted is most excited about. Here’s why:
“We want Kin to be the cryptocurrency that is not only speculated on, but is actually used. In fact, we want Kin to be the most used cryptocurrency in the world. We want Kin to be, for the first time ever, a cryptocurrency that people buy to use. And that would be much harder if we were not on iOS, one of the two most dominating operating systems in the world. So for Apple to say ‘of all the apps and all the cryptocurrency projects, which one should we pick first to approve for earn and spend? We’re going to pick Kin,’ I think that’s a massive step forward. It is a huge testament to the team and their ability to go out and make that happen…As of today, we can say, there is only one project in the world with an approved app by Apple where you can earn and spend [crypto], and that is Kin.”
