Introducing Pepo: The New Social App Connecting the Crypto Community
We can’t keep Pepo a secret.
Pepo is the new social app where the people shaping the crypto movement are coming together, making short videos, and rewarding each other with tokens of appreciation.
Since we debuted Pepo at Ethereum DevCon5, we’ve been blown away by the diverse group of makers, developers, podcasters, analysts, bloggers and crypto enthusiasts who have all started using the app. Whether it’s to share exclusive events, conduct interviews, offer project updates, or put out a “we’re hiring” call, the crypo community is connecting on Pepo.
Pepo is all about people. Communities of people sharing ideas and working toward common goals are what make every achievement possible. This is just as true for crypto as anything else — even though blockchain technology is designed in many ways to eliminate human subjectivity and error. The movement is made up of human beings.
Before launching Pepo, we spent months speaking to hundreds of people around the world to understand what the community would want from a crypto social platform.
We are thrilled that this focus on people has led to the overwhelmingly positive reaction to Pepo so far. After years building the tech stack to make the best crypto experience possible, it’s inspiring to now see the crypto community so active — thousands of 30-second videos from crypto makers have already been created — on an app that’s easy to use and blazing fast.
Crypto’s Killer App is Community
We want to help accelerate the crypto movement by providing a place where makers can authentically connect and collaborate. As an ecosystem, we’ve learned a lot in “crypto winter.” Above all, it’s becoming more and more clear that community is crypto’s killer app. As we emerge on the other side of that winter, in many ways wiser and better for the wear, the spirit of community is stronger than ever — and is fueled by makers.
The early user feedback on Pepo has been super encouraging. Simona Pop of Bounties, which partnered with us on “Proof of IRL” at DevCon, told us that Pepo is the best UX in crypto that she’s seen. And Decrypt Media’s coverage made us blush! They said that “Pepo shows that blockchain is ready for primetime.”
The momentum Pepo started building in Osaka continued into SF Blockchain Week and on to ETHWaterloo.
Driven by community events, the Pepo community has already made more than 40,000 peer-to-peer decentralized transactions to share tokens of appreciation with makers.
People using Pepo describe it as a cross between TikTok and LinkedIn. We can already see it becoming an outlet for the playful way the crypto community connects — professionally as well as socially. Job seekers began making videos on the app almost immediately, so it’s exciting that decision-makers from top companies in blockchain are also already active on Pepo. We’re talking ConsenSys, Cosmos, Ocean, Epicenter, Trojan, Yolorekt, Bounties, Status, Gnosis, Cielo, Audius, and more.
We couldn’t be more pleased with how the community has taken to Pepo and run with it in their own unique ways. For example, Sebastien Couture, host of podcast Epicenter, shared exclusive back-stage interviews with SFBW speakers.
Ethereum developer-scholars are publishing mini-tutorials.
QryptoQueers organized a live event.
Defi enthusiasts have shared numerous product launches and updates.
And crypto projects from all around the globe are introducing themselves and announcing updates daily.
First Crypto-Powered App Approved by Apple
Pepo is the first crypto-powered app to be approved by Apple with in-app purchases and cash-out options. Working with leading lawyers we carefully designed and architected a solution that is regulatory, finCEN, and Apple compliant. Navigating the regulatory waters and meeting Apple’s standards was challenging for sure. But we’ve now seen it’s possible, and we’re eager to share our experience with other crypto projects.
At the Conflux UX conference in Toronto on November 7th and the next day at ETH Waterloo, we hosted workshops on how to navigate the app store with a regulatory compliant crypto app. We trust that we will be just the first of many, as more and more crypto teams also meet Apple’s approval.
Pepo is built around a simple concept: great work should be rewarded. This idea is at the heart of Web3, the upcoming generation of people-centric Internet platforms Pepo is committed to helping grow. Web1 missed the chance to establish a basic funding layer, and Web2 designed business models that hoard revenue away from creators. Now we have the chance, through communities like Pepo, to ensure makers finally earn fair rewards. The blockchain technology underlying Pepo makes this possible through the sharing of tokens.
The tokens that people exchange on Pepo to reward each other and show their appreciation can be used for a variety of in-app uses, such as appreciation, signaling, curation, and personalization. And if people want to cash-out outside the app, they can simply cash them out for credits to use in their favorite real-world stores. So makers can look forward to real rewards using Pepo, whether buying a book on Amazon or ordering lunch on UberEats.
At Pepo, we’re also committed to making it easier for the crypto community to give back. We’re currently in conversation with several high-quality, impact-driven organizations, about ways to use Pepo for social good. If you have ideas in this direction or if you represent a social good organization, please connect with us on Pepo, and let’s collaborate!
Powered by OST Technology
Pepo was created by the team behind the Open Simple Token technology. OST is a layer-2 application development platform and scaling solution on top of Ethereum that makes it easy to build apps with seamlessly integrated micro-transactions. For those who are unfamiliar with “layer-2” — it’s the application layer that enables distributed applications to scale to serve mainstream use cases.
OST provides the industry’s first embeddable Ethereum wallet SDK and is carefully designed to be easily used within mainstream consumer apps.
Jason Goldberg is CEO of both OST and Pepo, and has been building user experiences for creators and communities for decades. In the late 1990s, Jason worked at AOL on chat rooms, in the 2000s on Jobster and Social Median, and more recently he connected designers at Hem and Fab. One of Pepo’s co-founders, Benjamin Bollen, was lead developer at Hyperledger Burrow, Monax, and Maidsafe. The OST 50-person technology team has been developing the technology to enable apps like Pepo since 2016. The Ost technology is open sourced for anyone to use.
For Pepo, the OST technology and Jason’s background scaling consumer apps, enables a simple, seamless user experience. There’s no need to deal with large strings of characters or to check transactions one by one. People on Pepo just create a 6-digit PIN for quick account recovery and avoid the risk of losing a private key.
When someone on Pepo “likes” a video, the maker is automatically rewarded in tokens. No keys to fumble with, no browser extensions — just simple, beautiful content with instant tokens of appreciation.
The Conversation Continues
And we’re just getting started.
Pepo is a continuous conversation with the crypto community. It’s people sending messages, thoughts, technical concepts — anything we want to communicate to each other through a people-centric app. Our conversation with the community on Pepo never stops either. Already, we’ve incorporated feedback from people using the first version of the app, specifically, improving browsing and discovery by adding #hashtags that function as conversation categories. Next up we’ll introduce video replies and threads, as people have asked us to help them carry on more authentic conversations, debates, and discussions on Pepo.
Community is crypto’s lifeblood and in many ways, its strongest asset. We built Pepo to help connect the whole crypto movement. Together, we can create a special place to nurture, strengthen, and grow our shared community.
You can download the Pepo app in Apple’s app store or on Google Play. You’ll need a Twitter account to login for now, and then it’s easy to get started!
🦄 see you on Pepo!
