The Canadian instant messaging and social platform, Kik, has announced the launch of its own digital currency, Kin. Users will be able to purchase a range of digital services using this new cryptocurrency. Like the most famous cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Kin is built on the Ethereum blockchain technology. According to Kiks founder and CEO, Ted Livingston, Kik will become the first social media application to publicly offer its own cryptocurrency.
Kin is a cryptocurrency designed for microtransactions within consumer applications. Millions of people earn and spend Kin across an ecosystem of over 50 apps, making it the most commonly used cryptocurrency among mainstream consumers. Developers can integrate Kin into existing consumer applications with just a few lines of code, immediately unlocking new revenue streams. Developers are rewarded through the Kin Rewards Engine, which operates similarly to Bitcoin’s block reward but pays developers for enabling their users to earn and spend Kin. Apps that have integrated Kin include social apps, content platforms, and games. Users spend Kin on content, tipping creators, and purchasing in-game items, while they earn Kin by watching ads or completing surveys. Kin is a growing micro-economy in the digital world where everyone’s contribution is fairly compensated.
I. Project Introduction
Kik is launching an open-source cryptocurrency called Kin, intended to serve as a universal digital currency for everyday digital services such as chat, social media, and payments. Kin will be the unit of all economic transactions within the Kin ecosystem, serving as a basis for interoperability with other digital services.
Essentially, Kin is a pure cryptocurrency with a fixed supply, divisible and non-inflationary over the long term. However, only a small portion of the Kin supply will be in circulation initially, as the majority is reserved for the Kin Rewards Engine. Like other cryptocurrencies, Kin units are interchangeable, transferable, and expected to trade on cryptocurrency exchanges.
Project Features
Kin will be implemented as an ERC20 token on the public Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum is currently the industry standard for issuing custom digital assets and smart contracts. The ERC20 token interface enables the deployment of tokens compatible with existing infrastructure in the Ethereum ecosystem, such as development tools, wallets, and exchanges. Ethereum’s ability to deploy full Turing-complete trustless smart contracts makes it suitable for complex issuance rules for cryptocurrencies, digital financial contracts, and automated incentive structures. These advanced features and active ecosystem make Ethereum a natural fit for Kin.
Use Cases
According to AppAnnie, Kik is one of the most popular chat software platforms globally, ranking 7th in social networks alongside Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, and more popular than LinkedIn. Founded in 2009 by Ted Livingston and Chris Best, a classmate from the University of Waterloo, Kik Interactive now employs 150 people with offices in Waterloo and Toronto, Canada, New York City, USA, and Tel Aviv, Israel.
As a chat app, Kik is unique in the market, primarily targeting teenagers and young adults. With over 15 million monthly active users, 57% of Kik’s active user base falls between the ages of 13 and 24. Approximately 64% of Kik users reside in the United States. Kik users are highly engaged, with over 250 million messages sent daily on the platform. On average, Kik users spend 37 minutes per day on the platform and send 55 messages. Beyond chatting, Kik maintains a leading bot platform: third-party developers have created over 187,000 bots.
The size of the user base, demographic profile, and social context make Kik a unique venue for introducing, adopting, and using cryptocurrency among a large mainstream audience. The previous experience with “Kik Points” demonstrates that Kik users are receptive to digital currencies.
“Kik Points” Experiment
The introduction of “Kik Points” was an experiment to test a tradable account unit within the Kik app. The project concluded at the end of 2016 to prepare for a more advanced solution beyond purely advertising-based use cases. However, Kik was able to measure demand through transactions within the communication environment and gain valuable insights into user behavior. Over two and a half years, from 2014 to 2016, Kik users completed 253 million bids and spent earned points in 74 million transactions.
From the “Kik Points” experiment, Kik learned that there is a significant audience within communication apps for an economy based on chat. It also became clear how to successfully tailor such an economy to Kik’s user base. While typical cryptocurrency experiences are inaccessible to the average consumer, “Kik Points” showed that users do not need to be tech-savvy to use digital currencies. For Kik, the Kin project represents an opportunity to combine chat with genuine digital commerce within its existing user base.
Integrating Kin into Kik
The “Kik Points” experiment demonstrated the demand for a chat-based economy. Over time, Kik aims to integrate Kin into its chat ecosystem, benefiting users, platform developers, and partners. The iterative process of research, experimentation, and refinement that made Kik successful will be applied again to achieve these goals. Kik has a strong track record of developing products for the mass market and looks forward to integrating cryptocurrency into its product flow. The following sections describe some possible use cases related to storing, earning, and spending cryptocurrency that Kik will explore and validate.
Earnable Currency
One of the most notable features of “Kik Points” was that users did not need to buy them. Instead, mainstream users could earn “Kik Points” by performing valuable actions. As Kik expands its economy to include a cryptocurrency with real-world value both inside and outside the chat app, the economic possibilities for users increase significantly. With just a smartphone, attention, curation, and creation can be transformed into real-world value.
Kin Wallet
A primary feature needed to enable a digital community to use cryptocurrency is a wallet. As a first step, Kik will integrate a wallet into each Kik user account. The associated user interface will allow for common wallet interactions. By integrating wallets to support Kik’s millions of active users, the Kin wallet has the potential to become the most popular and widely used cryptocurrency wallet in the world.
Ethereum Settlement Layer
Users who wish to move Kin in and out of the Kik app will be able to do so by interacting with the public Ethereum network, which serves as the decentralized settlement layer for the currency. Users interacting with Kin within Kik will have a better-managed experience. This will allow early versions of the system to address blockchain scalability bottlenecks, free transactions, faster transaction times, and encapsulate complex features like private keys. Over time, Kin will evolve along with blockchain technology to provide these features in a fully decentralized environment.
Kik Economy and Possible Use Cases
Kik will introduce several market use cases enabling consumers and brands to transact with Kin. Through experimentation, Kik plans to create unique two-sided market applications for users, iterating on the product. On the supply side, bots or content creators will develop unique experiences. On the demand side, users will consume these products or services. In the near future, Kik’s bots will be capable of building their own business models.
II. Commentary
Since 2011, Kik’s vision has been to build the next great communication platform. The company has already achieved success in chat but now aims to drive a new, decentralized ecosystem of digital services for everyday life centered around a new cryptocurrency. This ecosystem will be open and ongoing, putting users first.
Kik will pioneer a new economic model for digital services, selling attention and data to consumers rather than advertisers. The company believes this will lead to a significant shift away from the centralized power held by today’s largest tech companies. In this new order, Kik plans to be one of many participants rather than a dominant force. To foster a vibrant economy based on the Kin cryptocurrency, the company will commit all its resources to making Kin the primary transactional currency in its chat app and promoting Kin ecosystem services to its millions of users. It will establish the Kin Foundation to manage and encourage the development of the Kin ecosystem and create the Kin Rewards Engine to incentivize developers and creators to produce new products and services. Building on the success of “Kik Points,” Kik has identified initial use cases for new economic experiences within the chat environment.
The Kin cryptocurrency will be built on the Ethereum blockchain, initially using hybrid on-chain and off-chain technical solutions, with the goal of eventually transitioning to a fully decentralized, autonomous system. This cryptocurrency will be used to reward ecosystem partners based on their contributions to the overall development of Kin. The Kin Foundation will ensure the cryptocurrency is platform-agnostic, but Kik will leverage its large existing user base to drive mass adoption. As a result, Kin can scale to meet the interoperability needs of modern applications and serve as the foundation for a new form of monetization.
Through this vision, Kin will usher in a new era of decentralized community ownership and enable a vibrant ecosystem of digital services that powers everyday life.
Related Links:
https://kinecosystem.org/
http://www.qukuaiwang.com.cn/szhb/2688.html###
https://www.chainnews.com/articles/151787557127.htm
