A few months ago, a Kin community member named Trevor came up with an idea for an app that would allow users all over social media to tip one another seamlessly with Kin. When he heard about the Kin Developer Program, he put out a call to other members of the community who had the skills and knowledge needed to make the app a reality.

In October, Kinny the tip-bot, one of the first peer-to-peer experiences to be created through the Kin Developer Program, went live to real users. Kinny is a community-driven project, created by five individuals who met in our own community channels, each with the same goal to join forces and build something useful — not only for the Kin community, but for everyone on social media.

We sat down with Trevor and Richie, two of five members of the Kinny team, to talk about the purpose of the app, their challenges, and their vision for Kinny’s future.

What interested you in Kin, and why is Kin a fit for kinny?

We’ve all been interested in Kin since the token distribution event. Not many cryptocurrencies have an actual use case, but Kin does. Some of us have been in crypto since the early days, so it was refreshing to see a project that had a clear vision for actual real world usage. We didn’t see Kin as trying to replace fiat within existing systems, but rather disrupting the very way in which users, developers, and platforms interact in the digital space.

Kin and Kinny are like peanut butter and jelly, peas in a pod. Kinny was created specifically for Kin. It was a way for the community to actively take a role in promoting Kin, and we anticipate the use of Kinny to evolve and grow with the expansion of the Kin Ecosystem.

How did you come up with a use case for Kin?

Kinny allows users to send and receive Kin over a growing number of social networks including Twitter and Reddit, and it lets you to send Kin to anyone regardless of whether they have downloaded the app. Users who download the app will also be able to earn Kin doing surveys.

The use case for Kin as a means to reward content creators on social media was self evident. Other crypto projects were getting involved with tipping, most notably the xrptipbot. Xrptipbot’s creator, Wiestse Wind, advised us in the early days, and we can’t thank him enough. We saw what we believe is the significant potential for Kinny to play a role as an extension of the Kin Ecosystem. Kinny provides a way to reach beyond the ecosystem and draw users on social media into what promises to be an exciting world of earning and spending Kin on an ever-developing breadth of experiences, products, and services.

Kinny is thought of as a community project with a purpose and meaning to it. It’s not just a “feel good” project, but one that’s targeted to evolve and grow and provide real value as time goes on. This is seen as a tool to connect the members of the community to one another, and allow better interactions and engagements.