We’ve been talking about the Ada release for a few weeks now and today is the day! Ada aims to build on top of the Ritchie release and continue to solve friction points that our users are experiencing. Ritchie solved two main problems:

The difficulty for developers to integrate the AppCoins Protocol The issues users had while trying to pay for in-app items with APPC (and ETH for the blockchain fees)

Regarding the first point, we’ve released the BDS Billing System with a very simple interface for developers to integrate it, and start monetizing their apps with the AppCoins Protocol. For the second point, we’ve developed support for users to pay with credit card for in-app items. This was a very significant step to foster the protocol adoption, as it enabled users to buy in-app items without the need to have crypto in the first place.

The Ada release focuses on the other main use case of the AppCoins Protocol. Since the beginning, we’ve proposed a way for users to earn APPC for the time they spend using apps. We’ve proposed that users would provide a proof of the time spent in an app — the Proof-of-Attention (PoA) — which would be validated and, if the validation held, users would receive the corresponding rewards. Moreover, users would only be able to spend these rewards for in-app purchases, thus creating a circular economy. This dynamic triggers a “snowball” effect that results in more users getting rewards and spending them on other apps.

However, the previous version of the project had a major design flaw in terms of user adoption. Users needed to have ETH to be able to submit the PoAs to the blockchain and to receive the rewards. As previously seen with in-app purchases, since the large majority of users don’t own cryptocurrencies, they wouldn’t be able to submit the PoAs and earn the rewards.

The Ada release proposes an extension to the AppCoins Protocol. It implements a way of users earning rewards without having to own ETH to submit PoAs. Users can now use our system to validate and submit the proofs. Basically, our system periodically sends a summary of the proofs of each campaign to the blockchain, which is much more efficient costwise. In addition, the proofs of each user, both the ones considered valid but also the ones considered to be invalid are shown in its wallet in the AppCoins BDS Wallet. Furthermore, all the proofs can be verified in appcexplorer.io, both the valid and invalid proofs. The reason for the invalidation is also shown and can be contested. Moreover, users and developers can compute the summary of the proofs themselves and validate that what we send to the blockchain is, in fact, correct.

Moreover, the rewards earned by users can only be spent on in-app purchases, or donations which will be better explained below. This creates the circular economy that we’ve been talking about since the white paper was written, which fosters more dynamic in the ecosystem. These rewards will be named as Credits, and will be visible in the AppCoins BDS Wallet where users can manage them there.

AppCoins BDS Wallet with APPC Credits earned

To test this new PoA reward flow, download Red Runner app here. After the download, spend two minutes inside the app so that the wallet can compute the Proof-of-Attention with the APPC credits, as displayed in the image below. You can find other apps with active PoA campaigns here. Keep in mind, that you need to have the latest version of the AppCoins BDS Wallet installed so that you can store the received AppCoins credits to use for IAP or for donations.

AppCoins Credits from Proof of Attention Campaign

With the Ada release, we’ve also worked on the support for other types of payments using the AppCoins BDS Wallet. Until Ada, the AppCoins BDS Wallet enabled normal transactions between users and in-app purchases in apps that integrated the BDS Billing System.

The AppCoins BDS Wallet supports payments unrelated to in-app purchases but bound to apps inside the BDS platform. These payments can be, for example, donations to developers and can support payment systems that developers want to implement without using the full BDS Billing System. The wallet supports both on-chain and credit card payments for this kind of transactions. Lastly, the wallet also supports on-chain payments used by the ASF SDK, which relies only on the blockchain. In this case, the BDS system isn’t used at all and everything is done in the blockchain.

Our philosophy has always been to help the community create the best ecosystem for all those involved in it. Following this purpose, we have developed a way for users to donate some of their APPC rewards to the app developers — this results once more in an inclusive step towards the circular economy. If there is a game that the user is excited about and would like to help the developer to continue to improve it, now he has the tools to do so.

Once you get the credits on your wallet from the PoA rewards*, you can go to Aptoide App Store and search for the bds-store to find your favorite apps which have integrated the Protocol already — these are the only apps where the donation feature is available. There are two ways to donate: you can either select the app and find it on the app view, or you can select the app and once you try to intall it, a donation button will pop- up.

Click on the donate button, choose the name or nickname you want to use for your donation and select the amount of APPC you want to donate. You will see a message box with the amount of the donation, as a confirmation step. You are now ready to donate to your favourite developer!

Once you have completed this step you have sucessfully donated AppCoins to the developer, hence contributing to a circular economy!

These were the main updates from the Ada Release. Working on solving some of the major frictions, and creating something to support the developer community is another major milestone for the development of the AppCoins Protocol. With this release, the uses cases of In-App Purchases and User Acquisition reach a stable version and are ready for mass adoption.