Kinit App Goes Live After Massive $100 Million Initial Coin Offering

Kik has just launched its cryptocurrency-related application to the market known as Kinit. The product unveiled aims to become one of the most important crypto apps in the ecosystem. Kinit has been unveiled just months after the company posted the first product overview on Medium.

The company behind Kinit, was able to gather over $100 million dollars from an ICO and $120 million in venture funding. Additionally, Kik has 15 million monthly users that will enjoy the benefits of the newest app.

The company’s vision has three different components. The first one is called ‘Kin Ecosystem,’ which includes partners such as Kik, Unity, Blackhawk Network and more. A developer program has also been launched during the last week, they are paying 25 developers to deal with independent ‘kin economics’ during 6 months. They will have to onboard 50,000 monthly active wallets in order to receive the full amount of funds offered by the contest.

The second component of the company is related to the ‘Kin Blockchain.’ The blockchain-built platform is a very interesting one that consists of two different chains combined. At the beginning the intention was to use the ERC-20 standard, but the team behind Kik believed that the network was too congested to support the user base Kin has.

This is why the team moved to the Stellar network that allows for faster and cheaper transactions. But in order to create liquidity, the team decided to fork the Stellar’s code base and create Kin to run alongside Ethereum.

In other words, Kin would be used for internal transactions, while Ethereum would be used to process external transactions and provide liquidity to the network.

On July the 17th, Rod McLeod, VP of communications explained:

“Kinit is the first publicly available app dedicated to Kin. Our goal with Kinit is to get Kin into more consumers’ hands. It’s a major step towards making crypto truly consumer-friendly through fun and engaging experiences, and we plan to learn and iterate based on real-world user behaviour. We’re excited to get even more people earning and spending Kin – all on the Kin Blockchain.”

Those users that download the Kinit app will be able to create a wallet in just a few quick steps. After it, it’s possible for them to gain access to the Kin Marketplace Beta, where they will be able to spend the Kin they earn on gift cards.

In the future, there will be new functionalities implemented in the network so as for users to earn and spend Kin tokens.

The third most important part of the vison of the company is the ‘Kin Standalone App.’ The main intention behind it was to create a very simple and easy to use application where users could discover apps supported on the Kin Ecosystem.

Users will have to enter their phone number, confirm it, and after it they will have the app on the screen. A survey will pop-up and ask things such as why the user downloaded the app, and any expectations for the future.

Gift Cards on Kinit

Users will have the chance to redeem the Kin tokens they earn for gift cards (ranging between $5 and $25 dollars) from brands and retailers such as Amazon, AMC Theatres, and Google Play.

According to the results from the private beta, users achieved a 10-day retention rate of over 75%. In addition to it, 66% of users used the app for over three weeks.

Kik’s Strategy

The company says that is on track with all the three main steps they proposed: build a scalable blockchain, launch Kin in Kik and expand Kin beyond Kik.

Ted Livingston, Founder and CEO of Kik and Kin, commented on the matter:

“I’m happy to report that we’re on track with all three steps. In some areas, we’re already ahead of plan, specifically in our efforts to build a scalable blockchain.”

Moreover, in June, the company was able to register 1.2 million transactions per day, and it is now offering live consumer experiences that are running on the Kin Blockchain.

Furthermore, Kin is doubling down on the Kin Blockchain and investing heavily in the internal development team and blockchain solution.

Photo courtesy of Hackernoon