Kin You See The Crypto?

Of these, Kin is already live, and in terms of UI/UX, it’s delightful.

It’s the first large scale crypto earning platform. It allows users to complete basic market surveys and so on to earn a little Kin. In-app redemption allows you to get a $25 AirBnB coupon for 2,500 Kin and so on.

In the next few days, Kik/Kin will release a further integration, along with the debut of 40 additional apps for earning Kin.

All-in-all, it’s a major step forward for all of crypto.

Steem and others have similar schemes, but Kik/Kin’s reach and ease-of-use set this platform head and shoulders above everything else we’ve tried.

But, there’s a big difference between pure quantitative adoption and the right kind of global adoption to spur breakout growth in entirely new economic segments.

Critiquing Kik/Kin

Kik/Kin is blazing a bright new path. Here are some milestones, in the words of Ted Livingston, founder & CEO of Kik/Kin:

We launched Kinit, a way for brands to pay you for your attention, becoming the first iPhone app in the world to get approved by Apple for earning and spending crypto. This, combined with Kik users, gave Kin more active users than all Ethereum dapps combined.

That’s pretty impressive.

But even as it stretches crypto horizons, Kik/Kin’s own approach to its own crypto earning platform is severely limiting.

Elsewhere, Kik/Kin describe earning Kin for “digital services,” in-app market surveys, social media interactions, and so on.

But in describing Kin as confined to in-app transactions, Kin is detaching itself from the crypto (material) economy. Totally. Unnecessarily.

How to Earn Kin?

The paradox of Kik/Kin’s marketing is that it doesn’t capture the reality of the budding Kik/Kin marketplace, which has apps that will give Kin rewards for completing off-Kik activities!

Here’s Kik/Kin’s own brief intro to the 40 apps awaiting release in the coming days.

By Kik’s own terms, folks will be earning Kin not only “inside Kik” — quite the opposite, the apps show that Kin-earning opportunities can be far more complex than just simple binary on-chain crypto-swaps.

Here are two examples from Kik/Kin’s own release:

GoChallengeMe.club is a social platform that will incentivize people to achieve their goals through competition and accountability. Users will be able to enter competitions with community members who are working toward the same goal, and will earn Kin for being the first member to reach said goal.

is a social platform that will incentivize people to achieve their goals through competition and accountability. Users will be able to enter competitions with community members who are working toward the same goal, and will earn Kin for being the first member to reach said goal. KinQuest is a social platform by Spaced that will help travelers meet and socialize with other travelers in their local area. Users will be able to earn Kin by performing quests, and thus meeting up, as well as completing their in-app profile, reviewing users, and for referring other users or businesses.

Does that sound like “in-app” activity?

Yes, there are in-app reporting, input, transactional components, but the genius of Kin and the app-development program is that “competitions,” “meet ups,” “quests” do not necessarily have to be done “inside Kik” in order to receive Kin rewards.

Think Ingress, PokemonGo, etc.

Imagine a waste/hazard reporting app where you’re paid in Kin for reporting waste or dangerous conditions around corporate campuses, playgrounds, or, say, supermarkets. The same app permits responders to buy access to these streaming data inputs, which sustains the reporting activity on global scales of billions of users and billions of daily transactions.