WATERLOO, Ontario, March 29, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Kin Ecosystem Foundation, a nonprofit governance body for the cryptocurrency Kin, announced today an Asset Store partnership with Unity Technologies, creator of the world's most widely-used real-time 3D development platform. Through the partnership, Kin will create a gaming-specific software development kit (SDK) for millions of Unity developers globally, allowing them to build and design with Kin as an integral part of their games from the very beginning. The Kin Gaming SDK will become part of the Unity Asset Store, a marketplace for gaming tools and services.

"Our initial partners need to work hand-in-hand with us to create the tools and services that will serve as the foundation of the Kin Ecosystem," said Dany Fishel, executive vice president of partnerships at Kin. "With Unity, we get a partner committed to democratizing development, solving hard problems and enabling success, which aligns perfectly with our goal of creating a thriving ecosystem that maximizes the value of Kin for developers."

The gaming market represents a huge opportunity for cryptocurrency-enabled digital services. In 2017, games represented nearly 80 percent of total consumer app spend (Google Play and iOS App Store) and accounted for roughly 35 percent of total app downloads worldwide, according to a report by App Annie and IDC. More games are made with Unity than with any other game technology. The platform powers 50 percent of all new mobile games and touts 24 billion app downloads running on six billion unique devices in 2017.

"Developers benefit when they can monetize digital experiences and quickly expand transactions across global markets," said Hubert Larenaudie, President APAC at Unity Technologies. "We are continuously looking for top companies in the space who understand consumer experiences and believe that the combination of Kik's experience and user base, along with Kin, provides many opportunities for developers."

Once the SDK has been built and tested through a unique beta program with select Unity partners, game developers will be able to build, design and monetize apps with Kin cryptocurrency and blockchain technology at their core. The Kin Gaming SDK will be open source and shared on GitHub.

To join the Kin Ecosystem, please email partnerships@kinecosystem.org or visit http://kinecosystem.org.

About Unity Technologies

Unity is the creator of the world's most widely-used real-time 3D development platform, giving developers around the world the tools to create rich, interactive 2D, 3D, VR and AR experiences. The company's 800+ person engineering team keeps Unity at the bleeding-edge of technology by working alongside partners such as Google, Facebook, Oculus and Microsoft to ensure optimized support for the latest releases and platforms. Games and experiences made with Unity have reached ~3 billion devices worldwide and were installed more than 24 billion times in the last 12 months. Unity's renowned flexibility gives developers the power to target and optimize their creations for t 25+ platforms including Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Gameroom (Facebook), SteamVR (PC & Mac), Oculus, PSVR, Gear VR, HoloLens, ARKit (Apple), ARCore (Google) and more. Unity also offers solutions and services for connecting with audiences including Unity Ads, Unity Analytics, Unity Asset Store, Unity Cloud Build, Unity Collaborate, Unity Connect and Unity Certification.

For more information, visit www.unity3d.com and to see the latest games and experiences created in Unity, go to https://unity.com/madewith.

About Kin Ecosystem Foundation:

The Kin Ecosystem Foundation is a nonprofit corporation established for the governance of the cryptocurrency Kin and is tasked with growing an open ecosystem of digital services. The Foundation will oversee the Kin Ecosystem on matters, including development of the Kin Rewards Engine, membership, and security, and the ecosystem's transition to a fully decentralized model that operates completely independently. For more information, please visit https://kinecosystem.org.

Press Contact:

Rod McLeod

Kik Interactive, Inc.

press@kik.com

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SOURCE Kin Ecosystem Foundation