Kik, the Waterloo, Canada based messenger app, decided to raise funds through its own coin, called Kin, which shall be used in the internal app trading system, which will be deployed on the Ethereum Network as an ERC20 token.
Source: Whitepaper Kin
Kik, has a user base of 15 million monthly active user, consisting mostly of teens, mostly in North America. Ted Livingston, the CEO of Kik, even mentioned that he wants to build the WeChat of the west, this after receiving an investment of 50 million USD from Tencent, the company who owns WeChat.
Kik app
The major advantage compared to other apps is its anonymity. You only have to mention, name, e-mail and birth date as you need to be at least 13 to use it. It does not store the data sent by users and it deletes it. For safety reasons it stores only the username and the most used IP for 90 days, after that it deletes it. You can’t search users by name, e-mail or phone number, only by their username.
To protect its users from abuse, the messages from people outside the network are blurred and one needs to opt in to see them. This feature has been introduced because the “cross-apping” where users from another app (usually MMOs) try to contact you on Kik.
A thing that needs to be mentioned is that 40% of US teenagers use it. Imagine the potential market of it. And as we are here, we shall switch to Kin, their token.
Kin, the token
The pre-registration page for the token can be found here: Kin pre-sale site. From the site we get the aim is to be "a general purpose cryptocurrency, for use in everyday digital services"
The Kin token will be initially available to use for the Kik Ecosystem and will expand to different services.
The Kin Token can be acquired only via the Ethereum network and the ETH address where you send the amount needs to be mentioned in the registration process.
The total supply will be of 10 trillion with 1 trillion available at the ICO. The 1 trillion Kin are having a raise target of 75 million USD.
Kik tested the reward system in the app, with the over 140000 registered bots that awarded user points for completing different tasks. The response from this test convinced the team that Kin will be more than viable, even outside of the app,also from the advertising perspective, where the market is dominated at the moment by Google and Facebook.
The Team
The Team is lead by Ted Livingston, the CEO of Kik, who was named Toronto's most brilliant tech innovator by the monthly magazine Toronto Life.
The Core Team. Source: Whitepaper Kin
The whitepaper is available in English, Chinese, Japanese and Russian.
The challenge
Being built on the Ethereum network, the major challenge will be the speed and the capacity of Ethereum which will be strained by adding the amount of users Kik has at the same time. They shall take in account the limits of the blockchain they are building the Kin token on.
Another aspect, which might not attract the standard crypto supporters, is that it will be not decentralized from the beginning and the development and governance will be done by the Kin foundation.
The opportunity
The opportunity is huge as according to the whitepaper, the average user spends 37 minutes and sends 55 messages a day. Just thinking that only at 20% daily engagement from the monthly active users, you get 3 million active users, compared to steemit where you have around 15 thousand.
Kik will integrate Kin into its messenger through a variety of two-sided marketplaces where users can earn and spend Kin. Kin will eventually be integrated into other digital services comprising the Kin Ecosystem.
Let us know down in the comments what you think of Kin.
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