Kik beta test will allow users to play with Kin cryptocurrency

TORONTO A thousand users on the Kik messaging app will get a chance to play around with the Kin cryptocurrency starting this week as part of a beta test, but the company acknowledges that they’ve got a lot of work before Kin is ready for prime time.

The users who are picked for the beta test will be able to earn Kin tokens by completing tutorials and filling out quizzes and polls, and they ’ll be able to spend those cryptocurrency tokens on cosmetic upgrades inside the Kik app.

The Waterloo, Ont.-based company hopes this is a step toward widespread adoption for the beleaguered Kin cryptocurrency, which raised nearly $100 million in an initial coin offering last year.

“It is the first time that we can point to something and say this is how Kin can work in native features,” Kik product manager Laura Newton said.

Technically, Kik and Kin are separate entities, although they ’re working hand-in-glove on this.

Kik is a for-profit company that operates a messaging app, which CEO Ted Livingston said in May has “millions” of active users.

Kin is a non-profit foundation that’s supposed to run the Kin cryptocurrency. The Kin foundation currently has only two people on its board: Livingston, and a second independent board member, but the Kin Foundation hasn’t publicly revealed who that second person is.

Livingston’s idea is to use Kik as a launchpad for Kin, allowing users on the messaging app to earn cryptocurrency tokens, spend them on in-app purchases, and eventually be able to do peer-to-peer transactions. For example, an influential Kik user could charge other people a few Kin to join a group chat for exclusive content.

Kik and Kin also want to create a software development kit that will allow other apps to incorporate the cryptocurrency, and Newton said they’ve signed partnership agreements with the Unity game development engine to create a SDK to allow developers to embed Kin into the architecture of their games.

Kin also has a partnership with IMVU, a social game where users interact with 3D avatars.

If all of this takes off, a total of 10 trillion Kin tokens will ultimately be in circulation. Of those tokens, one trillion were sold to investors as part of the initial coin offering last year, raising nearly $100 million.

Kik is holding on to three trillion of these tokens, so that’s how they can turn a profit on this project.

The remaining six trillion tokens are held by the Kin Foundation, and the foundation is supposed to develop a “Kin rewards engine” to dole out most of those tokens to developers who create useful and interesting integrations for Kin.

Livingston had said this is a door-die bet for Kik. He said they’re not big enough to make much money selling ads, and they can’t charge users for the messaging service directly, because there are other free options out there like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.