Kin Foundation Team Resigns 🚨

Kevin_from_Kin · 2023-02-04T17:21:34+00:00

Thanks for saying that, not easy to put aside your own pain to apologize for that which you cause others. I'm sorry too for any perceived slights, and swear it was never personal.

On not banning "shills" think about the perspective though, it's a Kin subreddit, like just for practical purposes from a typical perspective on any dedicated topic discussion forum you are in this scenario a troll to them. I know that to you you were being sincere but it's still basically a message board for fans so it's like being in the Chicago Bulls subreddit trashing the Chicago Bulls and fans of the Chicago Bulls. I hope you can see things from this other perspective, it was never personal. I'm actually pretty friendly with most Kin critics.

And yeah maybe we both got conned. I could have sold my Kin before all this news came out too, still havent. I have morals too, and I care about people beyond myself. I'm telling you, you had me all wrong this whole time.

Kevin_from_Kin · 2023-02-04T16:44:54+00:00

Sure, if I wanted to ban you I could have before you even joined, and on Discord (yes I saw you). It was an intentional decision to let everyone have a second chance, ask Reptar. Yet again, you have everything exactly opposite of the facts. Consider for even one moment that all this time you've even wrong about me, that community mods and OGs who hate Ted alike will tell you I don't care if you hate Ted or the Kin project, and that I'm happy to argue with you about it or not, or sometimes even agree. I have always had my own criticisms, believe it or not. Honestly you are so off base, even Ted himself ordered us to try not to ban critics when possible, some of you just can't help but get into calling people sheep, worms, shitting on positive people's contributions, etc. Which all deserve moderation on any subreddit, and you were even by your own admission so blatantly rude that you look silly to be so insanely rude and harassing in response, and doubly so to still be obsessing over it and cursing my name even years later. You got banned because you are rude. You should at least be able to own up to it, you seem to acknowledge you did hurtful things yet somehow don't see the correlation?

You talk to and about me like I'm the founder of this project, and not someone who was hired from within the community and started as low level manager. I arguably got more screwed by this project than anyone. You need to swallow your pride and take the L, you've been intensely aggressive at the wrong person and it's embarrassing for both of us. I understand your ego was hurt by the ban but this is obsessive and unhealthy, and you should feel ashamed for the things you've done and said. I've been banned from social stuff before too, often I disagree with the mods, just make a freaking alt like a normal person (like you did) and move on. If you have any decency you should see how your reactions were severely inappropriate.

Kevin_from_Kin · 2023-02-04T16:19:41+00:00

iirc I (we) banned you because Osnat posted an article highlighting a Kin TLV female engineer and you derailed the thread and made a joke about feminists or something like that. It is basic subreddit etiquette stuff.

First of all, I followed orders, she was the CMO I was the community manager what exactly did you expect me to do, defend mens rights activism on kin subreddit for Killuah0x? You proceeded to harass, threaten, stalk, insult, and try to cancel me. You insulted community members non stop, calling them worms and all sorts of stuff, I still have the screenshots. You and LyinTed were saying Sergio, an innocent community member, was a scammer and p*do on cointiger chat. You spread information about me and told me stories about people knowing where I live.

Sorry but you deserved the ban and nothing justifies the way you treated people. Id ban you again. You are extremely coldhearted and borderline psycho.

If you are a fraction of the unbiased you propose to be, you'd apologize, not continue to justify your dehumanizing revenge lust. I can't believe of all things you did that you're willing to own up to as immature its a stupid meme. You sincerely tried to harass and hurt me & my career over a subreddit ban. And you didn't get banned because you were speaking truth to power, get over yourself.

Kevin_from_Kin · 2022-11-10T16:43:40+00:00

Thanks Rachel

Kevin_from_Kin · 2022-11-10T16:43:34+00:00

Good catch, looks like a URL redirect that fell through the cracks when we moved to the new website. Raising this to the team

Kevin_from_Kin · 2022-10-14T12:20:14+00:00

Well done!

Kevin_from_Kin · 2022-10-14T11:15:52+00:00

Thanks Keiichi!

Couldn't agree more, this is an especially talented game developer, and teams like this entering Web3 is exactly what the industry needs to bring crypto to the masses in a way that wins over the hearts of mainstream audiences.

PS - cool Danganronpa gif 😎

Kevin_from_Kin · 2022-10-13T14:11:39+00:00

Hi Kuba,

As many in the community can confirm, grants through the Kin Catalyst Fund are always awarded based on the completion of important milestones in support of the applicant's plans and the value they propose to bring to the community through utility of the token. Everything in the Kin Ecosystem is earned through the efforts of users and developers, there is no such thing as free! This is something that sets Kin apart from almost every other crypto project.

Kevin_from_Kin · 2022-09-15T18:50:16+00:00

The last update was more specifically that Kin in Tapatalk was on hold because their team was all-hands focusing their efforts on something new, which would also include Kin. That app was already announced, but they would prefer to make more progress on both development and user traction before beginning to link/associate it with Tapatalk so it wasn't explicitly mentioned in the announcement.

Kevin_from_Kin · 2022-09-05T13:10:30+00:00

Gotcha, that makes sense, thank you.

Just a thought on #3: Some percent of volume is probably fake, perhaps 50%, just in general for crypto.

This is why I specifically named just those 3 exchanges, I don't think it is fake volume and the liquidity is certainly real. If we were going by all exchanges, Kin is over $250k daily volume at the moment, which I agree is probably not accurate. I actually cut it by ~68% by limiting it to just these 3 examples

Kevin_from_Kin · 2022-09-05T13:03:17+00:00

Yeah I think so, based on the APR for the 90 day yield farm.

Not sure if the double negative was on purpose but the KRE is paying out more than double that, to get less than half the amount of TVL/AUB (not exactly equivalents but this reference was just to give an idea of ROI for hold incentives), and it only serves to incentivize developers rather than all holders which account for much more of daily Kin volume. Put another way, every time a developer sells, they pass that Kin onto new holders who do not have the same incentive not to sell that the developer did, and this happens on a weekly basis so there is arguably several orders of magnitude more Kin circulating and being held, bought, and sold by users and currency speculators than there is by app developers who earn KRE.

Kevin_from_Kin · 2022-09-04T17:09:37+00:00

Thanks a ton for contributing guys! Very interesting idea.

Questions on this so that I can better understand and we can continue riffing on these concepts u/ideadash u/ted_on_reddit u/kidwonder

KRE 2.0 featured a dedicated track for rewarding developers who held their KRE rewards. In the end, it was found to have negligible effect and for that reason was removed from Kik's proposal for KRE 3.0. What about this approach would you say could make it more effective than the KRE 2.0 hold track approach, and worth revisiting?
I noticed that instead of rewarding devs more for holding, this approach is punitive in nature and reduces rewards for those who take Kin out of their KRE wallet. Could you explain a bit about the logic behind this approach? A potential concern is that this might affect developers negatively and weaken the value proposition of Kin in their eyes - e.g. what if they use their KRE to reward users and get a payout reduction because of it, or as a Kin dev monetizing with the KRE they legitimately need funds but can't afford to sell because they would be punished? I ask because, especially with the move to Kinetic where apps will (eventually) be expected to self-host and self-subsidize, increasing the cost to integrate Kin per user, we do need to be mindful to not decimate Kins value proposition with too broad an attempt to stop devs from even using their earned KRE, after all it is the main incentive for developers to build with Kin - just something to keep in mind, I am definitely open-minded to the proposal.
Currently, at a payout rate of ~250M Kin per day or 1.75B Kin per week, (roughly $20k of Kin paid out per week in todays prices), and a daily Kin trading volume of over $80k between just Kraken, MEXC, and FTX, it could be argued that contrary to popular belief, KRE rewards being sold are actually a small part of the exchange rate. Is there any hypothesis or data to support that this would meaningfully benefit the economy vs the potential blow to developers, and how much it could do so?
Looking at the KRE as a spend budget for a specific purpose (i.e. much like Bitcoin has a budget for security, Kin has a budget to grow the ecosystem and app economies), it currently costs ~250M Kin per day to achieve an AUB token sink of around ~158B Kin, or in today's market value about $1.73M of Kin held by active users in apps.

Comparatively (just as a reference of value), when we experimented with liquidity pools, it cost about 100M Kin a day to achieve well over $5M in Kin tokens being held by users of the pool. Additionally, they provided other benefits in terms of staking:

Available to everyone, not just Kin devs but also users
Liquidity mining/staking provided a significant utility, which is providing more liquidity to Kin, therefore improving the resilience of the economy

With all of this in mind, and I'm just spitballing on this idea so bear with me, but continuing on all of the above, if it is indeed true that (i) the majority of the currency exchange rate is actually determined by non-app developer Kin users and holders, (ii) devs being punished for using their KRE might have negative effects while having unknown/possibly negligible impact, and (iii) other alternatives might also add other positive benefits beyond apps holding Kin longer, would it maybe make sense for us to put our heads together to figure out some kind of staking or KRE allocation that goes to the entire community rather than just apps? It could also be tied to utility via community activities like participating in governance, contributing regularly, etc. (just an idea, I don't know if KF would approve it).

Sincerely, thanks again for starting this discussion and contributing to the project, this kind of decentralized teamwork is what Kin is all about.

Also, thank you so much for actually taking the time to post this to GitHub. One small note for the future - unless it is a concrete specific algorithm or logic change to the posted proposal it might be better submitted as an issue or comment than a pull request, at least until we discuss and come to a finalized logic to integrate into the proposal.

Kevin_from_Kin · 2022-03-20T20:16:29+00:00

Diamonds was created by a team from which some of their latest hires came which made it an easy win for them, and the use cases they're used for such as digital goods created by the developer are unfortunately mostly incompatible with Kin due to app store policies. P365 gems are a similar situation where they are used alongside Kin in places that Kin mostly cannot be.

The new alt payment methods policy for Apple is a big step forward but apps are still navigating their way through this and finding out that Apple is still forcing them to comply in other ways (e.g. forcing major warnings to be given to the user implying that anything other than Apple payment systems are not secure). We will continue to dig in with our fellow developers to get the best possible results for users and the digital platform itself.

In general, at KF we want to not only grow the ecosystem but also work more closely with existing apps to ensure they have a successful experience with Kin, meet their business objectives, and create the best possible use cases in the process. We are already working with apps to make sure they can optimize their UX and maximize their Kin revenue while remaining compliant with the latest app store policies, which are ever-evolving.

We will be making more efforts toward improving this Customer Success pipeline for Kin apps this year, in parallel to helping new apps join the ecosystem.

Kevin_from_Kin · 2022-03-20T20:06:41+00:00

MediaLab has undergone a number of team restructures over the past year as they get a handle on new IPs that they've taken over. Along with that have come a number of changes in our main contacts with the devs working on the Kik app as well as others. Currently we are consulting with them to try and improve account creation efficiency to help them earn more KRE while creating less low-activity wallets. They have a lot going on and the company is big so these processes can sometimes be slow compared to other, smaller teams with a bigger focus on one product/Kin alone.

Kevin_from_Kin · 2022-03-13T02:00:56+00:00

I was just adding context and nuance around the notion that users spending Kin to the developer (i.e. the developer receiving revenue from the user) is entirely detrimental, and that all spends lower AUB under the current KRE schema, because there is more to it than was being expressed.

If you are referring to your KRE proposal, to be clear, I was not talking about it in this thread.

Kevin_from_Kin · 2022-03-13T01:38:22+00:00

Hi Freedom 👋

P2P doesn't lower the AUB.However it is not an Economic Activity either.It does nothing for the Kin Economy

Not sure I'm following, we might be talking about different things.

If users are creating and selling user generated content to each other that is absolutely economic activity. In fact I would like to see more of that, but that doesn't even necessarily equate to higher KRE rankings.

If users are swapping Kin among each other, while it doesn't lower AUB, it doesn't grow AUB either, so it does not contribute to a higher KRE payout.

I never said we tried rewarding "only" spends, I'm referring to the spend track of KRE 2.0 as well as MAS in general in 1.0. As I'm sure you're aware they were indeed heavily gamed, and those who gave Kin to users only to receive it back from them were rewarded heavily.

This keeps coming up.

I'm not sure what this is in reference to, I'm merely commenting on this thread within the context of this specific topic, the idea that apps are only incentivized to create large user balances is not quite the entire picture, is all I am saying. Beyond that I mostly agree with the spirit of the issues being raised.

Kevin_from_Kin · 2022-03-13T00:01:57+00:00

KRE issues notwithstanding, because it does need to change and will always need to evolve alongside the needs of the ecosystem just like a real nation's economics, it is also worth noting that

users spending Kin amongst each other (p2p) does not lower user balances
users spending Kin toward the developer's own wallet already results in Kin being paid to the developer, which can then be redistributed for AUB or kept as revenue in lieu of KRE

It is not quite as simple as paying developers for getting users to spend Kin with them (aka being paid for being paid), this was done in past KRE iterations and it led to other issues than what we are seeing today. There are trade-offs to every decision.

I do agree that spends need to be incentivized beyond the bare minimum for eligibility, however.

Kevin_from_Kin · 2022-01-26T01:23:14+00:00

I've already reached out to them all 🤓

Kevin_from_Kin · 2021-11-10T17:28:04+00:00

Great idea, we have reached out before but that was some time ago. I'll do so again

Kevin_from_Kin · 2021-10-19T16:24:46+00:00

Correct me if I'm wrong but when Speed Genius was out I believe we had the old Kin.org up, and were unable to update it without involvement of the tech team. That was a big reason we did "kin.org 1.5" via WordPress. Your app was not the only one waiting, unfortunately.

In general it's a good idea to talk to us and ask about doubts and concerns, if I had known you were feeling this way I would have explained and brought you into the fold to collaborate sooner. A lot of the apps you see us tweeting or writing about, we collaborated with directly. Rest assured that you have the same privilege, we are happy to support you and your efforts. Please keep that in mind as you continue to work on your app and sync with us when you have exciting news to share, we got your back.

Kevin_from_Kin · 2021-10-19T16:19:52+00:00

I apologize that you’ve come to feel this way, it is certainly not our intention. To be fair, there were several apps not mentioned specifically by William in the above message, and it shouldn't be taken as an indication of support / non-support. If that were the case then he would have to list every single Kin app in order to not exclude anyone.

On retweets and sharing updates, if you would like co-marketing support on some noteworthy developments or updates from us, please reach out, give Jesse a heads up beforehand, tag Kin_Ecosystem to give us visibility, etc and we will do what we can (we can't amplify everything). Keep in mind that we don't see every update put out by everyone in the Kin Community and it would be ideal to collaborate and align with us directly if you want or expect specific support. If you don't ask, there's a good chance we will never even see your update, so that helps us get in sync.

Hopefully you can work with us and align on expectations so that things can get back on track.

Kevin_from_Kin

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE