In our latest update, CEO and founder of Kinesis, Thomas Coughlin, would like to share with you the historic achievements of the Kinesis Monetary System in the second quarter of the year and provide further insight into Q3 2021 and beyond.
Yield engine launch and Minter’s yield payments distributed
With the much-anticipated launch of the Kinesis yield engine in Q2, Kinesis paid out a non-debt based yield on gold and silver for the first time in economic history. On 7th July 2021, Kinesis distributed 14,052 grams of gold (KAU) and 1,686 ounces of silver (KAG) back to the minters of the Kinesis Monetary System.
To supplement the engine launch, the Interactive Yield Dashboard was integrated into the Kinesis Money platform interface. The intuitive Yield section introduces the Master Fee Pool chart and the yield dashboard presenting a clear breakdown of circulation, allowing for transparent tracking of all 5 yields that Kinesis system participants will receive monthly. Please note, the Yield Dashboard will be continually enhanced with charts, daily updates then real-time updates being implemented over the remainder of the year.
The Kinesis community, as well as the wider precious metals community, look forward to the rollout of the remaining 4 Kinesis yields throughout the year, starting with the Holder’s yield.
Indonesia
The resurgence of COVID-19 within Indonesia has caused country-wide lockdowns, 100% work from home mandates and the banning of any public events, which has resulted in delays in the wide-scale roll-out plan for PosGO Syariah. Unfortunately, these are events and third-parties that we have little control over.
It has been both the PT POS and the Indonesian government’s goal to launch PosGO Syariah to the widest possible audience at the start, to generate momentum and thus account take-up.
Once the current health crisis facing Indonesia has been curtailed (not eliminated), the PT POS and Government plan for PosGO Syariah will be initiated.
That said, there is a small silver lining to this delay:
During this period of pre-countrywide launch, Kinesis has expanded our operation in Jakarta including the addition of a highly experienced IT development team and a head of Indonesia business development.
The Kinesis Jakarta team, in conjunction with Kinesis head office, have been active in adding additional features and services to the PosGO Syariah app that will significantly enhance the product offering and thus, adoption. Such additions include the integration on to the PosGo Syariah app of other major local banks (including BCA and OCBC), as well as integrations with multiple large Indonesian e-wallet and payment companies, such as OVO (owned by Grab), Gopay (owned by GoJek), E2Pay and Linkja. At least one or more of these e-wallet payment services are accepted by 80+% of all brick and mortar and online merchants across all of Indonesia.
Once we have a more firm timeline for the country-wide launch of PosGO Syariah, we will update the community.
On a final note, all of the products and services on PosGO Syariah have been replicated for the other major roll-outs: NUGold, JFXGrit, etc. and a sequenced launch of these will follow close behind PosGO Syariah.
All-New Kinesis website
Over the last five months, the Kinesis team has focused on rebuilding the company website. The result of the combined effort of the design, content and development teams provides a new segmented site structure, tailored to the vertices we are targeting: personal finance, investing and trading.
Following consultation from a high-profile external UX agency, the information architecture and user experience of the new site has been carefully constructed to make Kinesis accessible to each of our target markets. The complete redesign of the website breaks down every aspect and product of the Kinesis system, providing a smoother access point for new users to explore the Kinesis offering.
The new site is currently in its final stages of performance testing, and with excitement mounting around the launch of the Kinesis yield engine, the release will provide the perfect platform to introduce new users to the Kinesis Monetary System.
Recruiting and hiring
We have dedicated significant time and resources to restructuring and building out our team to handle significant future scaling in the Kinesis operation. This has included heavy recruitment across our Customer Support, Account Executive, Marketing and Technology functions. The Kinesis team has increased in size significantly this year in line with the exponential growth we have been experiencing, with noteworthy additions across most departments.
Both the Customer Service and Account Executive team numbers have been bolstered, with a total of 10 Customer Service Agents and 10 Account Executives spread across the globe to assist and act as a personal point of contact for our global user base. New recruits will continue to join and undertake training in the coming months. We have also appointed a Head of Sales, who is responsible for the coordination of efforts of the Account Executive teams to keep the Kinesis Community well briefed and supported across all things Kinesis.
Welcome appointment of Chief Technical Officer.
One particularly noteworthy addition to the Kinesis team comes in the form of our new Chief Technical Officer, Jason Noorman. Jason Noorman joins us with a wealth of experience, having previously worked in fintech, telecommunications, insurance and most recently as CTO for The Pepperstone Group, a leading retail forex and CFD broker.
Kinesis UK & EU Debit card program update
Due to a delayed regulatory process largely resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and related government shutdowns and restrictions, this card program will not initially be operated from Kinesis in Liechtenstein, with the new EEA entity established to launch this program in partnership with Contis.
Kinesis Monetary system expansion and upgrades
LTC
Kinesis once again expanded its range of cryptocurrencies, with the addition of Litecoin (LTC) made available for trading on the Kinesis Exchange. The leading crypto asset offers a choice investment, and widens the range of trading pairs available to Kinesis users, enabling the trade of Litecoin with a range of fiat pairs and crypto assets, as well as Kinesis gold and silver-based digital currencies, KAU and KAG.
CSV
Alongside the launch of Litecoin onto the Exchange, we recognise that successful investing entails accurate, transparent record keeping. In order to simplify this process, Kinesis integrated CSV transaction statement functionality, viewable through the Accounts tab or from the Kinesis Exchange itself. CSV (comma-separated values) file statements are a reliable choice of integration for Kinesis members for accessing downloadable trade data for tax purposes.
Multi-currency deposits
In an important update for the global Kinesis community, the introduction of multi-currency deposits, allows Kinesis users to deposit in an additional 9 major currencies. The new deposit feature enables users to deposit in 9 native currencies, with their deposit automatically converted to USD at a favourable exchange rate. The update brings greater access and value to Kinesis users worldwide, enabling them to deposit funds in their preferred currencies.
Exchange Listings
Kinesis was proud this quarter to announce its listing on the BHEX Exchange, meaning that users can buy, sell or trade Kinesis native currencies KAU and KAG gold outside of the Kinesis Monetary system. As our first official external listing on a leading, technology-driven exchange platform, this marks a mammoth step forwards in the international adoption of the Kinesis Monetary System.
Looking ahead to Q3
EPD (coins and bars) – Segregated Facility
We are proud to announce the launch of a new segregated storage facility for gold and silver coins and bars, enabling users to bring their eligible* coins and bars into secure, segregated storage within the Kinesis vaults, through the Exchange Physical for Digital (EPD) process.
The expansion of the existing EPD program to incorporate gold coins and bars, allows collectors worldwide to convert the fine weight of their holdings into Kinesis gold (KAU) and silver (KAG), and access all the benefits of the Kinesis Monetary System.
What are the benefits?
Through EPD (coins and bars), coin holders can benefit from the security of Kinesis’ segregated vaulting, while earning a yield on their holdings, paid monthly in KAU and KAG.
How does segregated storage work?
The coins and bars will be segregated within the ABX cage at the participating vaulting provider, with depositor and inventory details being attached to the deposit record.
In circumstances where the coin or bar deposit is below the fineness of .9999 for gold and .999 for silver, Kinesis has implemented strict rules to ensure that 1 KAU remains based on an exact 1:1 allocation of 1 gram of .9999 fine physical gold bullion and 1 KAG remains based on an exact 1:1 allocation of 1 ozt of .999 fine silver, and the integrity of the Kinesis Monetary System is preserved, at all times.
Can I redeem my coins?
In terms of redemption, the depositor holds the exclusive right to redeem their segregated gold coin and bar holdings and can do so, at any time, with the applicable redemption fees applied. A full breakdown of the new segregated storage facility can be found on our new EPD page – here.
How does it work?
Kinesis users wishing to deposit coins or bars will need to have their coin and/or bar collection assayed at their expense with a service provider of Kinesis’ choosing. The assayer will provide Kinesis with details of the fine weight of the gold or silver contained in each submitted coin and/or bar. Kinesis will only recognise the fine weight of the metal that each coin contains. The fine weight of the gold or silver contained in the coins and bars will then be emitted as KAU or KAG into the depositor’s account.
Yields
With the successful distribution of the Minter’s yield behind us, the remaining Kinesis yields will be brought online and paid out throughout the year. As it stands, the total amount designated for all 5 Kinesis yields is made up of 147,549 grams of gold (KAU) and 17,706 ounces of silver (KAG).
The next yield to come online will be the Holder’s yield, which will see our users receive a passive yield paid on every single gram of gold and silver held with Kinesis. Currently, the Holder’s fee pool contains 42,156 grams of gold (KAU) and 5,059 ounces of silver (KAG), with a dollar value of $2.58 million, at the time of writing, all waiting to be distributed back to the holders of the Kinesis Monetary system.
The payout of $2.58 million dollars worth of gold and silver back to our users, simply for holding their precious metals with Kinesis, free of charge, stands to act as a powerful catalyst for the growth of the Kinesis system.
Following the Holder’s Yield and also coming in Q4 will be the Referrer’s Yield. The current value of this yield to be distributed back to referrers is 21,078 grams of gold (KAU) and 2,529 ounces of silver (KAG) with a combined dollar value of $1.29 million, at the time of writing. This yield combined with the scheduled release of new functionality will allow existing users to send KAU, KAG and other cryptos to non-users via email and later SMS will incentivize and supercharge the phased organic expansion of the Kinesis Monetary System.
Whitelabel Services
Over the course of Q3 and Q4, we are driving forward with our Whitelabel application development and are set to deliver a Whitelabel model to partners over this year and into 2022. Kinesis will deliver gold savings, trading and banking services to a wide array of our partners, with several contracts already in place for these services in various regions. Although we are unable to reveal details at this time, we look forward to sharing these exciting partnerships with the Kinesis community in due course.
Further exchange listings
Following our first successful listing, we will celebrate the integration of Kinesis native currency onto Emirex and P2PB2B exchange platforms. With these future listings, we will continue to establish the growing global presence of Kinesis digitalised physical gold and silver, by augmenting its trade capacity, both inside and outside the Kinesis Exchange.
Audit update
At present, the COVID-19 restrictions enforced within Australia are still preventing the independent third-party auditors engaged by Kinesis from conducting audits of the Kinesis’ vaults located in Australia. As soon as restrictions are lifted, we will be able to provide an updated time frame for Kinesis’ biannual independent audit.
New Product & Program Development
We wish to advise that we continue to work on new products and programs within KMS, all of which are exciting and compelling. All current product and program works will be released throughout the course of this calendar year with a number of releases during Q3. Details will be forthcoming at the time of release.
New roadmap
Alongside the launch of our new website, we are proud to publish the updated Kinesis roadmap, which maps out the milestones that will mark our progression throughout the rest of the year.
Summary
With Q3 underway, it’s important to reflect on what has been a historic year for Kinesis, thus far. In paying out a yield on gold and silver, we’ve achieved what thousands of years of economic history could not. The yields sitting in the accounts of Kinesis minters, serve as proof that our ambitious vision of a fair monetary system, rewarding all who participate, is well on course to being fully realised.
We must all pause to consider that Kinesis’ already impressive growth has taken place without the key feature of Kinesis, the yields, being online. Further, in understanding high-level commercial strategy and potential, Kinesis at this time has only opened itself up to the precious metals investment community. This market is unfortunately a relatively small market in comparison to the greater investment, payment & banking and crypto markets, which we will be sequentially targeting with compelling differentiated value throughout this year and next as we release new services.
The Kinesis team has been restructured and we have been aggressively recruiting to be able to rapidly scale our operations in other markets as other core services come online. Our strategy and corporate positioning will also become apparent as we roll-out across different markets across the globe.
We have kept our powder dry to date, but positioned ourselves well to capitalise on macro trends and events. As the remaining yields are brought online, we will begin ramping up our marketing and commercialization efforts. Over the course of 2021, we anticipate a significant influx of new users, as awareness of the unique opportunity, Kinesis presents grows within the precious metals space and beyond.
As we venture into the year ahead, make sure to take a glance at the new roadmap that details what you can expect from Kinesis in Q3 and Q4.
Best regards,
Thomas Coughlin
