In our latest update from the Kinesis CEO and founder, Thomas Coughlin reviews the milestones completed in Q2 and provides further insight into the upcoming developments in Q3 2022.
Q2 Snapshot
Virtual Card Launch
We were proud to announce the launch of the Kinesis Virtual Card in the second quarter of this year. The launch was a monumental success for all members of the Kinesis team who saw the card through to its delivery. In July, the initial closed group testing period was completed in accordance with our card provider’s launch policy and we are now well underway with expanding the testing program to include wider community members.
Kinesis is carrying out this extensive testing process in order to ensure the product experience of the Kinesis Virtual Card is as smooth and streamlined as possible upon its global public release. In advance of this, we would like to make the community aware that the card will initially be available with Google Pay only. We are currently subject to a mandatory waiting period with Apple Pay, however, this feature will be available shortly.
As the first of many in our global card program, the Kinesis Virtual Card represents a crucial milestone for the company in bringing forward a truly global card.
Working closely with our partner, Baanx, the global rollout will be staggered by country, with the initial release focusing on the regions of Europe, the UK, Canada, Australia and LatAm which are currently pending compliance sign-off.
Although it was previously announced that the US would be included in this initial release, we have taken the decision to bring clients online in a partially later phase, due to program-specific enhancements required for the region. The US will come online as part of the global rollout phase and is expected to come online later in Q3.
Stay tuned for further updates in the coming weeks on the public launch.
2022 Global Audit
The global audit was successfully conducted across all vaulting locations last quarter. All audit reports have been received from the auditors, with the exception of one which has been delayed due to circumstances that are outside the control of Kinesis.
We expect the final report to be delivered to us any day now, and on receipt, all reports will be compiled and published for the Kinesis community to review.
Kinesis API
This quarter, we were pleased to make our API available to the public, which allows clients to programmatically interact with the Kinesis Exchange and Kinesis platform. This easy-to-use API opens up the potential for complete automation of users’ trading activities, such as buying, selling and holding digital gold (KAU), silver (KAG), and cryptocurrencies.
Now everyone, from individual developers to business leaders, has the ability to tap into the very same technology that powers the exchange and leverage their own trading experience. Kinesis is proud to support innovation on every level, which is reflected by our continuously expanding tech offering. By making this technology public, we have provided the means for developers worldwide to interact with Kinesis Exchange technology and payment infrastructure to create innovative solutions.
An API key can be requested through the Kinesis platform, in the setting tab, here.
Stellar Lumens (XLM) on Kinesis Exchange
The range of digital assets available on the platform was expanded to include Stellar Lumens (XLM) this quarter. Stellar is now tradeable against all 8 fiat currencies listed on the Kinesis Exchange, as well as Kinesis’ native currencies, KAU and KAG.
This represents an important addition to the Kinesis ecosystem, as XLM runs on the Stellar blockchain, strategically chosen to power Kinesis’ native gold and silver assets, KAU and KAG, due to its robust infrastructure and high level of interoperability.
You can trade Stellar Lumens (XLM) on the Kinesis Exchange here.
Kinesis system expansions & upgrades
Whilst our technology teams are busy delivering on the big projects, we are constantly improving the Kinesis Money System based on client feedback and usage data. We are always looking for ways to improve the client experience and deliver a leading complete monetary system.
Over the last quarter, we have focused on performance improvements for the exchange to enable faster pricing updates globally, particularly as we add more tradable pairs. We have also added a ‘market’ section to the exchange that allows you to see the market prices, your holdings per pair and quickly buy and sell.
Additionally, we have added a toggle that allows you to choose if the exchange fees are included or excluded from the transaction amount on the exchange and market pages. This will be further rolled out across all sections and platforms to give you more control over your transactions. And, of course, we augmented our referrers page by adding the ability for you to see an animation of referral network graph – we thought it was a nice visual enhancement for our referrers.
Upgraded KAU and KAG Mainnet
Over the last quarter, we have successfully upgraded both our KAU and KAG mainnets to the latest version of the Stellar blockchain. This allows us to more easily integrate with external services and adds the latest operational and security features.
This upgrade was quite significant as we upgraded our Stellar core (the network nodes and peer-to-peer infrastructure) and Stellar Horizon (the client facing API for the Stellar ecosystem) that we use to manage our tokens. We will continue to update and maintain our blockchains, with our blockchain explorer next in line to undergo enhancement.
Exchange Order Management
In the coming quarter we will release a significant improvement to the exchange order processing service. We have redesigned the way the market makers interact with the exchange to enable the market maker to amend orders rather than cancel and replace.
The benefit of this change is market orders are more likely to be filled at the best rate and avoid the scenarios where an order may be placed and filled at exactly the same time as the market maker was updating their price. We still strongly recommend that our traders use limit orders to manage slippage or sudden changes in price.
Looking Ahead to Q3 and beyond
Indonesia
The roll-out sequence of KAU on PosPay Gold and JFX Goldex beyond the small regulatory required internal “soft-launch” has now been coordinated and jointly set.
From 1-18 August, the platforms will ramp up to 1000 accounts and on 19 August, they will be completely open to the public at large. A full Grand Launch event will be held on that day, with the Minister of Commerce presiding. This plan was designed to coincide with the Indonesia Independence Day holiday celebrations commencing 17 August.
While everything is subject to change and is entirely up to the Indonesian government and stakeholders, we expect this to be the advent of the push to bring gold savings, payments and financing in the form of KAU to the nation.
The first platform use-cases, as contemplated and relayed previously, will be gold trading, savings, pay bills and the “Gold to Mecca” applications. In the past months, the joint business development teams have kept busy with discussions with commercial and national partners to augment and expand the use cases of the platforms.
Looking forward, then, there have already been discussions for several initiatives and use cases that would look to be added, including:
- First migrant worker remittance corridor facility
- Platform integrated banks providing shariah-compliant pawning and financing of KAU gold holdings
- National airline accepting redemption of award miles into KAU and onwards to platform products and services
- Government employee pension fund allocating a percentage of current fund holdings in KAU, and going forward, a percentage of government employee’s monthly contributions to be converted to KAU
Kinesis Pay
Next quarter, we are working towards delivering a new payment method, ‘Kinesis Pay’, that enables merchants to accept payments in KAU and KAG. The merchant or business owner can simply install the Kinesis Pay SDK plug-in to the checkout of their website, allowing Kinesis users to make instant purchases and pay with their Kinesis gold and silver holdings.
Each time a customer selects Kinesis Pay as a payment method on the merchant’s checkout page, they simply have to scan the QR code to instantly approve the payment.
As well as representing an innovative step forward, Kinesis Pay will introduce a new stream of transactional velocity to the Kinesis Monetary System, contributing to the yields of users.
US Cashback Payment Program
Set to launch before year’s end, the cashback feature will enable US users to save 3% on in-app KAU and KAG purchases made at retailers across North America – with all cashback instantly paid back in gold and silver.
The in-app feature enables US-based Kinesis users to instantly earn precious metals on in-store or online purchases at over 200+ major retailers, including Airbnb, Applebee’s, GAP, NFLshop.com, Uber, Google Play, Uber Eats, NBA Store, BurgerKing, Ray-Ban, Chipotle, Sephora and Domino’s Pizza.
Before paying in a participating store, users simply enter the purchase total and create an in-app voucher to pay with. As soon as the user makes a purchase, we’ll instantly deposit 3% cashback in KAU or KAG into your Kinesis account.
The US cashback program makes it simple for Kinesis users to make instant, substantial savings on everyday purchases, all the while earning gold and silver.
Bullion store
This quarter will see the launch of the Kinesis Bullion store, showcasing original artwork on our minted physical coins and bars, produced out of our Kinesis Mint facility.
With tonnes of wholesale orders already placed, the Kinesis Bullion store will further enhance the visibility of the Kinesis brand within the precious metals space, and give community members the chance to add signature Kinesis bullion to their physical metals collection.
Everything is now in line for a US launch, and users will soon be able to purchase all-new, bespoke bullion designs from the store, accepting payments in Fiat, Crypto and Kinesis gold and silver currencies.
The initial US launch will be silver bullion products only, with more products to follow.
Kinesis Shop Merchandise & Products
We have now enhanced our e-commerce suite by expanding the range of products available to our community. The new and improved Kinesis shop will house a selection of Kinesis branded apparel and merchandise, such as polo shirts and baseball caps, in addition to the Kinesis hardware wallet, giving both long-time users and new joiners the opportunity to support Kinesis.
As part of the new shop’s launch, Kinesis has set up a new fulfilment centre in Indonesia to manage the smooth distribution of the featured products. We will continue adding to the selection of products available in due course.
Physical card Program
Following the launch of the global virtual card, Kinesis is set to launch the regional physical card program for US, UK & EU users. The regional physical card programs will offer Kinesis users the ability to use their gold and silver as money, boasting a competitive fee structure. With high limits and cash withdrawals, the physical card stands to connect Kinesis gold and silver with everyday banking.
These programs have been worked on in the background with development starting in Q3 and are scheduled to ramp up post virtual card public release.
Global Corporate Structure Roll-Out
Behind the scenes a silent yet monumental effort was initiated in building out our global corporate structure with all requisite regulatory licensing. For obvious corporate sensitivity reasons, there has been little to no mention of this to date. As of this writing, the Kinesis Global Group has 23 member companies across the globe being prepared for a global commercialisation. It is planned for some of these companies to become user-facing for different activities between now and the end of year.
Local Banking integrations, UK and EU
As previously mentioned regulated companies play a critical role in commercialisation as well as banking. We have been working in the background with new jurisdictions that will enable local payment options for EUR and GBP.
This quarter we start the process with selected banking partners for SEPA (EUR) and Faster Payments (UK), this means users in these locations will be able to deposit using local currency for instant crediting to their Kinesis accounts via a local bank transfer.
Additionally, this will also enable us to offer the ability to process debit card payments. This process has begun and is being worked on across the board to improve banking on/off ramps across the world using our corporate networks. We are dependent on processing and compliance timeframes but are working hard to bring online faster, cheaper deposit options.
Institutional and Government Partnerships
As the Indonesian project of national importance begins to substantially launch and scale up to millions of users through a range of important public and privately owned national organisations within the country, it is worthwhile advising that we also have other exciting government projects underway. We expect one particularly exciting government project to be announced this quarter, which we are convinced will make Kinesis a leader in the DeFi Public Private Partnership sphere.
This will set a strong precedent to proactively push out globally to the nations of the world in need of modernised alternative banking, payment and collateral custodial solutions. When it comes to government partnerships, precious metals are an increasingly important component which puts Kinesis above competitors in the DeFi space.
In amongst the heavy release schedule before year end, we also plan to begin releasing further information and making announcements connected to a range of institutional partnerships. Of these deals, some are connected to government partnerships while others are completely independent. We look forward to sharing these partnerships with you.
Universal Gold & Silver Currencies
Since last year we have been planning the launch of universal gold and silver decentralised currencies which will be suitable for inter-bank and institutional utilisation globally. Leveraging partnerships across our group, we are in a unique position to be the authority to launch the universal institutional gold and silver currencies in the DeFi space and as such we will. This serves as a little teaser which we cannot elaborate on at this time, but to simply advise that they are coming.
Kinesis Commercial Centre
Kinesis has begun the initial scoping of the Kinesis Commercial Centre, a concept outlined in the original Kinesis Blueprint.
A global online marketplace, the Kinesis Commercial Centre will give people everywhere access to operate businesses in KAU and KAG and take advantage of the instant, low-cost payments the Kinesis system offers. The platform allows those without access to merchant banking to avoid high fees and operate their businesses through the immutability of the blockchain.
The project is in the early strategising stages with project scoping currently underway.
As the year progresses, the Kinesis team will continue to advance the Kinesis Commercial Centre, in the background.
Kinesis Pro
In advance of the launch later this year, the development and bespoke design of our native cryptocurrency exchange platform, Kinesis Pro, is well underway. The Pro trader platform will serve users with a market-leading cryptocurrency trading experience, listing a wide range of cryptocurrency assets and pairs on a high-speed, high liquidity platform.
The exchange will form an imperative part of Kinesis’ growth strategy and expand on our commitments to offer a fair, open and more honest platform for traders to trade and invest in cryptocurrencies and physical metals.
Stay tuned for the official launch of Kinesis Pro planned for later this year.
Kinesis Mint (physical)
The Kinesis Mint, located in Istanbul, has now reached maximum capacity with the facility completely fitted out with equipment and the team working 2 shifts per day, 6 days per week. This demand came from a very soft launch to a handful of close partners. With expansive sales distribution and physical product sourcing currently being established, the decision was made in Q2 to expand the facility.
I am now pleased to announce to you that Kinesis is now in the process of building a new state-of-the-art Refinery, Vault and Mint across a 6,500sqm facility in Istanbul. This facility will have the capacity to become one of the country’s largest and most important refining and minting operations.
This project continues to reinforce the importance of marrying together the physical and digital spaces and will become a showcase of the power of achieving this effectively.
Other Projects set to be Released in Q3
- Bulk Payments
- Accounting System Integrations
- Additional crypto wallets & pairs
- Exchange listings
- CoinMarketCap & CoinGecko listings
In Summary
As the test-transactions continue to trickle into the fee pool, the Kinesis Virtual Card closes the loop on Kinesis’ vision of an end-to-end monetary system based 1:1 on gold and silver. With Q3 in full swing, more pivotal milestones lie ahead.
The Indonesian government’s launch of PosPay Gold and JFX Goldex will see years of planning, development and collaboration come to fruition, and mark a watershed moment for the Kinesis Monetary System. In delivering monetary access to gold and silver to the nation of Indonesia, the integrations have the potential to stimulate unprecedented transactional activity from millions of users, directly benefiting the Kinesis community.
Once more, Kinesis refuses to shy away from innovation, embarking on ambitious new projects and delivering customer-focused integrations, while never neglecting the core focus of our mission: providing the people of the world with a fair, honest and sustainable monetary system.
As ever, we thank the Kinesis community for your support and participation, and we look forward to sharing our progress as we plough forward into the remainder of 2022.
Best regards,
Thomas Coughlin
