A personal update from Kinesis Money CEO and Founder, Thomas Coughlin, reviewing the historic milestones of the Kinesis Monetary system in Q4 2021 and providing an insight into 2022.
Referrer’s Yield Launch & Global Adoption of Kinesis system
The year 2021 ended strongly for Kinesis, with the milestone launch of the highly-anticipated Referrer’s yield, marked by the retroactive payout of physical gold and silver to the system participants who introduced new users to Kinesis.
This being the third, successful yield release, bringing the company even closer to the completion of its innovative Kinesis yield offering.
Partnership with Atlas Vaults & Brokers
In the last quarter of 2021, Kinesis partnered with the leading Panama-based vaulting provider, broker and trading hub, Atlas Vaults & Brokers, introducing Kinesis’ 13th storage facility into the company’s ever-growing global vaulting network, which now spans 9 countries.
In partnership with Atlas Vaults, Kinesis has brought online a competitive precious metals offering, with no insurance and storage costs, dedicated to servicing the Latin America region.
Native Spanish and German website languages
Kinesis is further expanding into key gold markets where English is not the primary language, bringing the Kinesis solution to regions that have an affinity towards precious metals.
Aligning with local partners and Kinesis operations on the ground in these regions, we are starting to attract a wider base of individuals and institutions that are excited to get connected into the Kinesis Monetary System.
Local language customer support is currently underway, with our global support capabilities and reach higher than ever.
With more language additions on the way, in the immediate term Turkish and Russian languages will come online next, followed by Asian languages in line with our growing presence throughout Southeast Asia.
Kinesis is bringing a monetary solution to areas affected by inflation, allowing more users to take full advantage of Kinesis’ extensive product offering.
Live From The Vault
Our ‘Live from the Vault’ series, featuring hosts, Andrew Maguire and Shane Morand, has now amassed a considerable viewership, with an additional 3,500 this quarter, tuning in for regular, in-depth analysis into the global precious metals market.
This quarter saw guest stars, Robert Kiyosaki, the best-selling financial author and public figure, as well as Danielle DiMartino Booth and Mark Faber among others, providing specialist market commentary on gold, silver, and the current state of today’s economic system.
With 1.2 million viewers on the channel, and 125,000 hours of market commentary watched so far, avid followers can look forward to more exciting guest appearances in the next quarter, with announcements soon to follow.
Looking ahead to Q1 – 2022
Debit Card and Banking Partnerships
Work with our new joint venture banking partner has commenced and we will be launching our new global virtual debit card programme to both individual and corporate accounts within the first half of this year. This solution will greatly expand the everyday utility of Kinesis as a monetary system.
The multi-currency Kinesis Global Virtual Debit Card will enable users to easily transact their physical gold, silver, fiat and crypto holdings, in more than 200 different countries and territories.
With the instant conversion of your full range of digital assets at the point of sale, this Kinesis debit card offering will be unique. Fundamentally, the Kinesis card will once again truly monetize precious metals while also offering a competitive edge over traditional banking solutions.
Subsequent services to be released during the year will include:
- Traditional individual and corporate banking (bank accounts);
- Digital asset lending/overdraft facilities; and
- Integration and linking to hard wallet solutions.
The specific timeline of the card is not yet announced, however, we are in the final stages of the first phase and will announce the new partnership upon launch in a public press release.
These partnerships combined with others queued will set the stage for Kinesis to have a tremendously expansive and strong global footprint in the banking and debit card space by the end of the year. Each release strengthens our value proposition and gets us closer to a “Lovable Product” where users will enjoy and love participating within Kinesis on a daily basis.
Targeted regional commercialisation programs will follow these different releases in a strategically planned sequence.
Velocity Yield
Work is well underway on the Velocity yield, rewarding users for their spending and trading activity across the Kinesis Money platform and incentivising the use of gold and silver as a stable and globally accessible, everyday currency.
The 10% Velocity yield will allow Kinesis users to earn a yield for spending their gold and silver with a Kinesis debit card, trading KAU and KAG pairs on the exchange, and trading minted Kinesis currencies. Every time a transaction is made, 10% of the execution fee goes to the Velocity yield fee pool, which is then paid back to all eligible Kinesis users.
Upon its release, the first Velocity yield payout will be retroactively applied to all Kinesis participants’ previous trading and spending activity. It’s important to note that the 10% Velocity Yield fee pool allocation came into effect on 1st November 2021, with the previous fee pool allocation of 5% applied to all transactions prior to that date.
This, the penultimate yield to be released, will see those precious metals traders and spenders of the Kinesis Monetary System receive a payout in gold and silver for their routine transactional activity over the last two years.
Indonesia Update
We are pleased to announce that the Kinesis Indonesia tech team and business development team has integrated the Kinesis product offering with the national exchange – Jakarta Futures Exchange (JFX), together with the government-owned clearinghouse Kliring Berjangka Indonesia (PTKBI) and local banks. This is via a desktop application integrated with the KMS for the seamless trading of KAU by JFX institutional broker members for trading digital spot physical gold for their own account and/or on behalf of their clients.
For the first time, the member firms of JFX and their millions of clients will be able to trade spot physical gold in international pricing and liquidity pools via the KMS/KAU. The product has been soft-launched as of January 2022, with a full JFX rollout and marketing campaign across Q1 2022 and beyond.
The PT Pos Board of Directors has decided to add the PosGOLD app (updated name change from PosGO) and all the functionality as a subset of the existing PosPay App. The PosPay App has over 1 million accounts, with PosGOLD automatically being available to that large user base. In addition, as previous, PT POS will mandate all 45,000 employees to register a PosGOLD account. There are Indications from the PT Pos Board that the addition of PosGOLD to PosPay is planned for Q1 2022.
The NUGold App project, in conjunction with the 100 million members Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) Islamic social organisation together with the Kinesis Indonesia teams, has completed the necessary bank integration for fx conversion during Q4 and is positioned to begin the planning for the launch in the coming months.
We are extremely excited and confident that these initiatives will be a significant contribution to the overall success of the Kinesis vision and offering during 2022.
As a reminder, each of the above product integrations – PosGold Syariah, JFX and NUGold are fully integrated with the KMS and as such, all trading of KAU via these applications contribute to the Kinesis Master Fee Pool.
XLM & XRP additions
We have continued to expand our core cryptocurrency offering on the Kinesis Exchange, allowing system users to further diversify their portfolios and optimise their crypto trading experience.
Starting with the addition of the highly competitive XRP coin listed in November 2021, Kinesis is soon to further enrich its exchange offering with XLM and some other unique additions that are done in partnership. We will expand our crypto offering in line with protocols that align with the Kinesis vision in providing utility and ease of transactions over the blockchain.
More on Partner token announcements will come as we progress throughout Q1.
KAU/KAG Payments & Rewards Program with Merchants
In addition to the Kinesis Debit Card Program to be able to spend and pay with KAU/KAG in real-time for everyday purchases, Kinesis has embarked on a strategy and partnership that connects directly with hundreds of thousands of major merchants (both online and bricks & mortar), that not only facilitates the use of KAU/KAG for real-time purchases but also includes a rewards program.
The rewards program element is a % of the purchase price paid back directly into the client’s Kinesis Account in KAU/KAG (the equivalent of a credit card “cash-back”, with added Kinesis yields).
Kinesis continually strives to provide innovative solutions such as this for the benefit of users of the Kinesis Monetary System. As this partnership and product develop, we will keep the community apprised of the details and timelines.
KEM Indefinite Delay
The KEM Project will be put on hold indefinitely. As there is no timeline set or agreed upon for if, or when, the project may come back online, we have decided to remove any reference to KEM from the website and any collateral. Should this change, the community will be informed and updated.
While this is certainly disappointing news, we take any project due diligence and investor protection very seriously and therefore can only roll out projects that are fully compliant with the requisite safeguards and legal construct.
That notwithstanding, we feel strongly that the KMS and related infrastructure is a great gateway for alternative and additional asset classes that will benefit Kinesis users and be consistent with the Kinesis vision. We continue to explore and discuss these avenues with potential partners.
Audits – Kinesis in-house audit
Considerable challenges as legislative and policy changes due to COVID-19 related matters have restricted us from being able to carry out planned independent audits.
We have attempted to coordinate and conduct our independent metals audit constantly throughout the period, but ever-changing restrictions in each of the vaulting locations have resulted in us being unable to schedule synchronised uniform independent auditing.
As a substitute to the standard report that Kinesis issues, we will be issuing a confirmation, with various letters of assurance from the Allocated Bullion Exchange Ltd and the vaulting partners, that the metal attributed to the KAU and KAG in circulation is indeed in-vault and secure. When things begin to return to normal, Kinesis will reinstate the promised twice yearly independent audit.
New office locations
Kinesis continues to grow and attract amazing talent from across the globe. Our team of 200+ people are based in more than 15 countries. We are truly a global company, and we will be expanding our physical presence in the year ahead as we begin to roll out the opening of local offices across these locations.
Bringing the Kinesis presence closer to home for our amazing community is important to us and displaying our global presence will ultimately strengthen our international brand.
Further to this, our global expansion will see Kinesis incorporate additional related entities in strategic locations across the world and seek various approvals and licences from appropriate regulators. This is to ensure that Kinesis will continue to operate in an incredibly robust and regulated corporate structure.
Kinesis Monetary System expansion & upgrades
Referrer Dashboard
The development of the interactive Referrer’s dashboard is well underway. With the new dashboard feature, Kinesis users will have increased visibility on the most successful referrers, in an anonymised leaderboard, as well as benefit from the streamlined referral process.
In addition to their monthly Referrer’s yield, Kinesis is pleased to announce a new referral rewards incentive;
1/2 oz Silver Referral bonus
- Referees will receive a free ½ oz of silver (KAG), once they successfully sign up, verify and deposit – courtesy of Kinesis, to get them started on the platform.
- Furthemore, post-release we will launch an additional enhancement whereby the referrer who onboarded the user will also receive a free ½ oz of silver (KAG) upon the referee verifying and making a deposit.
This means all referrers are able to give the gift of precious metals, every time they refer a new customer. The new promotion is a product feature within the KMS and will allow for future promotions and can be customised to suit the market. Full rules will be released alongside the launch.
Mint integration into Kinesis Money platform
The Kinesis team is working to bring forward the complete integration of the Kinesis Mint into the Kinesis Money platform, streamlining the process of creating new Kinesis currencies for both existing minters and new system users.
Kinesis users will no longer need a separate account to mint gold and silver, set up orders, or complete the EPD process and will be able to benefit from the fully automated, simplified Mint function, accessible via the Kinesis Money dashboard.
With the Minter’s yield already positioned to reward those who mint physical gold and silver via the Kinesis system, the added ease of minting with Kinesis through the Kinesis Money platform will further incentivise the creation of Kinesis gold and silver-backed currencies.
Partner and client API
The Kinesis API (Application Programming Interface) provides partners, clients and application developers with a secure and easy to use toolset for creating powerful applications leveraging the Kinesis Monetary System (KMS).
The API provides programmatic access to symbol details, spot and historical pricing, order listing, placement and cancellation; and the ability to make payments and transfers. We will provide examples in several popular languages and easy to follow documentation.
This quarter, the API will be officially released and supported after being in beta development with Kinesis’ early release clients, whose input has helped make the API robust and full-featured. We are extremely excited to see how the will API is used and the innovative products and services it will undoubtedly enable.
Business Accounts
In addition to the Individual Kinesis account currently available on the platform, the Kinesis Business Account option will soon be added, offering professionals to register and verify as Business, Trust Fund or Retirement Fund account holders.
This highly scalable functionality, available for desktop and mobile, will enable businesses and funds to fully integrate into the monetary infrastructure of the Kinesis platform, at no extra cost.
The Kinesis Business account offer will include borderless payments, rapidly executed transactions, multi-currency payments, complete asset portfolio management and fixed low rate transaction fees. Opening a Kinesis Business account will allow for the transacting and managing of assets in the universally recognised value of gold and silver, streamlining multinational transfers and removing forex conversion rates as a result.
Furthermore, the Kinesis Business account is integrated with the Kinesis yield system, allowing account holders to qualify to receive a monthly yield, paid out in physical gold and silver.
Multiple individual and business accounts
Managing your investments, transactions, college account and trading from a single account can be a challenge, and that is why we are currently working on providing both individual and business account holders the ability to create additional linked accounts under a single login.
Using this new feature, clients will be able to create a portfolio of accounts to meet their needs, simply switch between accounts and provide you with better ways to manage your money.
We’re also working on providing business accounts with the ability to add additional individuals to their account. This will allow multiple individuals to securely transact on the business account in an auditable way rather than share account single account access, which we strongly discourage.
New tax export
We have heard from our community that tax reporting can sometimes be a time-consuming task. With the help of the Kinesis community members, we are in the final process of adding a new report that allows you to export your transactional data as a pre-formatted CSV ready for importing directly into the cointracking.info platform.
We’ll be adding additional reporting formats and direct integrations where possible to make it as easy as possible.
Kinesis Mint (physical)
We are proud to announce that, in line with our new operations based in Istanbul, Turkey, Kinesis has established a highly experienced team that now manages and operates our Turkish physical production centres.
Kinesis is further establishing itself as a leader in the physical metals space in bullion casting & minting, bringing real value not only in the Digital space but also in the physical.
We will be announcing our new bullion store, with beautifully designed gold/silver coins and bullion that represent the core values of the Kinesis Monetary System, as represented by ancient themed Goddesses of Justice Themis and Maat.
Delivering a new payment plugin with the store, allowing for KAU, KAG and Crypto payments. It will be possible to order physical bullion instantly using your Kinesis currencies.
Additionally, we are pleased to announce two new key members to the leadership team based out of Istanbul, Gökhan Aksu – Head of Physical Operations (Eastern Europe & Middle East) & Alp Berker – Head of Commercial Operations (Eastern Europe & Middle East).
In Conclusion
Kinesis continues to drive its rapid expansion on a global scale, with over 83,000 individual clients amassed across 151 countries already tapping into the platform’s unlimited potential as a highly specialised asset management tool.
We see this early stage of Kinesis as the very beginning, with our progress to date almost serving as a Beta testing phase. We are well primed to globally commercialise to both individual and corporate clients as new services come online throughout the year.
I am particularly excited about institutional partners joining our vision from various markets across the world. 2022 is going to see the Indonesian project truly come online and we have other exciting projects lined up with ABX in the institutional exchange trading space.
Kinesis not only allows system users to connect their day-to-day banking with cryptocurrency and precious metals trading but also provides them with a truly honest and ethically rewarding alternative monetary system that promotes financial empowerment and protects their wealth.
We believe our real market opportunity goes well beyond delivering highly disruptive efficiencies to antiquated markets. In fact, our biggest opportunity is inherently derived from deeply entrenched injustices, which people either understand already or will understand when the time is right. Providing a solution to help remedy these injustices to offer stronger ethical foundations and choices for the future is a real market opportunity available to Kinesis and we believe we have everything aligned to make a difference in this coming quarter and year.
Countless undisclosed projects and partnerships will come to light as our core solution gets rolled out and we look forward to providing you with some inspiring surprises along the way.
It’s an honour to share the journey with you all and thank you for your continued support.
Best regards,
Thomas Coughlin
