How social app Taki aims to empower content creators

The government’s regulations for cryptocurrencies have evolved greatly in the last few years in India. In the year 2020, the Surpreme court has reversed the RBI’s stance of giving out a order to banks to not support crypto transactions. The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021, puts a ban on all private cryptocurrencies in India. A circular issued by the RBI in 2013, warned the public about the potential risks of using virtual currencies. A draft scheme was submitted by the Central Board of Digital Tax, to the finance ministry in 2018, asking to ban virtual currencies. Consequently, a circular was issued by the RBI, putting a ban on providing financial services to the transactions involving virtual currency. Again in March, 2020, the restriction by RBI, on financial institutions and banks to not provide banking services to those involved in crypto assets transactions, was lifted by the Supreme court.

According to a report, India has the second highest number of cryptocurrency users in the world. The crypto market in India has recorded a growth of 641% in June 2021, Besides some taxation laws on gains from crypto assets, the transactions involving the same is subjected to 1% TDS. While in India, crypto transactions are still underway, in countries such as Europe, USA, crypto transactions are quite common. Social media platforms such as Taki are bringing a new wave of crypto exchanges. Taki is a crypto token powered global social media platform that rewards users for creating content, commenting, liking posts on the platform. It has raised $3.45 million through 11 global marquee investors, including the likes of Coinbase, CoinDCX, Solana Ventures and is backed by Web3 experience leader Superlayer.

In conversation with Adgully, Sakina Arsiwala, Co-founder, Taki, speaks about how Taki aims to empower content creators and its platform users and reward them for their creativity and engagement as well as build an effective crypto journey for India.

What is the content model of Taki?

Taki is a SuperLayer backed social app that is well suited for India. The idea is to create an ecosystem that not only rewards creators, but also their community members. Users are spending so much of their time and effort on social media platforms; now there’s a way to earn in cryptocurrency from their existing behaviour of engaging with content. For example, any type of content that you would typically find on a social media platform like Twitter. There is currently a focus on text and image posts, which will soon expand to video and other file formats.

Taki, an end-to-end creator’s paradise is a holistic platform to start any person’s crypto journey with social media benefits. Anyone can showcase their creativity, engage with communities, create content and simply engage to build their own coin and monetise it in exchange for Taki tokens. A creator’s community can monetise the content; users can simply earn by doing basic engagement activities such as liking and commenting on posts. People can buy exclusive content from their favourite creator without spending out-of-pocket because of the engage-to-earn model. 

What is the strategy behind its operations?

Taki is currently an invite-only platform and it intends to stay with the format in the coming months to provide a high-quality user experience while the app continues to get developed. However, we will eventually open the platform to all users in the future. Taki’s algorithm will be continuously refined, based on what we observe from a user’s behaviour and needs. 

How does the future of cryptocurrencies in India look like?

The cryptocurrency space is incredibly fast-moving and most countries are still figuring out how to approach it from legal, taxation, and compliance-related aspects. We think India is more progressive than most other countries and we also believe that the Indian user base is uniquely positioned to benefit from “engage-to-earn” product designs. Thoughtful regulation is necessary as there are many scammy and fraudulent projects out there. Taki is a Web3 social app with a highly credible team, top investors, and a priority on providing a safe experience for users to onboard and slowly learn the basics of crypto. 

How does Taki aim to position itself among other social media platforms?

Taki differentiates through its unique crypto-economy design. Users can easily create their own branded coins that are freely tradable on the platform. This distinctive representation reflects a better way for creators/ users to monetise their content. By creating a network of user coins, we can also offer interesting token-specific features via social graphs like a value graph matrix. Taki is not competing directly with existing social media platforms, which are primarily focused on eyeballs and advertising revenues. Rather, Taki is a social token network that provides a completely unique experience that integrates user coins with social media features. We are building a platform for general social media users where they can earn on a daily basis. 

How can people earn money on Taki?

Taki is built on the Solana blockchain, which promises inexpensive and fast transactions. In a bid to make it easier for users and attract them to the platform, Taki has made it very easy to earn. The users do not need to be content creators to earn from Taki; simply inviting a friend will also give them Taki coins. Users don’t need to create content on a daily basis, even if they do it occasionally, they would be rewarded. The higher a user engages on the platform, their $USERCOIN value goes up against the $TAKI token. They can transfer the accumulated Taki tokens to their external exchange wallet and earn income by selling them at the market value of $TAKI token at that time.

How does Taki aim to contribute to the evolving creator economy?

Taki is built with an “Engage-to-Earn” product design and integrates user coins with social media features to incentivise and reward activities that benefit the whole Taki community. It allows users to create their own user coin and to build their own personal economy on the Taki platform. Taki introduces a multi-tiered crypto-economy design by allowing users to freely trade their user coins with others on Taki. It also allows existing users to buy a particular creator’s user coins at the initial stages and remain part of that creator’s economy as the community and the token economy grow.

How has Taki’s reception been so far since its inception?

It is rewarding to experience such a positive start for Taki. Presently, 90k+ users are active on the platform; 648,382 people are on the waitlist; 663,630 Gold Takis have been rewarded on user content/posts by other users on the app; 657K+ $TAKI tokens are locked in user coins. This incremental shift has been overwhelming and encourages us that we are on the right track. We believe Taki is going to be a first of its kind to bridge the gap between normal netizens and Web3 experience at large. India has the real potential to nurture and grow the cryptocurrency ecosystem for the entire world.

How will the proceeds from the IEO benefit the TAKI DAO’s community treasury?

With the investment raised via seed funding, Taki plans to accelerate its product and technological development in crucial operations such as proactive team building, hiring talent across functions, and marketing activities. The funds will also be extended towards product designing, engineering, Go-To-Market activities, General and Administrative (legal, finance), partnerships, and community building as well, aimed towards expanding Taki’s presence in other key markets following the India launch.

What are the growth projections of Taki for the coming months and years?

The current social app environment is dynamic and fast-paced in order to cater to the discerning needs of the audience. We’re very true to the vision that creators should own their own economies, and for that, we would like the user points to be portable so they can take them to any other network. We would love to collaborate with developers and other people who can use the creator coin in their own systems and their own platforms. Imagine a world where a creator mints Taki coins, then basically owns them. Taki intends to be a platform that generates daily income for its users. People usually spend a lot of time on social media passively for their daily entertainment. We want to build Taki as a platform where they get rewarded for the time invested. Along with content creators, passive users can simply engage on the posts by doing basic actions such as ‘liking’ and ‘commenting’.

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