The app market continues to be one of the most rapidly growing segments of the technology space. By 2020, there will be nearly 4 billion smartphone users, feeding into gross app revenue projections of $100 billion.

That being said, the centralized nature of the current app system has created a number of inefficiencies that could potentially hamper growth projections. Namely, a significant lack of transparency in the app approval and advertising process, and inaccessibility of in-app purchases. With so much attention placed on the traditional marketplaces, we look to the crypto-world to see if any innovative projects are leveraging the blockchain to solve some of these glaring issues facing the mobile app market.

Enter: AppCoins, an open and distributed protocol for app stores using blockchain

technology and smart contracts. The AppCoins project is currently supported by the Aptoide App Store, which boasts over 4 billion downloads, 200 million users and direct engagement with over 12,000 developers including Gameloft and Zeptolab. These staggering numbers make AppCoins one of the most significantly backed project launches in terms of product adoption. Similar examples include the popular messaging app Kik (300 million users) and Telegram (200 million users), which has already raised $850 million in its token sale.

AppCoins aims to improve transparency for both users and developers, establishing a low-cost ecosystem that could ultimately change the app market altogether. With a token sale that just concluded back in January, AppCoins is currently leveraging a capital injection of $1.8M to further build out their system.

Interested in AppCoins? Here’s a quick rundown of the project:

Platform & Development

The AppCoins platform redesigns app advertising, in-app purchases and app approval flows through a circular model that reduces the number of transaction layers providing streamlined, simplified interactions between developers, app stores, OEMs and users. Given that the system features far fewer intermediaries, a higher percentage of the cash flow remains within the app ecosystem, leaving more in the pockets of developers and incentivizing adoption.

AppCoins strives to create a platform that can be integrated into established app stores via simplified API, providing a completely agnostic product offering that exists across mobile platforms. In such a system, each individual app store functions as oracles of smart contracts. This essentially establishes AppCoins as the trust layer in each app store.

The project uses an interesting Proof-of-Attention system, which generates new coins through direct interaction with a developer’s app. Essentially, this system will allow users to earn coins by paying attention to apps for a certain amount of time.

According to the Appcoin’s whitepaper, these are the major components of the AppCoins project.

In-store app advertising: Developers publish ad offers to a certain app store by creating a smart contract. The tracking of the app installation and usage occurs via Proof-of Attention, reducing fraud. Each app store acts as an oracle, which unlocks developer’s funds through a smart contract.

Developers publish ad offers to a certain app store by creating a smart contract. The tracking of the app installation and usage occurs via Proof-of Attention, reducing fraud. Each app store acts as an oracle, which unlocks developer’s funds through a smart contract. In-app purchases: Users may earn AppCoins by installing and paying attention to advertised apps, which is a way to engage and incentivize users to participate in the economy.

Users may earn AppCoins by installing and paying attention to advertised apps, which is a way to engage and incentivize users to participate in the economy. Developer’s rankings: AppCoins protocol provides an automated governance system for app approval based on the developer’s ranking. These rankings are used as the foundation for app approval and quality assurance.

Roadmap

The next 6 months are big for the AppCoins project, with a beta rollout coming in the next few weeks and a full product release slated for Q3 2018. The current roadmap details Aptoide as the primary vehicle of AppCoins testing and release, but adoption by other app stores will undoubtedly be the largest value driver for this project.

Token

With any blockchain project, we look to understand the underlying use cases attached to the issued token. AppCoin tokens (“APPC Tokens”) are ERC-20 compatible tokens distributed on the Ethereum blockchain pursuant to a related ERC-20 smart contract. They are meant for use in the AppCoins blockchain platform to perform transactions in the app store ecosystem.

Here are the major use cases for each party on the AppCoins platform, as detailed in the AppCoins whitepaper:

Developers: Have to adopt AppCoins as (1) the model of app advertising and (2) as the method of payment for IAP. Therefore, developers are critical players for the adoption of AppCoins. AppCoin tokens will be distributed to key developers (who have apps with a large user base) in order to foster their swift understanding of the benefits that the system brings to them and to speed up their adoption. These players will be incentivised from the beginning of the project given that they have to provide means for the users to be able to use AppCoins in their apps. OEMs: The device manufacturers have the power to considerably influence the app economy, given that they select which app stores to include by default on the mobile devices. Therefore, a share of AppCoin tokens will be delivered to these players to incentivise them to integrate app stores that adopt the AppCoins model. The rollout with OEMs is scheduled for the 6th month onwards, when an MVP is available and a critical mass of developers is onboard. Users: Along with developers, users are the key target audience of AppCoins, for whom the envisioned ecosystem brings improved trust and accessibility to the app economy (the availability of AppCoins to spend in the economy adds the value and the payment method). The allocation of tokens to users will be used to speed up their adoption.

Team

The AppCoins team has significant product launch and user adoption experience. Additionally, their social community is fairly active on Twitter, Telegram and Facebook.

As for the AppCoins advisory team, there looks to be a strong crypto representation, including the CFO of TenX and Head of Platform Partnerships at Ripple.

Financials

AppCoins concluded a token sale in January 2018, where they sold 19,791,636 APPC Tokens for $1.8M.

The APPC token currently trades at around $1.00 (~$100M market cap), with a circulating supply of 100,054,312 APPC and a total supply of 246,203,093 APPC.

AppCoins is currently listed on Binance and Huobi.

Final Take

AppCoins is tackling a massively growing market with a unique vision, a strong underlying product with significant user adoption, and a team/advisory board that is proven. Combined, these make AppCoins a project worth watching in 2018.

Disclaimer: The author of this article may have a position in one or more of the securities mentioned above. This article is for informational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. Always conduct your own due diligence before making investments.