[Investment] GARI: Crypto-powered Creator Economy
1. Abstract
GARI Network aims to build a crypto-powered creator economy on Chingari, a leading video-sharing social media mobile app in India with 80M+ downloads and 3.5M+ daily active users. The $GARI token exists to incentivize content creators to produce genuine content while keeping viewers engaged with transparent tipping features, exclusive content, and direct participation in platform operations through its decentralized governance structure. To support cost-effective and fast on-chain transactions, $GARI will be deployed as an SPL token on the Solana blockchain, one of the most robust layer-1s in the industry.
2. Value Proposition
Until the Indian government imposed a permanent ban on a huge number of Chinese mobile applications for national security issues in June 2020, India was one of the biggest markets in the world for TikTok. Native Indian tech companies saw the ban as an opportunity and started to produce alternative short-video sharing platforms. Among several other alternatives, Chingari, developed by Tech4Billion Media Private Limited, managed to become a dominant player in India that has successfully secured a huge user base within a few months of the TikTok ban. Highly favored by content creators who were looking for platforms to migrate from TikTok due to its sound UI/UX. Chingari is breaking mobile application user records in India with its remarkable growth. As presented in the visual below, Chingari has reached 3.6M daily users, 33M monthly average users, a total of 50M published videos and over 156M daily content views. Some notable features of Chingari that have contributed to its success include native support for 20+ languages, built-in filters for creating visual effects, an option to add lip-sync or a voice-over for popular movie scenes, and a revenue-sharing loyalty token system called “Chingari Coin” which exposes users to 30% of Chingari’s revenue.
The sizable content creation market is not the sole justification behind Chingari’s decision to adopt blockchain technology onto its platform. The significance of blockchain integration also lies in the popularity of cryptocurrency in India. With over 100 million blockchain investors who are holding a total of $6.6 billion in cryptocurrencies, India tops the list as the country with the largest number of blockchain adopters in the world. Chingari has announced that its centralized Chingari Coin will be replaced with $GARI tokens, a cryptocurrency that will facilitate all interactions within the Chingari App ecosystem. Chingari ultimately aims to make being a content creator a legitimate and sustainable career for Indian influencers by enabling them to make a living through content production.
3. Chingari
Chingari Platform
Chingari App is the main point of interaction between the Chingari Platform and its users. The app features a diverse range of functionalities for both content creators and viewers.
- Chingari Skills: An educational feature in which experts or specialists in specific areas offer p2p learning opportunities to the community.
- Essential Feeds: Non-restrictive content provided to users regardless of $GARI ownership. Essential Feeds are necessary for a seamless token economy integration as forcing users to purchase tokens could lead to a high churn rate.
- Video Commerce: A feature that enables content creators to produce sponsored content to endorse products for profit. Chingari allows users to purchase the products with $GARI within the app. The advertisers pay the content creation fee in $GARI or fiat.
- Audio Rooms: An audio chat feature in which fans may interact with influencers to talk or send virtual gifts to support the host.
- Chingari Multiplex: A movie store for producers and consumers which enables the pay-per-view model.
- Chingari Widgets: An integration that enables website owners to add short videos to their website.
The Chingari Platform empowers the Chingari App by extending the Chingari Ecosystem to the blockchain space. Adopting blockchain into the Chingari App will give users full control of their in-app assets, the power to vote on operational governance proposals, and exposure to a viable creator economy.
4. Tokenomics
As the native governance token of the Chingari App, $GARI will be deployed on the Solana blockchain as an SPL token. As throughly explained in the Chingari Republic Pitch Deck, the utilities of $GARI is divided into 3 different groups.
- Governance: Stake $GARI in the Chingari Community Reserve to exercise voting rights on proposals that direct the usage of the Community Reserve Treasury.
- Exclusivity: Fund content creators with $GARI in Creator Pools to unlock exclusive content.
- Payment: Spend $GARI to purchase digital/physical goods or to tip content creators.
The total supply of 1,000,000,000 $GARI is broken down into the following:
5. Team
The Chingari Team is composed of experts in user acquisition, application development, regulation compliance, and platform scaling. The success of the Chingari App serves as clear proof of its capabilities.
CEO Sumit Gosh
- Former CEO at Globussoft
- Former CEO at Socinator
COO Deepak Salvi
- Former Promo Producer at CNBC
- Former Senior Creative Producer at BBC Worldwide
- Former Senior Producer at Sony Entertainment Television
- Former Creative Head at ZEE5 Global
6. Investors
Chingari has successfully closed multiple rounds of sales in both equity and tokens. In Q3 of 2021, Chingari has raised $15M in its Private Sale from top investors in the crypto space including Alameda Research, Galaxy Digital, Solana Capital, Kraken, NGC, LD Capital, and AU21. The most recent round of sale was made available to the public on Republic in November of 2021, where $12.3M was committed from over 2,800 investors.
Chingari has announced its final round of sale on Dec 15 of 2021, as an IDO on SOLRAZR, a decentralized launchpad platform built on on Solana. More information on the $GARI IDO can be found on SOLRAZR.
7. Conclusion
$GARI is considered a reverse ICO, where a company with an existing product, in our case the Chingari App, decides to integrate blockchain into its platform and hold a token sale to extend its business to the blockchain space.
In a recent interview on Cointelegraph, Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance stated that the key metric when evaluating a cryptocurrency for listing is the number of users.
“If you have a large number of users, your product has value. That’s the easiest to measure.” — CZ
With 1) an unrivaled user base on its native mobile application, 2) a viable market penetration strategy targeting millions of crypto enthusiasts in India, 3) private content & rewards exclusive to $GARI holders, and 4) a battle-tested viable token economy proven by Chingari Coin, we at Terabyte Capital expect Chingari to set forth a great example of what a successful blockchain integration would look like for companies planning to launch a reverse ICO.
Disclaimer
The content of this post is for informational purposes only. Nothing contained in this post should be construed as investment advice. Terabyte accepts no liability with the regard to the user’s reliance on this content. Investment involves risk.
