Overview

Appcoins was created by the team of Aptoide was founded in 2011 and was initially conceptualized in a summer internship project. Appcoins is an open and distributed protocols built on Ethereum blockchain, using the ERC20 standard. Appcoins is an alternative marketplace for apps that runs on the Android OS and boasts over 200 million users worldwide.

Appcoins aims to disrupt the current app store duopoly and bring in a more transparency and efficiency into this space by moving everything to the blockchain. It token APPC is the native currency of the app economy and seeks to remove intermediaries which inflate the cost of advertising apps, encourage app-purchases and other forms of app monetization.

Problems

By 2020, the world population is expected to have 4 billion smartphones and duopoly or more centralized app store marketplace presents three major challenges that prevent the app economy to reach its potential.

Inefficiency in Advertising: In the present structure, there are several intermediaries between developers and users, which increases the cost per user acquisition, thereby, diminishing returns for developers while reducing transparency. Advertising only triggers 4 percent of the total app downloads.

App-monetisation and in-app purchases (IAP): IAP works on payment gateways which still are not accessible to many users and transaction costs. Only 5 percent users make payments for IAP and payment intermediaries also increases the transaction cost.

App approval: In the present structure there is no definitive way to confirm the identity of developers and app-stores also lacks universal approach thereby increasing the cybersecurity risks.

Solutions

Blockchain protocol for app economy is the solution which will benefit all the stakeholder. Appcoins has been designed address these issue while scaling the platform and move all three flows to the blockchain. It will remove intermediation and redistribute value in a way that creates an incentive for both end-users, developers and app-stores alike.

How Appcoins Work

In Advertising, the Appcoin protocol ensures not only users download the app but also users pay attention to it for at least 2 minutes which they call it Cost Per Attention (CPAt). The value invested by developers in CPAt is rewarded to users with APPC tokens which will be used in IAP

In-App Purchases (IAP) will increase once users start using their earned APPC tokens or through purchasing them through exchanges.

App approvals in Appcoins protocol is made universal and transparent through developer reputation system where it is linked to the blockchain and can be publicly verified. A Dispute system is created so that APPC token holders can vote to rank developers.

Appcoins focus on Android market which holds 80 percent of the market share. It enables a circular app economy that reuses the value that was earlier destroyed by intermediaries. Appcoin has over 200 million users with 4 billion downloads with operation over 6 years and also the biggest third-party Android app stores.

Key Features

A new app economy with a new universal language that brings trust, transparency, and efficiency by moving all the three critical parts of app stores( advertising, in-app purchases and developer’s approval) to the blockchain.
Appcoins gives the user the app purchasing power through its APPC tokens that unleashes the app monetization plan for developers while increasing app safety.
Through redesigning of transactions inside the app store that removes intermediaries, it helps to reduce the cost for developers and also allows user access to costly app-purchases.

ICO Details

Appcoins ICO was scheduled from 13th December 2017 to 15th January 2018, but the hard cap reached well in advance which was 60,120 ETH or $15.3 million. Including its Pre-sale, Private-sale, and Public-sale, it has raised $16.85 million, the majority of which will be expended in the development process.

Key Links

Website: https://appcoins.io/

Whitepaper: https://appcoins.io/pdf/appcoins_white_paper.pdf