YouNow, a live video streaming platform, yesterday added PROPS to Coinlist.co, an ICO vetting service for accredited investors. Three projects now carry Coinlist's approval: Filecoin, Blockstack, and
YouNow, a live video streaming platform, yesterday added PROPS to Coinlist.co, an ICO vetting service for accredited investors. Three projects now carry Coinlist's approval: Filecoin, Blockstack, and PROPS.
Most ICOs warrant skepticism. Coinfido's recent developer departure shows why. PROPS merits attention for different reasons. YouNow brings an established user base and working infrastructure. The project shows real progress. Coinlist itself matters too. The platform provides compliance tools that developers need and investors want. After previous losses, investors will chase whatever stability exists.
YouNow operates in a crowded field. Facebook Live and Periscope have larger audiences. YouNow counts over 40 million users and ranks as the fifth top-grossing social app on Google Play. Its virtual currency moved $60,000 in daily transactions. The system works through YouNow's servers. Broadcasters and viewers exchange currency directly, but YouNow takes 40% of each transaction. That cut dwarfs what most platforms charge, though it remains substantial compared to what creators want to keep.
PROPS changes the underlying structure. Instead of holding a balance on YouNow's servers, users will own a crypto token they can transfer. Yonatan Sela, YouNow's senior vice president of business development and product strategy, designed PROPS to work across multiple apps. Three new applications are in development. Rize leads the pack, launching in Q1 2018. The app currently runs in beta.
Rize attempts what streaming platforms haven't achieved: true two-way video. Facebook Live and Periscope broadcast one person to many. Rize lets viewers turn on their own streams while watching. The host can promote any viewer to guest status, unmuting their audio and placing them on screen. Groups of friends can form and watch together while hearing each other. Text chat exists, but money flows between any participants. Trivia, karaoke, Mafia, and One Night: Werewolf are being tested as built-in games.
Yonatan Sela demonstrated the in-progress app. The interface relies on drag-and-drop. Load times are quick. Three or four simultaneous streams ran without major hiccups during testing. The experience resembled Houseparty crossed with Twitch.
YouNow worked with NBC before. That partnership could bring premium content to Rize. Viewers might select their own announcers for Sunday Night Football and add live commentary with a group of friends.
Forecasting a social app's success is impossible. Apps backed by big names and budgets still collapse. Rize carries specific advantages. YouNow's small but committed base of users can seed the new platform. The technology itself is impressive and offers something competitors don't. Periscope and Facebook Live pull some of YouNow's users, but neither touches Rize's interactivity.
The app will use two currencies. YouNow distributes virtual currency at no cost. Users can purchase additional currency through in-app transactions. When users buy virtual currency, YouNow converts those proceeds into PROPS at market rates and gives PROPS to users who accumulate large virtual currency balances through tips. A built-in wallet for PROPS keeps users from needing a separate Ethereum account.
One structural issue demands trust. A foundation will control 50% of all PROPS and manage creator payouts. YouNow CEO Adi Sideman oversees the foundation. Any fraud damages him and the company.
If YouNow brings even a portion of its 40 million users to this model, PROPS could become the first crypto project to reach mainstream adoption. That outcome would lift PROPS, Ethereum, Bitcoin, and the broader crypto space. This writer's practice remains unchanged: waiting months after launch before risking money on new coins. The sector rewards patience. PROPS contains elements worth monitoring.
