VKontakte (VK), Russia’s leading social media site is reportedly gearing up to launching its own virtual currency. RNS, a local media outlet, cited sources with knowledge of the matter saying that the launch of a virtual currency coin on the platform will see crypto accounts created for each user on the platform.
However, RNS indicated that the leading social media platform is still considering the idea and has not yet given it a green light.
How To Get Rewarded
If launched, VK users will be rewarded with new coins depending on how much time they spend and how active they are on the platform. The report by RNS also noted that VK users who accumulate crypto coins, will have the freedom to swap them with goods, send them to other VK users, and convert them using VK Pay, a no-cash service that enables VK users to transfer money from their debit or credit cards using the platform’s messaging service.
According to RNS:
“Users will also be able to receive cryptocurrency for interesting publications on the social network: Users, along with ‘likes’, will be able to share a currency with the authors of publications, similarly, this could work with ‘reposts’ and comments.”
Additionally, as per RNS, VKontakte has roughly 97 million active users on a monthly basis. Close to 7 billion messages are sent on the platform in 24 hours and 1 billion likes are accumulated. Videos receive approximately 550 million views in 24 hours.
VKontakte is ranked third among the most visited websites in Russia. The idea of launching a cryptocurrency on the platform is not a huge surprise seeing that the platform’s founder, Panel Durov, has close ties with Telegram, a messaging service that concentrates on security and privacy. Durov receives considerable attention in the cryptocurrency circles.
Telegram is rumored to be developing its own blockchain platform which may be launched by the start of the fourth quarter of this year. In the past, Telegram had considered issuing a public ICO but shelved the idea after accumulating close to 2 billion U.S dollars ($1.7B) during its private initial coin offering.
