Chingari, India’s fastest-growing short video application, recently unveiled $GARI, which is the country’s first crypto token. Further, Chingari is also launching its proprietary NFT or non-fungible token marketplace and signed on Bollywood superstar Salman Khan as its brand ambassador. This development makes Chingari the first social network platform in India to issue crypto tokens.
Earlier this month, the short-video sharing company disclosed the completion of a funding round totaling $19 million from over 30 venture capitalists and individual investors.
The biggest names that participated in the funding round led by Republic Crypto included Galaxy Digital, Kraken Ventures and 11-11 Ventures.
Chingari explained the proceeds of the capital raised would be used to build $GARI with Solana, which is among the top 10 Cryptocurrencies in the world in terms of market cap.
In addition, it aims to build features that will focus on creator monetization while building utility for the token across other user cases in the social media segment.
Chingari believes its $GARI token has the potential to disrupt the creator ecosystem as ‘Social Tokens’ might be viewed as the future of community platforms.
Creators will be able to develop an e-commerce space that will include NFT creations and physical merchandise while providing the fan base an opportunity to fund their favorite artists.
The partnership with Salman Khan is expected to grab eyeballs which will help Chingari gain massive traction and accelerate the adoption of the $GARI token in the process.
Khan, who has over 44 million followers on Instagram, emphasized, “The Creators are shaping the future of entertainment. With the incorporation of GARI rewards programme, the creators will further get motivated to create newer and more engaging videos on the Chingari app. It’s going to be an interesting journey hereon.”
I am officially launching Chingari’s in app GARI Tokens reward programme & its NFT Marketplace. You can buy my Video NFTs, exclusively on the GARI NFT Marketplace. Cheers to a new chapter in Content Creation & Monetisation!!! #ChingariKiGari #GariTokens
— Salman Khan (@BeingSalmanKhan) October 16, 2021
Sumit Ghosh, the Co-Founder and CEO of Chingari, said the creator economy is rapidly expanding and the company is well poised to fuel the upcoming revolution in this space.
According to Ghosh, the introduction of the $GARI token will allow Chingari to vest decision-making powers in the hands of users and enable content monetization to become mainstream in the country. In addition, the company’s Blockchain platform will permit users to access tokens for creating or watching content.
Chingari was founded in late 2018 and gained popularity after its China-based rival TikTok was banned in India. As a result of the ban in 2020, Chingari was able to increase its users to 50 million from just 100,000 in the space of just six months. Registered users can download and upload short videos and shop for merchandise within this application.
With 85 million downloads to date, Chingari now aims to be India’s fastest growing Social Token app with the launch of $GARI.
