Build, build and build: “India’s TikTok” Chingari Launches NFT Video Marketplace

Having already shaken up the video-sharing landscape, India’s hottest young social media app Chingari has set its sights on Web3. The platform, affectionately known as the nation’s TikTok, has just released a video NFT (vNFT) marketplace called Creator Cuts. Alongside its social token GARI, Chingari’s Solana blockchain integration looks to foster new relationships between content creators and viewers, empowering both to earn from creating and enjoying the content they love.

Chingari’s rapid ascent

In just under four years, Chingari has consistently proved itself as the most disruptive force in India’s social media landscape. After hitting the Google Play store in November 2018, it was a few years before the application masterminded by Sumit Ghosh, Biswatma Nayak and Deepak Salvi picked up steam. Once it did, however, it quickly became unstoppable.

A 2020 ban on TikTok really set things in motion for homegrown apps offering similar video clip platforms. Among them was Chingari. But what sets Chingari apart from the pack is its embrace of radical new technologies — like those powering Web3.

However, even before Chingari integrated the Solana blockchain, the app was loaded with innovative features that helped it secure a rapidly growing user base. Not only was Chingari available in 11 local Indian languages, but it integrated powerful augmented reality features, voiceovers, funky filters on the Chingari camera and built-in music.

This commitment to innovation attracted users — and a lot of them — which helped the app scoop the AtmaNirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge award in August 2020. The sudden rise to prominence made the platform appealing to established media and entertainment brands, too. During 2020 and beyond, the partnerships started to roll in. The likes of Biigbang Amusement, Kadak Entertainment, BandEdge and TrueFan all jumped onboard. Such a rapid ascent also helped to secure investments, like the $13 million round led by OnMobile in April 2021.

Enter blockchain, GARI and Creator Cuts

Having enjoyed success after success, anyone would forgive the Chingari team for taking a breather. Instead, it forged ahead on an interesting and highly innovative path.

In early 2022, the platform integrated the Solana blockchain and launched the GARI token — a cryptocurrency intended to power a circular creator economy. Coinciding with the launch, the project released its own wallet to help onboard users to crypto and provide them with the means to participate in the Web3 revolution. Upon going live, users could earn the crypto asset by engaging with their favorite creators’ content.

Now commanding a user base of more than 130 million and seeing daily active users frequently top 5 million, Chingari has delivered a world-first with its vNFT marketplace, Creator Cuts.

Creator Cuts aims to bridge the gap between content creators and their followers by providing another means for the former to monetize their work. Interestingly, however, it extends this earning potential to content consumers, too.

When someone buys a vNFT, they automatically receive GARI rewards directly into whichever Solana-compatible wallet they hold the token. Fixed at 10% of the content creators’ total platform revenue and delivered daily, this not only incentivizes a lively primary and secondary market for vNFTs but also encourages creators to keep making the best content for their followers.

Creator Cuts is a big deal: Here’s why

Creator Cuts perfectly demonstrates Web3’s disruptive potential. The platform offers a complete reimagining of the power balance between content creators, their fans and even the company hosting content.

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In Web2, the corporations kept tight control over the purse strings. Platforms like YouTube, Spotify and others are notorious for their meager revenue distributions, leaving the creators responsible for bringing in users feeling like they’ve drawn the short straw.

Web3, by contrast, empowers creators by giving them the tools to monetize their content as they see fit. When auctioning a video clip on Creator Cuts, for example, the creator takes the lion’s share of the revenue and platform users can generate passive income by interacting with and sharing the content they love.

Although Web3 is still a very new niche, examples like Creator Cuts show a promising alternative to the corporate-controlled internet, pointing to a new, more democratized and, ultimately, fairer future.