A little over a year ago, two brothers from Australia presented their application idea to a group of investors at the Bitcoin Association’s Pitch Day conference in London. Their proposal for a picture-sharing app powered by Bitcoin SV was then called Memento. It is now open for business, as Relica.
In this week’s CoinGeek Conversations, Charles Miller catches up with co-founders Jeremy and Daniel Street to ask about their journey — how Relica came to be, how it’s doing and where it’s heading.
For most of the past year, both have still been working their day jobs. And they live on different continents – Jeremy in the UK and Daniel in Australia. Developing their idea into a viable startup business has been hard work, but the brothers are determined that what Relica offers today is just the start of their ambitions.
What is Relica?
Simply put, Relica allows users to share their pictures - and profit from them. It may sound a lot like Instagram, but there is more to it than meets the eye. “The platform treats everyone equally, where users can upload and share photos and videos: liking and commenting will result in monetized rewards” Jeremy explains.
How does it work?
Just like Instagram, the majority of the photos on Relica are stored on the server base. What makes it different from Instagram, Dan points out is that the hash of individual photos is stored on the BSV blockchain, serving as a proof of identity and proof of ownership. In addition, he says interactions that take place with the photos on Relica are purely on the blockchain.
How do users profit by using Relica?
Relica’s users need to sign-up with a MoneyButton (or in future also a Handcash) wallet, then pay a tiny amount to post a photo. As Dan explains, they lost a few users because of the current payment requisite so they’re working on a new system that would entice users to post and keep sharing. “What we’re going to do is integrate a new system which is very unique to BSV apps - allowing users to post their first photo for free and having almost an ‘achievement system’ within Relica so they can earn money through sharing through their socials.”
As for users having to pay for content they like, Jeremy says an incentive model as such is debatable. “Charging people too much money for a basic interaction that we’ve all know to come and love or to like or comment is debatable and we’ve had lengthy discussions on whether or not that’s an incentive model that’s going to exist in a few years.”
Unlike Patreon and other similar websites where people pay for other users’ content, Dan says they are building something completely out of the box that’s never been done before. “What we’re planning for phase two, isn’t even on the existing Internet itself so Relica is pretty much a revolution in the [BSV] apps that they’ve built.” Jeremy adds that their end goal is to lower the entry barrier to the BSV ecosystem.
Relica launched in late November 2020 but it wasn’t until a month ago when they fully opened the app to its users. The response has been a positive so far, Dan says. Relica has 800 users and they expect more to come on board after releasing their marketing campaign. “We haven’t started a marketing campaign, which involves onboarding a number of influencers to reach out to their followers,” Dan says. “We want to refine the product first then start marketing Relica full time to influencers.”
At present, Relica is self-funded. But, as mentioned, they have exciting new ideas in the pipeline to present to its potential investors. “Things have changed a little bit since pitch day during the last 12 months. I think we have more focus as to where we want to be, so our plan is to continue to develop, continue to self-fund for the time being and reach out to investors within the next two to three months as we have some exciting new i