The social token from video sharing mobile app Chingari became available to international traders on Tuesday
India-based short video app company Chingari earlier this week debuted its native token GARI on the international stage. The token quickly saw interest from millions of people on the first day, with trading volume eclipsing $100 million within hours as per an announcement from Chingari.
Chingari launched GARI last October as part of efforts to incorporate a cryptocurrency element in the digital content creation world. Renowned actor, producer and TV star Salman Khan served as the brand's ambassador during the launch. In December, Chingari revealed its Initial DEX Offering launch plans on SolRazr.
Taking the market by a storm
This week, the token simultaneously arrived on more than 1o (six of them global) crypto trading platforms, including KuCoin, FTX, Huobi Global, Gate.io and OKEx. The other centralised exchanges are Bitbns, BTXEC, CoinW, BitMart, Hotbit, LATOKEN and Zebpay.
Notably, OKEx participated in Chingari's extended Series A funding round that netted $15 million as a strategic investor. The Republic Capital led fundraising also involved JPIN Venture Catalysts, Hill Harbour and telecommunication company Onmobile.
Founded in 2018, Chingari only recently became a popular video application after India outlawed China-founded video-focused social networking TikTok. The ban, combined with Chingari's incentive-oriented model and openness, helped thrust the application as the ideal replacement.
Dubbed 'Indian TikTok,' it emerged as 'India's top application on Google Play Store' last year. The video app has been downloaded more than 110 million times and has an estimated active user base of 35 million. Last April, Chingari revealed it had closed a $13 million pre-Series A round bringing the raised funds to $28 million.
GARI will benefit creators and other Chingari users
GARI has a capped supply of 1,000,000,000 tokens, 45,800,000 of them being in a self-reported circulating supply as per Coinmarketcap. Chingari intends to integrate the token on the app as a form of monetisation such that users can tip creators seamlessly.
"GARI will enable 30 million monthly active users of the Chingari short video app to get on-chain. For the first time in the history of blockchain, an app will onboard millions of users on-chain," the company's chief executive and co-founder Sumit Ghosh noted in a press release shared with CoinTelegraph.
Content creators on the platform are also rewarded with GARI tokens as an incentive. Worth noting, GARI is India's first-ever social crypto-token to be available for trading on global platforms.