What is LYKA?
LYKA is a relatively new social media platform integrated with a “digital point system”, called Gift card in Electronic Mode or GEMs, which can be used to pay for things.
The app, which was developed by Things I Like Company Limited, has been around since 2019 but it has gained more attention recently after Ivana Alawi paid for a car she bought using LYKA GEMs, as seen in a vlog she published last January 2021.
The app’s initial draw is that you can earn GEMs while doing your usual social media activities like posting photos or videos and rating other user’s posts.
It sounds like a scam
Given the earning potential, a common initial reaction is that it’s too good to be true and that it’s probably a scam.
It is legit though.
The earnings are not that big and limitations have been put in place to prevent abuse. A user can earn 0.05 GEMs for each of the first ten posts and each of the first ten moments (think Instagram’s Story or Facebook’s My Day) of the day. A user can also earn 0.02 GEMs for rating other user’s posts, but this is also limited to ten each day. Posts, moments, and ratings in excess of the limit won’t earn GEMs anymore. Rating moments also won’t earn any GEMs.
With the current conversion rate of 1 LYKA GEM is to 1 PHP, that means the maximum a user can earn on his or her own is 1.20 pesos a day. That’s less than 40 pesos in a month.
How to earn more GEMs
Earning a maximum of 1.20 pesos a day probably won’t make anyone excited, especially if it means needing to upload ten posts and ten moments everyday. There are other ways to earn GEMs though:
1. Other users Max Rating (MR) your posts.
Each user can give a total of 2 GEMs a day when they rate other user’s posts. The actual number of GEMs given will depend on the rating, with a rating of 1 giving 0.01 GEMs, a rating of 2 giving 0.02 GEMs and so on until a rating of 5, which gives 0.05 GEMs. A rating of 5 is also called a Max Rate or an MR.
This means that if it’s always an MR, a user can give 0.05 GEMs up to 40 times daily. A user can continue to rate posts more than 40 times, and while it will still reflect in the post’s ratings, the post’s owner will no longer earn GEMs from it.
2. Other users Ultra Rating (UR) your posts
Aside from the normal rating, a user can also give Ultra Rates, which is basically a boosted rating using GEMs. An Ultra Rate of 100 costs 1 GEM, 500 costs 5 GEMs, and so on. The largest option available for Ultra Rate is 100,000,000 which costs 1,000,000 GEMs.
There’s a 5% deduction per Ultra Rate though, which means if a user gives you an Ultra
Rate of 100, you only get 0.95 GEMs instead of 1 GEM.
3. Other users sending you GEMs
Other users can also send you GEMs straight up without deductions (but no ratings to any of your posts either). This is also the method used when buying things from merchants using GEMs.
4. Competing in LYKA Games.
LYKA also has built-in games you can play like Whack a Mole, Spore Hunter, Magnificent Tower, and many more. Practice games are free to play and competing cost 15 GEMs per token. If you compete and you’re in the Top 5 for that game at the end of the duration, you win corresponding GEMs depending on your rank.
Those who are on the overall leaderboard at the end of the season will also get GEMS.
Can you actually buy a car with the GEMs you earn in LYKA?
Doing the math, if you post five times a day and you have 10,000 followers who include all five of your posts in their first 40 MR’s for the day, you’ll get 2,500 GEMs for that day, or about 75,000 GEMs in a month, just from MR’s.
Ivana Alawi has more than 500,000 followers (the most in LYKA right now) and while she doesn’t post that often, each of her posts have a potential to earn thousands. However, nobody else has more than 200,000 followers and people at the top 95-100 (LYKA actually shows the ranking up to 100) have less than 40,000 followers. Most of these are celebrities and known personalities already.
Ivana is an outlier here and while it’s the dream to earn that much just by posting, it won’t be happening to the majority of the users.
Is LYKA worth trying out then?
Not being able to buy a car with the LYKA GEMs you earn doesn’t mean it’s not worth it to try the app anymore. LYKA still has its perks and it has also been continuously improving.
There are already thousands of merchants accepting LYKA GEMs for payment. This can be convenient as it allows for cashless and contactless transactions. LYKA Mall, an online store that will also accept GEM payments, is also set to open soon. If you don’t have enough GEMs for your purchase, you can buy more GEMs (similar to loading your GrabPay or ShopeePay wallets).
While it may not overthrow Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or even TikTok anytime soon, LYKA has the potential to stick around.
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***LYKA is available for both Android and IOS devices. More info can be found on LYKA’s website (mylyka.com), Instagram (@lyka.global), and Youtube channel (LYKA).
// by Francis Abad
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Wow. Well explained Sir. Galinggg. 😍
Pero nag-eenjoy talaga ako sa Lyka dahil sa Droplets, kay Miss Pie at sa lahat ng nakilala ko dun. 😊
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