The cryptocurrency industry is constantly evolving, with new projects appearing every day. There are now around 17,000 of them, and in this issue you’ll meet an unusual representative of the blockchain.
His name is Klaytn, and he will obviously appeal to fans of K-pop and all things Korean. Well, let’s get started!
Key Features
- Name: Klaytn (KLAY)
- Year of launch: 2019
- Protocol: Proof-of-Stake (PoS)
- Mining method: Staking
- Current stage: Active project, currently open to everyone
Performance as of August 2024:
- Maximum limit: no limit
- Market capitalization: $ 485 million
- Capitalization rating: #112 according to Coinmarketcap
- Community: 53+ million KakaoTalk users, 180,000 followers on official Twitter
General Info
Klaytn is a blockchain that is open and accessible to users around the world. It is owned by Kakao Corporation of South Korea. The same company is behind the KakaoTalk messenger, used by 90% of the people in the country. But Kakao is not only associated with this application.
It also owns KakaoTV, KakaoTaxi, KakaoMusic, KakaoHome, KakaoGames and a dozen other platforms. All in all, it’s a kind of “regional Google”. It also has ambitions in the financial sector.
Kakao is the developer of the KakaoPay wallet integrated with KakaoTalk and the owner of the KakaoBank mobile bank. Just so you understand the company’s size and interest in cryptocurrency.
Let’s get back to Klaytn. The project was launched in 2019, and today it is open to users and developers from all over the world. This openness hasn’t always been there, by the way. One of the chips of the local ecosystem is the attempt to combine elements of public and corporate blockchains.
By doing this, the service tries to achieve benefits such as scalability and speed, while maintaining a fairly democratic way of managing the network.
The developer of the platform is not Kakao itself, but a startup called GroundX. It was founded by JaeSun Han.
JaeSun is not only a PhD, but also a very prominent player in the local IT market. He launched NexR in 2007 – and it was a first for the whole of advanced Korea in cloud computing and Big Data startup.
Quite early indeed, considering that the very concept of Big Data was coined in 2005 by publishers at O’Reilly Media. A little later, Han will head the Consortium of Cloud Computing Research.
It all looks solid, of course, but let’s take a closer look at the Klaytn ecosystem. First of all, the basic ideas of the project.
What Klaytn is
In general, one of the main ideas of Klaytn is quite simple – to be convenient for everyone. For example, third-party developers can create a decentralized application using a special development environment – Klaytn IDE with deployments, testing and some advanced options. It runs on Ethereum’s programming language, Solidity.
Applications are equipped with a standardized interface – its convenience is offered to evaluate already users.
What else is noteworthy? Local decentralised applications are not really decentralised, Kakao admits. They came up with a special name for them – BApps. We will tell you about them below.
How and where to use it
And that brings us to the ecosystem. For a company with dozens of top local services, this isn’t the size you’d expect. But it is still evolving and integrating with other platforms.
The most important thing in the Klaytn ecosystem is of course the KLAY token. It is used for staking (after all, Klaytn is proof-of-stake), trading, paying transaction fees, collateral for creating new assets (it can also be used that way) and more.
There is no problem with coin storage – KLAY is supported by Klip wallet built into KakaoTalk, https://klaywallet.co browser wallet, D’Cent hardware wallet, TokenPocket multi-currency wallet and many others.
At first glance, the set of art and applications from third-party teams, is as typical as possible:
- local analog of Cryptopunks
- some local DEX
- a local video hosting service that is not particularly viewable
- some travel service
- something else
But that’s about it, at first glance. Among the few, 71 to be exact, are attempts to create a Heroes III analogue, karaoke, and pet rental. And Klaytn’s technology also powers Spells of Genesis, the oldest card game in the blockchain industry, predating Gods Unchained.
What about K-pop or other music? Speaking of at least some music, apart from karaoke, Klaytn boasts a recent collaboration with Animal Concerts, an organiser of musical performances in meta-universes.
Something concrete has yet to materialize, but the companies are sure to have their work cut out for them. Among the artists collaborating with Animal Concerts are rapper Future and artist Example.
The latter is a really versatile personality: he managed to shoot the best low-budget video according to MTV, write a song for the animated film “Ice Age”, participate in stand-up and rap battles, become one of the most recognizable dance performers, shoot a short film, shoot scenes for a feature-length movie, shoot a documentary about Pripyat – the city where the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is located. All in all, the guy found an interesting use for his ADHD diagnosis.
Klaytn technology
How does Klaytn work? One of the features is the ability to develop or connect entire blockchains to Klaytn, as well as individual applications in the ecosystem – although many already do.
It’s pretty well thought out, and deep blockchain knowledge won’t be required of developers.
The ecosystem uses Orbit Bridge to connect to other blockchains. This bridge utilizes Cosmos’ IBC technology.
To deliver verified data from the World Wide Web to the blockchain, the familiar Chainlink oracle, which is supported by most networks, is being used – or rather, will be used.
What else can we say about useful technologies? Klaytn has KrafterSpace, a service for quick creation of your own NFTs. And EveryDAI – a stablecoin based on the popular Maker DAI.
How to mine
KLAY is a native token of the Klaytn PoS network. This means it can be staked, traded, sent to liquidity pools. Or just store it, waiting for price growth.
Where to buy
The creators of KLAY are not particularly eager for a bright cryptocurrency future, so the usual ways of buying koin are listed directly on the official page of the project.
Among those recommended by the company is buying by card using MoonPay service or ChangeNow exchange.
The KLAY coin is available on centralized platforms like Binance, Bithumb, Crypto.com, OKEx, WazirX and other, other, other.
And yes, the Klaytn ecosystem has its own decentralized exchanges – but we’ve already talked about that.
Where to store
You can store KLAY in the D’Cent hardware wallet, the browser-based or mobile version of the Kaikas wallet, the integrated KakaoTalk Klip and more.
Or you can store it in an exchange account such as Binance or ChangeNow.
Huobi’s own wallet, the Huobi Wallet, also supports the token.
Prospects of Klaytn
Kakao’s cryptocurrency has become similar to stablecoin – its rate is not particularly volatile – unless you take into account the crazy rally in April 2021.
Klaytn is not rushing to become the Ethereum killer, innovating or even launching something truly decentralised. But in general, the ecosystem supports all the latest trends, has a strong user base and its own unique features.
Article and permission to publish here provided by Jamie Martinez. Originally written for Supply Chain Game Changer and published on August 14, 2024.
All images provided by Jamie Martinez.