South Korea's leading mobile communication app giant Kakao continues to expand into the blockchain field.

KakaoTalk's popularity in Korea is similar to LINE in Taiwan. In addition to establishing the blockchain division "GroundX," Kakao has also launched its own mainnet "Klaytn" and issued the token "KLAY."

Establishing Blockchain Subsidiary "GroundX" to Prepare for the Future

The company had announced as early as March 2018 that it would develop blockchain technology and establish a dedicated department called Ground X, with plans to integrate future blockchain-based services with Kakao's existing internet infrastructure.

Ground X launched its test network in October 2018. According to its whitepaper, Klaytn adopts a hybrid consensus design, incorporating the concepts of consensus nodes (CN) and ranger nodes (RN) to achieve scalability and transparency.

Ground X claims that its blockchain platform Klaytn has a block time that is only one-fifteenth of Ethereum's. While Ethereum has a block time of 15 seconds, Klaytn can achieve one-second block times.

The reduced block time allows Klaytn to process up to 3,000 transactions per second, compared to Ethereum's TPS of less than 20. Klaytn's mainnet was launched on June 27th this year.

During the launch event, Ground X's blockchain division highlighted:

To maintain network stability, Klaytn provides a transparent evaluation and incentive mechanism called Proof of Contribution (PoC). PoC evaluates the level of contribution of all economic entities within the Klaytn ecosystem to reward them with corresponding KLAY tokens.

Building a Blockchain Ecosystem

In a private placement in March of this year, Ground X raised $90 million in funding, with renowned venture capital firms such as IDG Capital, Cresendo Equity Partners, and Translink Capital participating in the first round of financing.

In addition, Ground X has partnered with 26 companies that will operate applications on Klaytn in the future. These include Korean video game developer Wemade, video streaming platform Watcha, and Chinese travel service provider Zanadu.

Jason Han, CEO of Ground X, stated:

Token economy is a business model that no one could have imagined before. So far, Kakao has only operated in Korea, but through blockchain, it can expand to the global market. This means that as an intermediary, we can share some of the profits with users to expand the market.

Furthermore, Kakao plans to release a cryptocurrency wallet called "Klip" before the end of this year, which will support the native token Klay. Klip will be integrated with the KakaoTalk application.

The Klip page includes some partners of decentralized applications (dApps), such as the food data platform Hintchain. Kakao stated:

Users who use these dApps in the Klip wallet will receive additional cryptocurrency rewards, with the goal of having 50 million KakaoTalk users drive the adoption of blockchain technology through the Klip wallet.

In fact, the domestic mainstream LINE is also actively expanding into blockchain. In addition to launching the exchange Bitbox last year, it recently launched the cryptocurrency exchange BITMAX in Japan.

Recently, Kakao's blockchain division Ground's mainnet Klaytn technical team will also come to Taiwan to share insights. Co-organized by Dapp.com, ABM, and ABA, the event 【Developer Meetup 2019】 invites the global developer community for discussions.

In addition, a workshop will be held in the afternoon to delve into Klaytn's most powerful weapon - the "efficient speed and outstanding performance of Dapps," and participants can directly sign up for the Klaytn Horizon hackathon with a prize pool of up to $1 million upon completion.

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