Kaia: Partnering with Line and Kakao, two major Asian social giants, with the potential of 250 million users ready to take off.

On January 16, 2024, Asia's two leading blockchain platforms, Klaytn and Finschia, announced the launch of a unified mainnet plan. This merger originates from the two major internet giants in Korea and Japan, Kakao and LINE. On August 29, 2024, the merged Kaia mainnet officially went live. By combining their respective ecosystems and assets, Kakao and LINE plan to create a giant blockchain in Asia and gradually lead the global Web3 market.

Sam Seo, the chairman of the Kaia Foundation, holds a PhD in high-performance computing and has served as CKO at KrustUniverse, where he was responsible for leading the development and operation of Klaytn. Additionally, he has held the position of Chief Technology Officer at GroundX (the blockchain subsidiary of Kakao) and worked as an assistant computer scientist at Argonne National Laboratory.

The joint support of the two giants Kakao and LINE behind it has injected strong momentum into the development of Kaia. Kakao has a usage rate of up to 96% in South Korea and also has a significant impact in Vietnam. LINE is favored by users in regions such as Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand. Together, the potential user base of Kaia exceeds 250 million, significantly enhancing its global coverage. With such a large user base, Kaia is poised to greatly increase the popularity and acceptance of blockchain technology in the East Asian market, laying a solid foundation for the large-scale application of blockchain technology; and thus creating the largest and most vibrant Web3 ecosystem in Asia. Other investors in Kaia include Hashed, IDG Capital, and others.

Kakao and Klaytn

Kakao Talk is one of the most popular instant messaging applications in South Korea, with nearly 49 million monthly active users in Q3 2024, 90% of whom are from South Korea. The company has over 17,000 employees, and its operating profit for Q3 2024 was 130.5 billion KRW (93.48 million USD), a year-on-year increase of 5%. The platform division, including Kakao Talk, saw growth, with revenue increasing by 7% to reach 943.5 billion KRW (707.63 million USD).

Klaytn has been built from the ground up for DApp developers and enterprises. This ecosystem allows developers to unleash their creativity and enhance user experience. This provides a strong technological foundation for Kaia. Klaytn's cumulative transaction volume is $376 billion, with over 29 million Web3 wallet users, more than 240k community members, and an ATH Onchain TVL exceeding $1 billion. Additionally, it has a strong presence in Singapore and Vietnam.

The South Korean market has always been cryptocurrency-friendly, and its local exchange Upbit has become a leading exchange in the crypto industry. Web3 projects take pride in being able to list on Upbit. Against the backdrop of the entire South Korean population engaging in cryptocurrency trading, the ceiling of Kaia will undoubtedly bring us endless imagination.

Line and Finschia

As Japan's most popular communication platform, LINE covers 70% of the Japanese population and also dominates markets like Thailand and Taiwan. In Japan, the monthly active users reach 92 million, while the number of users in Thailand exceeds 51 million (making it the most popular social platform in Thailand), and Taiwan has 21 million users, with the Indonesian market also boasting 13 million users. This high user penetration rate provides a solid foundation for its advertising, payment, and content services. For example, a major survey on LINE usage behavior conducted by Nielsen in 2024 found that 92.1% of Taiwanese people aged 15-65 used LINE in the past seven days, with nearly half of the users being heavy users who check LINE an average of 14 times a day to check messages.

Compared to other social platforms, LINE's unique ecosystem integration capability is particularly prominent. Users can consume its rich content products on LINE, including over 300,000 comic books and 9 games that integrate social interaction. This diversification of features gives LINE a significant advantage in maintaining user engagement. Additionally, the average usage time of over 4 hours per week highlights its irreplaceability in users' daily lives.

This comprehensive ecosystem provides Kaia with a unique strategic advantage. LINE's user base is highly concentrated and active, and the integration of its advertising and payment features allows brands and services to precisely reach their target audience. Moreover, LINE's regionalization strategy for its ecosystem ensures that the platform's content closely aligns with the cultural needs of its users, creating an efficient path for Kaia's localized promotion.

LINE's payment ecosystem also demonstrates its potential in the blockchain economy. With 40 million monthly active payment users and over $12 billion in annual transaction volume, LINE Pay has provided its users with a seamless digital payment experience. This payment infrastructure, combined with its highly refined advertising reach (over 200 million users reached monthly), offers a natural advantage for blockchain projects to land and expand in the Asia-Pacific market.

Particularly noteworthy is the LINE Miniapp plan, which serves as a bridge between Web2 and Web3. This feature not only allows existing users to easily access decentralized applications but also creates a highly compatible development environment through deep integration of its payment, advertising, and communication ecosystems.

Finschia, a blockchain under LINE, was launched as early as 2018. After about 5 years of development, it has over 5.6 million Web3 wallet users and more than 170k community members, and it holds an important position in Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, and Abu Dhabi.

LINE's strategic direction indicates that in the future Web3 world, it will not only be a participant but also a promoter and accelerator, helping the entire industry bridge the critical gap from technology to mainstream applications.

Currently, Kaia has confirmed the launch of the SDK for Line mini-programs, with the first batch of Line mini-program applications set to be launched in January 2025, while also meeting regulatory requirements. From Kakao's side, 3 out of the 6 council members of Kaia come from Kakao's blockchain Klaytn. In addition, Kakao and its affiliates hold about 9.8% of Kaia's total supply and actively participate in its governance. However, the current regulatory uncertainty in South Korea hinders Kakao's ability to play a more active role in blockchain initiatives, such as launching mini dApps like LINE. However, once these regulatory uncertainties are resolved and LINE's mini dApp service succeeds, Kakao is expected to fully embrace blockchain integration.

Token Economics

Kaia's native token KAIA plays a central role in the blockchain economy, used to pay transaction fees when creating or executing smart contracts or transferring KAIA. It is not only a means of payment for transactions but also provides the necessary power for the normal operation of the entire system:

1. Incentive Mechanism: Customers of the platform incentivize Consensus Nodes (CNs) by paying KAIA, as these nodes are responsible for validating transactions and executing smart contracts. Simply put, nodes provide computational power and resources, and users pay KAIA in return, creating a mutually beneficial relationship.

2. Promote Development Quality: The fees paid using KAIA are proportional to the complexity and resource consumption of the smart contract. If a developer's code is too inefficient or redundant, executing that code will be more expensive. This mechanism encourages developers to optimize code quality and avoid wasting computational resources.

3. Maintain Network Health: CN nodes support the operation of the network by consuming computing power and bandwidth. The rewards of KAIA can incentivize more nodes to participate in the consensus process, thereby ensuring the decentralization and stability of the network.

Each new block will automatically issue KAIA tokens, with an initial annual inflation rate of 5.2%. The block reward distribution is as follows:

1. CCO and Community: 50% (20% Block Creator Rewards, 80% Staking Rewards)
2. KEF (Kaia Ecosystem Fund): 25%
3. KIF (Kaia Infrastructure Fund): 25%

This distribution model incentivizes network participation while supporting the growth and development of the Kaia ecosystem.

The on-chain governance system implemented by Kaia aims to achieve fairness and inclusivity:

1. Voting rights are proportional to the amount of KAIA tokens invested.
2. The cap on voting rights can prevent the opinions of a minority from being suppressed.
3. Allow voting rights delegation.
4. All governance proposals are recorded on-chain to ensure transparency.

In terms of price, Kaia has performed exceptionally well. Since Klay was renamed Kaia and was listed on a certain trading platform, it has been rising steadily.

Governance Council

With technological advancements driving rapid growth in the metaverse, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and developers are becoming significant forces in the new economic paradigm. Kaia is keeping pace with this trend by launching the Kaia Governance Council (GC), comprised of 31 trusted early members, most of whom are top-tier institutions. These include: Kakao, a certain trading platform, Google Cloud, GS HomeShopping (the number one multimedia retailer in South Korea), LG Uplus (a subsidiary of South Korea's largest corporation, LG Corporation), Hanwha Systems (the second largest non-bank financial group in South Korea), Everrich Group (a real estate developer with a primary focus on South Korea, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia), HashKey (a leading fintech group headquartered in Hong Kong, focused on blockchain development), and NEOPLY (a leading startup accelerator under NEOWIZ, a large South Korean online gaming company specializing in blockchain investment).

Through this choice, the Kaia platform has successfully achieved stable operation of the mainnet, ensuring that technological stability and operational implementation are advanced quickly and efficiently in the early stages of platform development, laying a solid foundation for the innovation of subsequent governance models.

Moreover, Kaia has expanded the membership of GC from traditional enterprises to DAOs and builders to meet the needs of the new era. Kaia's ultimate vision is to become a fully decentralized "DAO of DAOs," unifying the voices of all governance entities through on-chain mechanisms. This is not only a technological innovation but also represents a true transformation of governance structures—empowering all stakeholders with a greater voice and setting a new benchmark for the decentralized development of the metaverse.

Kaia's governance framework is not only a core pillar of its platform development but also a key highlight in attracting global developers, communities, and organizations to participate. With a governance mechanism that combines foresight and flexibility, Kaia is laying a solid foundation for the sustainable growth of the blockchain ecosystem.

In addition, Kaia has also closely collaborated with government departments; for example, the Bank of Korea has chosen its parent company Ground X as the main technology provider for the blockchain-based digital won simulation.

![With Line and Kakao, two major Asian social giants, 250 million users are poised for potential growth. Can Kaia replicate the myth of TON?](