Kik’s Cryptocurrency Kin is Planning to Launch its Own Blockchain
Blockchain is taking off in Canada faster than ever.
The Kin Ecosystem Foundation has announced plans to build their own blockchain based off the Stellar network. The Foundation is a nonprofit governance body for the cryptocurrency Kin, which was itself created by the Waterloo-based messaging platform Kik Interactive. When Kin first launched, it raised close to $100 million—and it wasn’t even sold in Canada.
This new plan builds on Kin’s earlier plans to build a hybrid blockchain infrastructure to better support the cryptocurrency ecosystem. This new blockchain will still leverage the ethereum network for security purposes as well as liquidity for current Kin holders. However, the new Kin blockchain will provide higher functionality when it comes to scaling and accessibility, all with the promise of no added fees.
“Most crypto projects to date have been technology-driven first and product-driven second. Kin has always been the opposite,” said Ted Livingston, founder and CEO of Kin and Kik. “After working heads down alongside the best minds in the industry we came to the conclusion that a hybrid solution of Ethereum and our own fork of Stellar would benefit the Kin Ecosystem both short and long-term.”
Livingston also outlined his goal for Kin to become the most used cryptocurrency in the world, a tall feat as overcoming bitcoin and ethereum will be incredibly difficult, not to mention smaller currencies like Monero or Ripple.
Kin has been working with the Silicon Valley-based Stellar, another nonprofit that offers a free open-source network designed to connect different financial systems. So far through tests, Stellar has helped Kin deliver faster and more scalable transactions when compared to their older Ethereum network.
“There are several barriers to entry that prevent the average consumer from using cryptocurrency in their digital lives,” said Jed McCaleb, co-founder of the Stellar Development Foundation. “Kin simplifies blockchain for mainstream consumers and digital service providers, and we’re excited to work together to drive mainstream adoption of cryptocurrency through scalable, fast and low cost transactions on Stellar.”
As Stellar is completely open source and the blockchain ecosystem is naturally collaborative, Kin will be able to fork Stellar and create its own inclusive network. The ultimate goal is to eliminate costly transfer and buying fees, which will in turn bring in more consumers and developers to build out the overall user numbers.
The next steps will see Kin creating new tokens specifically for Stellar, however they will not carry any value. Their goal is to allow users and developers to test out ways of using them similar to how other cryptocurrencies and rewards points are used. These new Kin tokens will not be able to be traded for anything once the official platform launches.
Kin eventually hopes to create a unified token that can be used over both the Stellar and the ethereum networks. Another Canadian network, Aion, may be able to help them with that interoperability.
