Kaia: With Line and Kakao, two major Asian social giants, and the potential of 250 million users ready to unleash, can it replicate the myth of TON?

1. Overview of Kaia's Background

1.1 Project Introduction

1.1.1 Establishment and Development History

On January 16, 2024, two leading blockchain platforms, Klaytn and Finschia, announced the launch of a unified mainnet plan. This merger is supported by two major internet giants from Korea and Japan, Kakao and LINE. On August 29, 2024, the merged Kaia mainnet will officially go live. Kakao and LINE plan to create a major blockchain player in the Asia region by combining their respective ecosystems and assets, gradually leading the global Web3 market.

Sam Seo, the chairman of the Kaia Foundation, has been deeply researching blockchain since 2017 and holds a PhD in high-performance computing. He previously served as CKO at KrustUniverse, where he was responsible for leading the development and operation of Klaytn. Additionally, he was the CTO at GroundX(, Kakao's blockchain subsidiary ), and worked as an assistant computer scientist at Argonne National Laboratory.

With the support of two giants, Kakao and LINE, Kaia's development is injected with strong momentum. Kakao has a usage rate of up to 96% in South Korea and also has a significant influence in Vietnam. LINE is popular in Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand. Combined, Kaia's potential user base exceeds 250 million, significantly enhancing its global coverage. With such a large user base, Kaia is expected to greatly increase the popularity and acceptance of blockchain technology in the East Asian market, laying the foundation for the large-scale application of blockchain technology; thus creating the largest and most vibrant Web3 ecosystem in Asia. Other investors in Kaia include Hashed, IDG Capital, and others.

1.1.2 Important Time Nodes

• January 16, 2024: Klaytn and Finschia announced merger plans
• August 29, 2024: Kaia mainnet officially launched
• Q1 2025: Plan to launch LINE Mini DApp

1.1.3 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, of which 90% are from South Korea. The company employs over 17k people, and the operating profit for Q3 2024 is 130.5 billion KRW ( 934.8 million USD ), a year-on-year increase of 5%. Among them, the platform division's revenue grew by 7%, reaching 943.5 billion KRW ( 707.63 million USD ).

Klaytn has been built for DApp developers and enterprises from the very beginning. This ecosystem enables developers to unleash their creativity and expand user experiences. It 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 influence in Singapore and Vietnam.

The South Korean market is already a crypto-friendly market, with its local exchange Upbit becoming a leading exchange in the crypto industry. Web3 projects take pride in being able to list on Upbit. Against the backdrop of all Korean users trading cryptocurrencies, the ceiling of Kaia will undoubtedly bring us endless imagination.

1.1.4 Line and Finschia

As the most popular communication platform in Japan, LINE covers 70% of the Japanese population and also holds a dominant position in markets such as Thailand and Taiwan. In Japan, the monthly active users reach 92 million, while the number of users in Thailand exceeds 51 million. ( is the most popular social platform in Thailand ), with 21 million users in Taiwan and 13 million users in the Indonesian market. This high user penetration rate provides a solid foundation for its advertising, payment, and content services. For example, in the 2024 Nielsen LINE Usage Behavior Survey, it was 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, checking LINE an average of 14 times a day for messages.

Compared to other social platforms, LINE's unique ecological integration capabilities are particularly prominent. Users can consume its rich content products on LINE, including over 300,000 comic books and 9 games that integrate social interactions. This diversification of features gives LINE a significant advantage in maintaining user engagement. Furthermore, an 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 functions allows brands and services to precisely reach their target audience. In addition, LINE's regionalization strategy ensures a close alignment between its platform content and the cultural needs of users, which will create 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 an annual transaction volume exceeding 12 billion USD, LINE Pay has provided its users with a seamless digital payment experience. This payment infrastructure, combined with its highly refined advertising capabilities, reaching over 200 million users monthly, provides 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 connecting 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, holding 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 that it will launch the SDK for Line mini programs and has plans to roll out the first batch of Line mini program applications in January 2025, while meeting regulatory requirements. On the Kakao side, among Kaia's 6 council members, 3 are from Kakao's blockchain Klaytn. Additionally, 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 from playing 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 is successful, Kakao is expected to fully embrace blockchain integration.

( 1.2 Token Economics

)# 1.2.1 Token $Kaia

The native token KAIA of Kaia plays a core 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 power for the normal operation of the entire system:

1. Incentive mechanism: The platform's customers incentivize consensus nodes ###Consensus Nodes,CNs### by paying KAIA, as these nodes are responsible for validating transactions and executing smart contracts. Simply put, nodes provide computing power and resources, and users pay KAIA in return, which is 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 the developer's code is too inefficient or redundant, executing this 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; obtaining KAIA rewards 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 not only incentivizes network participation but also supports 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 number 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.

From the perspective of coin price, Kaia's performance has been remarkable. Since Klay was renamed to Kaia and went online on a certain trading platform, it has been on an upward trend.

(# 1.2.2 Governance Council

With the advancement of technology driving the rapid growth of the metaverse, decentralized autonomous organizations )DAOs### and developers are becoming an important force in the new economic model. Kaia is following this trend by launching the Kaia Governance Council (Governance Council, GC), which consists of 31 trusted early members, most of whom are top institutions. These include: Kakao, a certain trading platform, a certain tech company's cloud services, GS HomeShopping( Korea's number one multimedia retailer), LG Uplus(, a subsidiary of Korea's largest enterprise LG Corporation), Hanwha Systems( Korea's second-largest non-bank financial group), Everrich Group( a real estate developer primarily operating in Korea, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia), HashKey( a leading fintech group headquartered in Hong Kong, focusing on blockchain development), NEOPLY( a leading startup accelerator under NEOWIZ, which is a major South Korean online gaming company specializing in blockchain investment), among others.

Through this choice, the Kaia platform has successfully achieved stable operation of the mainnet, ensuring rapid and efficient advancement of technical stability and operational implementation in the early stages of the platform's development, laying a solid foundation for the subsequent innovation of governance models.

Moreover, Kaia has expanded the membership of GC from traditional enterprises to DAOs and builders, in order to adapt to 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 technical innovation but also represents a true transformation of governance structures—empowering all stakeholders with 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 balances foresight and flexibility, Kaia is laying a solid foundation for sustainable growth in 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.

( 1.