Klaytn/KLAY#124 13

What is Klaytn (KLAY)?

Klaytn is a South-Korean-born, enterprise-grade Layer-1 blockchain created by Kakao’s blockchain arm Ground X and stewarded globally by the non-profit Klaytn Foundation. Designed to act as the “trust layer” for Web3 and the metaverse, Klaytn marries public-chain openness with private-chain performance: it achieves ~4,000 TPS, deterministic one-second finality, and near-zero-downtime reliability while remaining fully Ethereum-equivalent (EVM + Solidity). These characteristics make Klaytn a natural base layer for high-throughput dApps in gaming, NFTs, real-world assets and even CBDC pilots such as the Bank of Korea’s sandbox.

Key Features

• Instant finality – An optimised Istanbul BFT consensus finalises blocks in ~1 s, eliminating re-org risk for real-time use cases.
  
• High throughput – The mainnet, Cypress, consistently clears 4,000 transactions per second.
  
• Ethereum equivalence – Full opcode, JSON-RPC and tooling parity lets Solidity contracts migrate with zero code changes.
  
• Service-chain scalability – Custom Layer-2 “service chains” offer dedicated throughput, bespoke governance and asset bridging back to Klaytn for anchoring or liquidity.
  
• Low, stable fees – Gas price is decoupled from network congestion, keeping user costs predictable (≈ 0.005 KLAY per ETH-style transfer at 250 ston).
  
• Developer tool-kit – Open-source SDKs, wallets, explorers, bridges and oracle integrations plus support for EIPs/KIPs.
  
• Fee delegation – Apps can subsidise gas on a per-tx basis, enabling freemium onboarding.
  
• On-chain eco funds – 50 % of new issuance flows into the Klaytn Growth Fund and Klaytn Improvement Reserve to reward builders and public goods.
  

How Does Klaytn Work?

Klaytn’s consensus layer is a modified IBFT 2.0. A 50-plus-member Governance Council (GC) of enterprises, DAOs and builders runs Consensus Nodes (CNs). For each block, a cryptographically random committee of CNs proposes and votes; ≥ ⅔ + 1 signatures seal the block, giving immediate finality. Proxy Nodes relay blocks to Endpoint Nodes that serve JSON-RPC traffic to dApps. Scalability comes from “service chains”—independent EVM sidechains that settle to Klaytn but can tune gas, privacy or validator sets for specialised workloads.

Primary Use Cases

• Metaverse & gaming – Sub-second finality and low fees suit real-time item mints, in-game DEXs and NFT drops.
  
• DeFi & RWAs – KLAY, KUSDT, KFIAT stablecoins, wrapped BTC/ETH and forthcoming tokenised bonds trade on Klaytn DEXs and money markets.
  
• Enterprise & CBDCs – The Bank of Korea’s retail-CBDC sandbox leverages a private Klaytn fork; conglomerates like GMO, Salim Group and Netmarble run service-chains or GC nodes.
  
• Community DAOs – Fee-delegation lowers friction for user-owned social, creator and investment DAOs.
  

What is the KLAY Token?

KLAY is Klaytn’s native utility asset used to pay gas, secure the network and coordinate governance. At genesis (June 2019) 10 billion KLAY were minted. Each new block issues 9.6 KLAY as rewards; the block reward (issuance + fees) is split 54 % to the Klaytn Growth Fund, 34 % to GC validators, and 12 % to the Klaytn Improvement Reserve for grants and protocol R&D.

KLAY Tokenomics

• Initial supply: 10 B KLAY
  
  
• Circulating (Jun 2025): ≈ 3.2 B KLAY
  
  
• Block reward: 9.6 KLAY + fees, issued every second
  
  
• Distribution of each block:
  
  
• 34 % — Governance-Council validator incentive
  
  
• 54 % — Klaytn Growth Fund (ecosystem grants, liquidity mining, partnerships)
  
  
• 12 % — Klaytn Improvement Reserve (core dev, research, security.
  

Brief History & Milestones

• Jun 2019 – Klaytn mainnet Cypress launches under GroundX.
  
• 2021 – Klaytn Foundation established; Growth Fund and Improvement Reserve go on-chain.
  
• 2022 – Service-chain framework released; Klaytn chosen for Bank of Korea CBDC pilot.
  
• Feb 2023 – Mainnet throughput upgrade hits 4 k TPS; fee-delegation standardised.
  
• Oct 2023 – Klaytn 2.0 roadmap unveils push toward a DAO-of-DAOs Governance Council.
  
• Mar–May 2024 – Klaytn integrates zk-rollup research grants; first game-studio service chain goes live.
  

Where to Buy and Store KLAY

KLAY trades on global CEXs such as Binance, Upbit, Bithumb, KuCoin, Gate.io, Kraken, OKX and Crypto.com, as well as on-chain via KlaySwap and ClaimSwap.
ERC-20 / KIP-7–compatible wallets—MetaMask, Kaikas, Ledger, Trezor, Rabby, Trust, SafePal, Coinbase Wallet—all support KLAY. For dApp interaction, Kaikas and MetaMask (via custom RPC) are the de-facto choices.