Special Live AMA | Bitazza Invites: Klaytn Summary -

This Live AMA with Klaytn’s Head of Global Adoption, David Shin, and Bitazza’s Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Kavin Phongpandecha was hosted by Bitazza’s Chief Communications Officer Didi Wiboonma on 4 May 2022.

Introducing Klaytn

According to David Shin, Klaytn is the blockchain division of Kakao, the Korean Super-app that serves over 95% of the Korean population. Kakao is a fully integrated Super-app, with the only ride-hailing app in Korea, a gaming division, the largest digital bank in Asia, one of the largest banks in Korea, a majority share in SM entertainment, and more.

What has Klaytn been up to?

With Klaytn 1.0 in 2019-2021, the aim was to create the initial genesis of Klaytn and gain widespread adoption in South Korea. Klaytn 2.0 is Klaytn’s push to expand globally.

By TVL across major DApps Klaytn is at the $2 b- 2.5 billion benchmark and is continuing to grow in a healthy way, with global TVL also growing as international adoption increases.

While Klaytn 1.0 focused on building DeFi capability, Klaytn 2.0 has focused on looking at the NFT, GameFi, and metaverse sectors over the past year. Klaytn was able to look ahead and foresaw the Metaverse becoming the dominant Crypto Narrative in 2022. Klaytn sees the metaverse as a persistent virtual wrapper with multiple use cases, and engines that can be plugged into the virtual wrapper seamlessly. By integrating tokenomics and focusing on building exit liquidity in their blockchain gaming products, Klaytn aims to create assets that have the value that can be brought on-chain that’s exchangeable between one game to other games/apps that creates higher opportunities for the game and increases the chances of value growing.

Klaytn also wants to explore Metaverse entertainment opportunities such as virtual concerts. How can we do both online and offline experiences? One potential idea looks to leverage blockchain and NFTs as tickets to enter the metaverse and to trade assets within the concert.

Additionally, private and public enterprise opportunities such as election ballots are worth exploring as well and could build greater trust in the public when voting. On the private side, enterprises can create/enhance additional opportunities for organizations to have interactions with fans/users/employees/etc by making the most of the borderless nature of the Metaverse.

Who are Klaytn’s partners, and with the global expansion, is adding more global partners part of a concentrated effort to further decentralize and expand Klaytn?

Listed partners include Kakao, SM entertainment, Netmarble, WeMade, LG, and World Pay. Recently added Alameda, parent company of FTX and Jump Trading. Klaytn is also adding more partners in the pipeline currently that cannot be disclosed at the moment. These companies are prominent blue-chip global names. Some examples of prominent international enterprises that have already officialy partnered with Klaytn include Salim group (Indonesia mega-conglomerate) and GMO internet (Japan).

What are some interesting projects on Klaytn that people should be following?

Klaytn is focused on projects that are related to GameFi and is bullish on the Play-to-Earn movement (P2E) in developing markets, as well as targetting sophisticated gamers in MEDCs by bringing AAA titles on to Klaytn that can integrate tokenomics into their games.

Tokens by these AAA companies have intrinsic value on Day-zero based on what these studios bring to the table, almost like listing synthetic equities on-chain for these companies.

On the Metaverse side, Klaytn is building metaverse projects for large Web2 enterprises that can’t be named at the moment, including one of the largest tech companies in India.

Furthermore, Klaytn is in discussion with one of the most prominent metaverse conferences that will incorporate Klaytn as part of the experience. Additionally, certain music festivals are actively looking to build metaverse experiences on the Klaytn chain.

On the NFT/creator market side, Klaytn has one of the strongest relationships with OpenSea. Klaytn-related NFT assets are the second-highest asset by trade volume. Of note, Klaytn is looking to cement a strategic partnership with OpenSea that should be closing very soon.

What will make sure Klaytn has sustainable value?

According to David, we are at an inflection point with crypto where in the past we’ve built so much speculative value on the blockchain with very little utility. We are at the point where this is about to/needs to change so that we can get to the next level when it comes to mass adoption. Klaytn has shifted its focus from DeFi to supporting creator markets like NFTs and such. With Web2 companies now knocking on Klaytn’s door, they are creating long-term value on the market/chain.

What are Web1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 technology?

Web1.0 Read-only internet – Users can only read the data on the web.
Web2.0 Interactive Web – Users can open, read, and adjust the data and also the use of Algorithms and Artificial Intelligent technology are included. Also, they can have interaction with their friends, but there are big company own users’ data and use it for their business such as Facebook, Amazon, or Netflix.
Web3.0 Interactive Web and Ownership – Users own their digital data and asset in the virtual world, not the big company.

With the gradual shift from Web2 to Web3, there is a lot of discussion regarding how Web3 is disrupting Web2 giants. What are your thoughts about this narrative, particularly considering Kakao’s status as a Web2 giant?

Kakao knows Web2 and super apps particularly well and sees the opportunities to disrupt them.
As people on the inside, they’re aware of the efficient ways to disrupt the Web2 models compared to pure Web3 projects. Additionally, they have brought in lots of people that are crypto natives in addition to their existing Web2 expertise, including David himself. With a team consisting of both Web2 and Web3 experts, Klaytn is uniquely equipped with the skillset, experience, and perspective needed to target the weaknesses or inefficiencies of existing Web2 giants.

What makes Klaytn different from other chains?

In terms of projects to watch out for, Klaytn is always trying to look ahead and see where trends will lead to. For instance, Klaytn is bullish on the Move-to-Earn movement and has projects that are gaining significant momentum and are continuing to look for projects in that category. Klaytn looks at projects on the platform as true partners and is always looking across their ecosystem to link synergistic connections between the various projects on Klaytn. Klaytn has end-to-end support for developers along with their roadmap so that projects can scale up, not just get off the ground.

Also, as an EVM-compatible chain, there can often be rotational traffic with projects looking to bounce around different EVM-compatible chains. From the project’s perspective, they will be looking at whether Klaytn is priced right. i.e. if people are playing games then the gas fee model should be based on utility, which should bring down gas noise. Even if this brings less activity, you should have a more stable network. In terms of scalability and gas fees, a turtle approach is superior to them.

What kind of games is being built on Klaytn that could attract users? How do you see the growth of Web3/Metaverse affecting work life in the future?

There are many different types of games Klaytn is looking at, but they are particularly interested in UGC games. Open world UGC in the metaverse will be important. Allowing the freedom for people to create is the most important thing. The younger generation will be the next generators of wealth that are accumulating their wealth now. How will these people want to economically interact or invest? This is different from generation to generation. To have UGC and allow for transactions between UGC is particularly interesting, especially if it’s tied to assets like NFTs.

These models will need to have some form of governance though. i.e. How will we regulate behavior on the metaverse? Perhaps having a DAO to regulate the environment could be the way forward.

Korea exports a lot of culture to surrounding countries, when it comes to these types of content, what is your strategy in utilizing this strength and working with local content generation mechanisms to export all this to the Klaytn ecosystem?

Klaytn is definitely working with internal partners at Kakao entertainment, but Klaytn are deliberately making sure that they are not going to just take existing brands and mint NFTs to drop on OpenSea. Klaytn desires dynamic content that properly utilizes and digitizes the asset in question so it has a proper roadmap for development/value beyond a one-day NFT drop. While other brands or artists have done lucrative NFT drops, Klaytn does not see much value that is being created beyond that point.

What gets you excited when you wake up to work every day?

David thinks about what decentralization can do for the world. We’ve seen experiments on what decentralization of finance can do for the world, but what else can decentralization/DAOs do? Humanity has lost a lot of trust in governments, so with the average person trusting centralized institutions less and less what solutions will we have moving forward? Simply voting for the best candidate may not be enough. Need to create the perfect State-DAO and prove that this model can work as the future of governance that can be scaled up to cities, states, countries, etc.

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