Klaytn is a hybrid blockchain project oriented towards businesses and enterprise. The fact that the blockchain is hybrid simply means that the project utilized key features of both private and public blockchains.
In order to understand what this means, you first need to know the different types of blockchains, as well as the differences between them.
The 4 basic types of blockchains
Blockchains can be divided into 4 general types; private, public, consortium, and hybrid. Without going too much into detail in regards to the different types, we have listed the key benefits of each type.
Benefits of private blockchains
The most notable benefit of a private blockchain is the low latency and high scalability. The fast speed and higher efficiency makes private blockchains a preferred choice for organizations, as private members of the blockchain won’t have to “share” the space with people from outside the organization.
Another benefit of private blockchain is the level of privacy.
Benefits of public blockchains
The most notable benefit of public blockchain is the fact that they’re publicly available. Everyone can join in. In addition to this, a public blockchain is completely decentralized, whereas a private blockchain is not.
The most popular blockchains and cryptocurrencies are public; eg. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin.
Benefits of consortium blockchains
A consortium blockchain (or permissioned blockchain) is much like a private blockchain. The key difference is the number of entities in charge of the blockchain. A private blockchain may be controlled by a single organization, a consortium blockchain is governed by multiple organizations – thus making it a consortium.
To gain access to the blockchain, you need permission granted by the consortium. This secures a low amount of users on the blockchain, thus increasing the performance and speed of the platform.
Benefits of hybrid blockchains
A hybrid blockchain, like Klaytn, combines the key features of private and public blockchains to create a high-speed but public blockchain at the enterprise level. In other words, a blockchain with high performance and high scalability.
How does Klaytn work?
Klaytn is a public blockchain. However, the unique feature of Klaytn is that people are allowed to build new blockchains on the existing architecture developed by Klaytn.
This means that organizations at the enterprise level can utilize the technology and scale their businesses through the blockchain. This has been a challenge to achieve using traditional public blockchains.
Another key feature of Klaytn is the use of the Istanbul Byzantine Fault Tolerance (IBFT) as a consensus mechanism.
Now, what does that even mean?
In order to verify the legality of a crypto asset, other entities must confirm the legality - they must reach consensus. This is typically done using the Proof-of-work (POW) or Proof-of-stake (POS) methods.
Klaytn introduced a new, more efficient method; that is, the IBFT method.
In practical words this means that Klaytn can process up to 4,000 transactions a second (all transactions must be verified through consensus). This also minimizes the amount of gas needed to complete the transactions – in fact Klaytn uses about 10% of the gas that a transaction on the Ethereum blockchain would use.
What is Klaytn coin (KLAY)?
The Klaytn token (KLAY) is the native crypto token related to the Klaytn blockchain. Klaytn was created by subsidiary of Kakao Corp, a huge South Korean tech company.
According to CoinMarketCap there are currently 10,782,297,981 KLAY tokens in circulation with an approximate value of $1.11 per coin.
As such, KLAY is the 41st biggest cryptocurrency in the World by market cap.