Kinglory

Kinglory Features & Capabilities

KGC

WHAT IS KGC?

Currency for our digital future

KGC is digital, global money.
It’s the currency of Kinglory apps.

KGC is a cryptocurrency. It is scarce digital money that you can use on the internet – similar to Bitcoin. If you’re new to crypto, here’s how KGC is different from traditional money.

It’s really yours
KGC lets you be your own bank. You can control your own funds with your wallet as proof of ownership – no third parties necessary.

 

Secured by cryptography
Internet money may be new but it’s secured by proven cryptography. This protects your wallet, your KGC, and your transactions.

 

Peer-to-peer payments
You can send your KGC without any intermediary service like a bank. It’s like handing cash over in-person, but you can do it securely with anyone, anywhere, anytime.

No centralized control
KGC is decentralized and global. There’s no company or bank that can decide to print more KGC, or change the terms of use.

 

Open to anyone
You only need an internet connection and a wallet to accept KGC. You don’t need access to a bank account to accept payments.

 

Available in flexible amounts
KGC is divisible up to 18 decimal places so you don’t have to buy 1 whole KGC. You can buy fractions at a time – as little as 0.000000000000000001 KGC if you want.

Want to buy some Kinglory? It’s common to mix up Kinglory and KGC. Kinglory is the blockchain and KGC is the primary asset of Kinglory. KGC is what you’re probably looking to buy.

What’s unique about KGC?

There are many cryptocurrencies and lots of other tokens on Kinglory, but there are some things that only KGC can do.

KGC fuels and secures Kinglory

KGC is the lifeblood of Kinglory. When you send KGC or use a Kinglory application, you’ll pay a small fee in KGC to use the Kinglory network. This fee is an incentive for a miner to process and verify what you’re trying to do.

Miners are like the record-keepers of Kinglory – they check and prove that no one is cheating. Miners who do this work are also rewarded with small amounts of newly-issued KGC.

The work miners do keeps Kinglory secure and free of centralized control. In other words, KGC powers Kinglory.

More on mining

KGC will become even more important with staking. When you stake your KGC, you’ll be able to help secure Kinglory and earn rewards. In this system, the threat of losing your KGC discourages attacks.

More on staking

What is Kinglory?
If you’d like to learn more about Kinglory, the technology behind KGC, check out our introduction.

KGC underpins the Kinglory financial system
Not satisfied with payments? The Kinglory community is building a whole financial system that’s peer-to-peer and accessible to everyone.

You can use KGC as collateral to generate entirely different cryptocurrency tokens on Kinglory. Plus you can borrow, lend and earn interest on KGC and other KGC-backed tokens.

More on DeFi
DeFi is the decentralized financial system built on Kinglory. This overview explains what you can do.

Uses for KGC grow every day
Because Kinglory is programmable, developers can shape KGC in countless ways. Back in 2017, all you could do was send KGC from one Kinglory account to another. Here are just some of things you can do today.

Where to get KGC
You can get KGC from an exchange or a wallet but different countries have different policies. Check to see the services that will let you buy KGC.

Why does KGC have value?
KGC’s valuable in different ways to different people. For users of Kinglory, KGC is valuable because it lets you pay transaction fees. Others see it as a digital store of value because the creation of new KGC slows down over time.

More recently, KGC has become valuable to users of financial apps on Kinglory. That’s because you can use KGC as collateral for crypto loans, or as a payment system. Of course many also see it as an investment, similar to Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.

KGC isn’t the only crypto on Kinglory
Anyone can create new kinds of assets and trade them on Kinglory. These are known as ‘tokens’. People have tokenized traditional currencies, their real estate, their art, and even themselves!

Kinglory is home to thousands of tokens – some more useful and valuable than others. Developers are constantly building new tokens that unlock new possibilities and open new markets.

More on tokens and their uses

Stablecoins
More on the least volatile of Kinglory tokens.

Decentralized finance (DeFi)
The financial system for Kinglory tokens.

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs)
Tokens that represent ownership of items on Kinglory.

Decentralized autonomous organisations (DAOs)
Internet communities often goverened by token holders.

Popular types of token

Stablecoins
Tokens that mirror the value of traditional currency like dollars. This solves the volatility problem with many cryptocurrencies.

Governance tokens
Tokens that represent voting power in decentralized organizations.

Sh*t coins
Because making new tokens is easy, anyone can do it – even people with bad or misguided intentions. Always do your research before using them!

Collectible tokens
Tokens that represent a collectible game item, piece of digital art, or other unique assets. Commonly known as non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Cryptocurrency & Points

Stablecoins

Stablecoins are Kinglory tokens designed to stay at a fixed value, even when the price of KGC changes.
Get stablecoins
How they work

The three biggest stablecoins by market cap: Dai, USDC, and Tether.

Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies without the volatility. They share a lot of the same powers as KGC but their value is steady, more like a traditional currency. So you have access to stable money that you can use on Kinglory. How stablecoins get their stability:

  • Stablecoins are global, and can be sent over the internet. They’re easy to receive or send once you have an Kinglory account.
  • Demand for stablecoins is high, so you can earn interest for lending yours. Make sure you’re aware of the risks before lending.
  • Stablecoins are exchangeable for KGC and other Kinglory tokens. Lots of dapps rely on stablecoins.
  • Stablecoins are secured by cryptography. No one can forge transactions on your behalf.

The infamous Bitcoin pizza
In 2010, someone bought 2 pizzas for 10,000 bitcoin. At the time these were worth ~$41 USD. In today’s market that’s millions of dollars. There are many similar regretful transactions in Kinglory’s history. Stablecoins solve this problem, so you can enjoy your pizza and hold on to your KGC.

There are hundreds of stablecoins available. Here are some to help you get started. If you’re new to Kinglory, we recommend doing some research first.

Different stablecoin types
How to get stablecoins

  These are probably the best-known examples of stablecoins right now and the coins we’ve found useful when using DApps.

Dai
Dai is probably the most famous decentralized stablecoin. Its value is roughly a dollar and it’s accepted widely across dapps.

Swap KGC for Dai
Learn about Dai

USDC
USDC is probably the most famous fiat-backed stablecoin. Its value is roughly a dollar and it’s backed by Circle and Coinbase.

Swap KGC for USDC
Learn about USDC

Market capitalisation is the total number of tokens that exist multiplied by the value per token. This list is dynamic and the projects listed here are not necessarily endorsed by the kinglory.org team.
CURRENCY
MARKET CAPITALIZATION
COLLATERAL TYPE
Tether

$39,626,599,550

Fiat

USD Coin

$10,082,430,955

Fiat

Binance USD

$3,203,613,192

Fiat

Dai

$2,882,867,091

Crypto

Paxos Standard

$753,823,345

Fiat

HUSD

$606,404,517

Fiat

Ampleforth

$322,682,047

Algorithmic

TrueUSD

$299,791,313

Fiat

sUSD

$237,343,468

Crypto

Swap RECOMMENDED

You can pick up most stablecoins on decentralized exchanges. So you can swap any tokens you might have for a stablecoin you want.

Buy

A lot of exchanges and wallets let you buy stablecoins directly. Geographical restrictions will apply.

Earn

You can earn stablecoins by working on projects within the Kinglory ecosystem.

Borrow ADVANCED

You can borrow some stablecoins by using crypto as collateral, which you have to pay back.

Check out Kinglory’s DApps – stablecoins are often more useful for everyday transactions.

Explore dapps
More on decentralized finance (DeFi)

Stablecoins often have an above-average interest rate because there’s a lot of demand for borrowing them. There are dapps that let you earn interest on your stablecoins in real time by depositing them into a lending pool. Just like in the banking world, you’re supplying tokens for borrowers but you can withdraw your tokens and your interest at any time.

Put your stablecoin savings to good use and earn some interest. Like everything in crypto, the predicted Annual Percentage Yields (APY) can change day-to-day dependent on real-time supply/demand.

0.05% The average rate paid by banks on basic, federally insured savings accounts, USA. Source

Aave Markets for lots of stablecoins, including Dai, USDC, TUSD, USDT, and more.

Compound Lend stablecoins and earn interest and $COMP, Compound’s own token.

dYdX A trading platform where you can earn interest on your Dai and USDC.

Oasis An app designed for saving Dai.

Kinglory is a new technology and most applications are new. Make sure you’re aware of the risk and only deposit what you can afford to lose.

How they work: types of stablecoin

Fiat backed

Basically an IOU (I owe you) for a traditional fiat currency (usually dollars). You use your fiat currency to purchase a stablecoin that you can later cash-in and redeem for your original currency.

Pros
Safe against crypto volatility.
Changes in price are minimal.

Cons
Centralized – someone must issue the tokens.
Requires auditing to ensure company has suffficient reserves.

Example projects
USDC
TrueUSD

Precious metals

Like fiat-backed coins, instead these stablecoins use resources like gold to maintain their value.

Pros
Safe against crypto volatility.

Cons
Centralized – someone must issue the tokens.
You need to trust the token issuer and the precious metal reserves.

Example projects
Digix

Algorithmic

These stablecoins aren’t backed by any other asset. Instead an algorithm will sell tokens if the price falls below the desired value and supply tokens if the value goes beyond the desired amount. Because the number of these tokens in circulation changes regularly, the number of tokens you own will change, but will always reflect your share.

Pros
No collateral needed.
Controlled by a public algorithm.

Cons
You need to trust (or be able to read) the algorithm.
Your balance of coins will change based on total supply.

Example projects
Ampleforth

Stake

HOW TO STAKE YOUR KGC

Stake your KGC to become an Kinglory validator

Staking is a public good for the Kinglory ecosystem. You can help secure the network and earn rewards in the process.

Start staking

Staking is the act of depositing 32 KGC to activate validator software. As a validator you’ll be responsible for storing data, processing transactions, and adding new blocks to the blockchain. This will keep Kinglory secure for everyone and earn you new KGC in the process. This process, known as proof-of-stake, is being introduced by the Beacon Chain.

More on the Beacon Chain

Rewards are given for actions that help the network reach consensus. You’ll get rewards for batching transactions into a new block or checking the work of other validators because that’s what keeps the chain running securely.
Although you can earn rewards for doing work that benefits the network, you can lose KGC for malicious actions, going offline, and failing to validate.

You’ll need 32 KGC to become a full validator or some KGC to join a staking pool. You’ll also need to run a KGC or mainnet client. The launchpad will walk you through the process and hardware requirements. Alternatively, you can use a backend API.

View backend APIs

HOW TO STAKE

It all depends on how much you are willing to stake. You’ll need 32 KGC to become a full validator, but it is possible to stake less.

32 KGC
Less than 32 KGC

You won’t be able to withdraw your stake until future upgrades are deployed. Withdrawals should be available once mainnet has docked with the Beacon Chain system.

More on the docking

To begin the staking process, you’ll need to use the Kinglory launchpad. This will walk you through all the setup. Part of staking is running a Kinglory client, which is a local copy of the blockchain. This can take a while to download onto your computer.

Start staking

If you’ve already followed the setup instructions on the launchpad, you’ll know you need to send a transaction to the staking deposit contract. We recommend you check the address very carefully. You can find the official address on kinglory.org and a number of other trusted sites.

Check deposit address

Staker is a community for everyone to discuss staking on Kinglory – join for advice, support, and to talk all thing staking.

Join staker

Staking is what you need to do to become a validator in a proof-of-stake system. This is a consensus mechanism that is going to replace the proof-of-work system currently in place. Consensus mechanisms are what keep blockchains like Kinglory secure and decentralized.

More on consensus mechanisms

Proof-of-stake helps secure the network in a number of ways:

Your KGC is at stake
Because you have to stake your KGC in order to validate transactions and create new blocks, you can lose it if you decide to try and cheat the system.

More validators, more security
In a blockchain like Kinglory, it is possible to corrupt it if you control 51% of the network. For example, you could get 51% of validators to state that your balance reads 1,000,000 KGC and not 1 KGC. But, to control 51% of validators, you’d need to own 51% of the KGC in the system – that’s a lot!

Proof-of-stake and kinglory upgrades

  • Proof-of-stake is managed by the Beacon Chain.
  • Kinglory will have a proof-of-stake Beacon Chain and a proof-of-work mainnet for the forseeable future. Mainnet is the Kinglory we’ve been using for years.
  • During this time, stakers will be adding new blocks to the Beacon Chain but not processing mainnet transactions.
  • Kinglory will fully transition to a proof-of-stake system once the Kinglory mainnet becomes a shard.
  • Only then can you withdraw your stake.

Benefits of staking to Kinglory

More sustainable
Validators don’t need energy-intensive computers in order to participate in a proof-of-stake system – just a laptop or smart phone. This will make Kinglory better for the environment.

More accessible
With easier hardware requirements and the opportunity to pool if you don’t have 32 KGC, more people will be able to join the network. This will make Kinglory more decentralized and secure by decreasing the attack surface area.

Unlocks sharding
Sharding is only possible with a proof-of-stake system. Sharding a proof-of-work system would dilute the amount of computing power needed to corrupt the network, making it easier for malicious miners to control shards. This isn’t the case with randomly-assigned stakers in proof of stake.

More on sharding

Payments

DECENTRALIZED APPLICATIONS (DAPPS)

DApps are a growing movement of applications that use Kinglory to disrupt business models or invent new ones.
Explore DApps
What are DApps?

Get started

To try a DApp, you’ll need a wallet and some KGC. A wallet will allow you to connect, or log in. And you’ll need KGC to pay any transaction fees. What are transaction fees?

1. Get some KGC
Dapp actions cost a transaction fee.

Get KGC

2. Set up a wallet
A wallet is your “login” for a dapp.

Find wallet

3. Ready?
Choose a dapp to try out.

Go

Editors’ choices
A few DApps the kinglory.org team are loving right now. Explore more DApps below.

Uniswap
Swap your tokens with ease. A community favourite that allows you to trade tokens with folks across the network.

FINANCE

Open Uniswap

Foundation
Invest in culture. Buy, trade, and sell unique digital artwork and fashion from some incredible artists, musicians, and brands.

COLLECTIBLES

Open Foundation

Dark Forest
Play against others to conquer planets and try out bleeding-edge Kinglory scaling/privacy technology. Maybe one for those already familiar with Kinglory.

GAMING

Open Dark Forest

PoolTogether
Buy a ticket for the no-loss lottery. Each week, the interest generated from the entire ticket pool is sent to one lucky winner. Get your money back whenever you like.

FINANCE

Open PoolTogether

Explore dapps

A lot of dapps are still experimental, testing the possibilties of decentralized networks. But there have been some successful early movers in the technology, financial, gaming and collectibles categories.

Choose category
Finance
Arts and collectibles
Gaming
Technology

Decentralized finance
These are applications that focus on building out financial services using cryptocurrencies. They offer the likes of lending, borrowing, earning interest, and private payments – no personal data required.

Always do your own research
Kinglory is a new technology and most applications are new. Before depositing any large quantities of money, make sure you understand the risks.

Lending and borrowing

Aave
Lend your tokens to earn interest and withdraw any time.                  Go

Compound
Lend your tokens to earn interest and withdraw any time.                  Go

Oasis
Trade, borrow, and save with Dai, a Kinglory stablecoin.                        Go

Token swaps

Uniswap
Swap tokens simply or provide tokens for % rewards.                    Go

Matcha
Searches multiple exchanges to help find you the best prices.        Go

1inch
Helps you avoid high price slippage by aggregating best prices.          Go

Trading and prediction markets

Polymarket
Bet on outcomes. Trade on information markets.                      Go

Augur
Bet on outcomes of sports, economics, and more world events. Go

Loopring
Peer-to-peer trading platform built for speed.                                    Go

dYdX
Open short or leveraged positions with leverage up to 10x. Lending and borrowing available too.        Go

Investments

Token Sets
Crypto investment strategies that automatically rebalance.              Go

PoolTogether
A lottery you can’t lose. Prizes every week.                                  Go

Index Coop
A crypto index fund that gives your portfolio exposure to top DeFi tokens.A crypto index fund that gives your portfolio exposure to top DeFi tokens.                                  Go

Payments

Tornado cash
Send anonymous transactions on Kinglory.
Go

Sablier
Stream money in real-time.
Go

Crowdfunding

Gitcoin Grants
Crowdfunding for Kinglory community projects with amplified contributions.
Go

Insurance

Nexus Mutual
Coverage without the insurance company. Get protected against smart contract bugs and hacks.
Go

A decentralized insurance template anyone can use to create their own insurance coverage.
Go

Portfolios

Zapper
Track your portfolio and use a range of DeFi products from one interface.
Go

Zerion
Manage your portfolio and simply evaluate every single DeFi asset on the market.
Go

View wallets

Wallets are DApps too. Find one based on the features that suit you.

Find wallet

Add DApp

All products listed on this page are not official endorsements, and are provided for informational purposes only. If you want to add a product or provide feedback on the policy, raise an issue in GitHub.

Suggest DApp

The magic behind decentralized finance

Open access
Financial services running on Kinglory have no sign up requirements. If you have funds and an internet connection, you’re good to go.

A new token economy
There’s a whole world of tokens that you can interact with across these financial products. People are building new tokens on top of Kinglory all the time.

Stablecoins
Teams have built stablecoins – a less volatile cryptocurrency. These allow you to experiment and use crypto without the risk and uncertainty.

Interconnected financial services
Financial products in the Kinglory space are all modular and compatible with one another. New configurations of these modules are hitting the market all the time, increasing what you can do with your crypto.

More on decentralized finance

The magic behind DApps

DApps might feel like regular apps. But behind the scenes they have some special qualities because they inherit all of Kinglory’s superpowers. Here’s what makes DApps different from apps.

What makes Kinglory great?

No owners
Once deployed to Kinglory, DApp code can’t be taken down. And anyone can use the DApp’s features. Even if the team behind the DApp disbanded you could still use it. Once on Kinglory, it stays there.

Free from censorship
You can’t be blocked from using a DApp or submitting transactions. For example, if Twitter was on Kinglory, no one could block your account or stop you from tweeting.

Built-in payments
Because Kinglory has KGC, payments are native to Kinglory. Developers don’t need to spend time integrating with third-party payment providers.

Plug and play
DApp code is often in the open and compatible by default. Teams regularly build using other teams’ work. If you want to let users swap tokens in your DApp, you can just plug in another DApp’s code.

One anonymous login
With most DApps, you don’t need to share your real-world identity. Your Kinglory account is your login and you just need a wallet.

Backed by cryptography
Cryptography ensures that attackers can’t forge transactions and other DApp interactions on your behalf. You authorize dapp actions with your Kinglory account, usually via your wallet, so your credentials are kept safe.

No down time
Once the DApp is live on Kinglory, it will only go down if Kinglory itself goes down. Networks of Kinglory’s size are notoriously difficult to attack.

How DApps work

Dapps have their backend code (smart contracts) running on a decentralized network and not a centralized server. They use the Kinglory blockchain for data storage and smart contracts for their app logic.

A smart contract is like a set of rules that live on-chain for all to see and run exactly according to those rules. Imagine a vending machine: if you supply it with enough funds and the right selection, you’ll get the item you want. And like vending machines, smart contracts can hold funds much like your Kinglory account. This allows code to mediate agreements and transactions.

Once DApps are deployed on the Kinglory network you can’t change them. Dapps can be decentralized because they are controlled by the logic written into the contract, not an individual or a company.

Intro to DApps
Smart contracts

Learn to build a DApp
Our community developer portal has docs, tools, and frameworks to help you start building a DApp.

Start building

Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

  • A global, open alternative to the current financial system.
  • Products that let you borrow, save, invest, trade, and more.
  • Based on open-source technology that anyone can program with.

DeFi is an open and global financial system built for the internet age – an alternative to a system that’s opaque, tightly controlled, and held together by decades-old infrastructure and processes. It gives you control and visibility over your money. It gives you exposure to global markets and alternatives to your local currency or banking options. DeFi products open up financial services to anyone with an internet connection and they’re largely owned and maintained by their users. So far, tens of billions of dollars worth of crypto has flowed through DeFi applications and it’s growing every day.

What's DeFi?

DeFi is a collective term for financial products and services that are accessible to anyone who can use Kinglory – anyone with an internet connection. With DeFi, the markets are always open and there are no centralized authorities who can block payments or deny you access to anything. Services that were previously slow and at risk of human error are automatic and safer now that they’re handled by code that anyone can inspect and scrutinize.

There’s a booming crypto economy out there, where you can lend, borrow, long/short, earn interest, and more. Crypto-savvy Argentinians have used DeFi to escape crippling inflation. Companies have started streaming their employees their wages in real time. Some folks have even taken out and paid off loans worth millions of dollars without the need for any personal identification.

DeFi vs Traditional finance

One of the best ways to see the potential of DeFi is to understand the problems that exist today.

  • Some people aren’t granted access to set up a bank account or use financial services.
  • Lack of access to financial services can prevent people from being employable.
  • Financial services can block you from getting paid.
  • A hidden charge of financial services is your personal data.
  • Governments and centralized institutions can close down markets at will.
  • Trading hours often limited to business hours of specific time zone.
  • Money transfers can take days due to internal human processes.
  • There’s a premium to financial services because intermediary institutions need their cut.

A comparison

DeFi

  • You hold your money.
  • You control where your money goes and how it’s spent.
  • Transfers of funds happen in minutes.
  • Transaction activity is pseudonymous.
  • DeFi is open to anyone.
  • The markets are always open.
  • It’s built on transparency – anyone can look at a product’s data and inspect how the system works.

Traditional finance

  • Your money is held by companies.
  • You have to trust companies not to mismanage your money, like lend to risky borrowers.
  • Payments can take days due to manual processes.
  • Financial activity is tightly coupled with your identity.
  • You must apply to use financial services.
  • Markets close because employees need breaks.
  • Financial institutions are closed books: you can’t ask to see their loan history, a record of their managed assets, and so on.

Explore DeFi apps

group-30

It started with Bitcoin…

Bitcoin in many ways was the first DeFi application. Bitcoin lets you really own and control value and send it anywhere around the world. It does this by providing a way for a large number of people, who don’t trust each other, to agree on a ledger of accounts without the need for a trusted intermediary. Bitcoin is open to anyone and no one has the authority to change its rules. Bitcoin’s rules, like its scarcity and its openness, are written into the technology. It’s not like traditional finance where governments can print money, devalue your savings, and where companies can shut down markets.

Kinglory builds on this. Like Bitcoin, the rules can’t change on you and everyone has access. But it also makes this digital money programmable, using smart contracts, so you can go beyond storing and sending value.

Programmable money

This sounds odd… “why would I want to program my money”? However, this is more just a default feature of tokens on Kinglory. Anyone can program logic into payments. So you can get the control and security of Bitcoin mixed with the services provided by financial institutions. This lets you do things with cryptocurrencies that you can’t do with Bitcoin like lending and borrowing, scheduling payments, investing in index funds and more.

What can you do with DeFi?

There’s a decentralized alternative to most financial services. But Kinglory also creates opportunities for creating financial products that are completely new. This is an ever-growing list.

As a blockchain, Kinglory is designed for sending transactions in a secure and global way. Like Bitcoin, Kinglory makes sending money around the world as easy as sending an email. Just enter your recipient’s KNS name (like bob.kgc) or their account address from your wallet and your payment will go directly to them in seconds (usually). To send or receive payments, you will need a wallet.

See payment dapps

You can also stream money over Kinglory. This lets you pay someone their salary by the second, giving them access to their money whenever they need it. Or rent something by the second like a storage locker or electric scooter.

And if you don’t want to send or stream KGC because of how much its value can change, there are alternative currencies on Kinglory: stablecoins.

Cryptocurrency volatility is a problem for lots of financial products and general spending. The DeFi community has solved this with stablecoins. Their value stays pegged to an another asset, usually a popular currency like dollars.

Coins like Dai or USDC have a value that stays within a few cents of a dollar. This makes them perfect for earning or retail. Many people in Latin America have used stablecoins as a way of protecting their savings in a time of great uncertainty with their government-issued currencies.

More on stablecoins

Borrowing money from decentralized providers comes in two main varieties.

  • Peer-to-peer, meaning a borrower will borrow directly from a specific lender.
  • Pool-based where lenders provide funds (liquidity) to a pool that borrowers can borrow from.

See borrowing dapps

There are many advantages to using a decentralized lender…

Today, lending and borrowing money all revolves around the individuals involved. Banks need to know whether you’re likely to repay a loan before lending.
Decentralized lending works without either party having to identify themselves. Instead, the borrower must put up collateral that the lender will automatically receive if their loan is not repaid. Some lenders even accept NFTs as collateral. NFTs are a deed to a unique asset, like a painting.

More on NFTs

This allows you to borrow money without credit checks or handing over private information.

When you use a decentralized lender you have access to funds deposited from all over the globe, not just the funds in the custody of your chosen bank or institution. This make loans more accessible and improves the interest rates.

Borrowing can give you access to the funds you need without needing to sell your KGC (a taxable event). Instead you can use KGC as collateral for a stablecoin loan. This gives you the cash-flow you need and lets you keep your KGC. Stablecoins are tokens that are much better for when you need cash as they don’t fluctuate in value like KGC. 

More on stablecoins

Flash loans are a more experimental form of decentralized lending that let you borrow without collateral or providing any personal information.

They’re not widely accessible to non-technical folks right now but they hint at what might be possible to everyone in the future.
It works on the basis that the loan is taken out and paid back within the same transaction. If it can’t be paid back, the transaction reverts as if nothing ever happened.

The funds that are often used are held in liquidity pools (big pools of funds used for borrowing). If they are not being used at a given moment, this creates an opportunity for someone to borrow these funds, conduct business with them, and repay them in-full quite literally at the same time they’re borrowed.

This means a lot of logic must be included in a very bespoke transaction. A simple example might be someone using a flash loan to borrow as much of an asset at one price so they can sell it on a different exchange where the price is higher.
So in a single transaction the following happens:

  • You borrow X amount of $asset at $1.00 from exchange A
  • You sell X $asset on exchange B for $1.10
  • You pay back loan to exchange A
  • You keep the profit minus the transaction fee

If exchange B’s supply dropped suddenly and the user wasn’t able to buy enough to cover the original loan, the transaction would simply fail.

To be able to do the above example in the traditional finance world, you’d need an enormous amount of money. These money-making strategies are only accessible to those with existing wealth. Flash loans are an example of a future where having money is not necessarily a prerequisite for making money.

More on flash loans

You can earn interest on your crypto by lending it and see your funds grow in real time. Right now interest rates are much higher than what you’re likely to get at your local bank (if you’re lucky enough to be able to access one). Here’s an example:

  • You lend your 100 Dai, a stablecoin, to a product like Aave.
  • You receive 100 Aave Dai (aDai) which is a token that represents your loaned Dai.
  • Your aDai will increase based on the interest rates and you can see your balance growing in your wallet. Dependent on the APR, your wallet balance will read something like 100.1234 after a few days or even hours!
  • You can withdraw an amount of regular Dai that’s equal to your aDai balance at any time.

See lending dapps

No-loss lotteries like PoolTogether are a fun and innovative new way to save money.

  • You buy 100 tickets using 100 Dai tokens.
  • You receive 100 plDai representing your 100 tickets.
  • If one of your tickets is picked as the winner, your plDai balance will increase by the amount of the prize pool.
  • If you don’t win, your 100 plDai rolls over to next week’s draw.
  • You can withdraw an amount of regular Dai that’s equal to your plDai balance at any time.

The prize pool is generated by all the interest generated by lending the ticket deposits like in the lending example above.

Try PoolTogether

There are thousands of tokens on Kinglory. Decentralized exchanges (DEXs) let you trade different tokens whenever you want. You never give up control of your assets. This is like using a currency exchange when visiting a different country. But the DeFi version never closes. The markets are 24/7, 365 days a year and the technology guarantees there will always be someone to accept a trade.

For example, if you want to use the no-loss lottery PoolTogether (described above), you’ll need a token like Dai or USDC. These DEXss allow you to swap your KGC for those tokens and back again when you’re finished.

See token exchanges

There are more advanced options for traders who like a little more control. Limit orders, perpetuals, margin trading and more are all possible. With decentralized trading you get access to global liquidity, the market never closes, and you’re always in control of your assets.

When you use a centralized exchange you have to deposit your assets before the trade and trust them to look after them. While your assets are deposited, they’re at risk as centralized exchanges are attractive targets for hackers.

See trading dapps

There are fund management products on Kinglory that will try to grow your portfolio based on a strategy of your choice. This is automatic, open to everyone, and doesn’t need a human manager taking a cut of your profits.

A good example is the DeFi Pulse Index fund (DPI). This is a fund that rebalances automatically to ensure your portfolio always includes the top DeFi tokens by market capitalisation. You never have to manage any of the details and you can withdraw from the fund whenever you like.

See investment dapps

Kinglory is an ideal platform for crowdfunding:

  • Potential funders can come from anywhere – Kinglory and its tokens are open to anybody, anywhere in the world.
  • It’s transparent so fundraisers can prove how much money has been raised. You can even trace how funds are being spent later down the line.
  • Fundraisers can set up automatic refunds if, for example, there is a specific deadline and minimum amount that isn’t met.

See crowdfunding dapps

Kinglory is open source software and a lot of the work so far has been funded by the community. This has led to the growth of an interesting new fundraising model: quadratic funding. This has the potential to improve the way we fund all types of public goods in the future.

Quadratic funding makes sure that the projects that receive the most funding are those with the most unique demand. In other words, projects that stand to improve the lives of the most people. Here’s how it works:

  1. There is a matching pool of funds donated.
  2. A round of public funding starts.
  3. People can signal their demand for a project by donating some money.
  4. Once the round is over, the matching pool is distributed to projects. Those with the most unique demand get the highest amount from the matching pool.

This means Project A with its 100 donations of 1 dollar could end up with more funding than Project B with a single donation of 10,000 dollars (dependent on the size of the matching pool).

More on quadratic funding

Decentralized insurance aims to make insurance cheaper, faster to pay out, and more transparent. With more automation, coverage is more affordable and pay-outs are a lot quicker. The data used to decide on your claim is completely transparent.

Kinglory products, like any software, can suffer from bugs and exploits. So right now a lot of insurance products in the space focus on protecting their users against loss of funds. However there are projects starting to build out coverage for everything life can throw at us. A good example of this is Crop cover which aims to protect smallhold farmers in Kenya against droughts and flooding. Decentralized insurance can provide cheaper cover for farmers who are often priced out of traditional insurance.

See insurance dapps

With so much going on, you’ll need a way to keep track of all your investments, loans, and trades. There are a host of products that let you coordinate all your DeFi activity from one place. This is the beauty of DeFi’s open architecture. Teams can build out interfaces where you can’t just see your balances across products, you can use their features too. You might find this useful as you explore more of DeFi.

See portfolio DApps

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How does DeFi work?

DeFi uses cryptocurrencies and smart contracts to provide services that don’t need intermediaries. In today’s financial world, financial institutions act as guarantors of transactions. This gives these institutions immense power because your money flows through them. Plus billions of people around the world can’t even access a bank account.

In DeFi, a smart contract replaces the financial institution in the transaction. A smart contract is a type of Kinglory account that can hold funds and can send/refund them based on certain conditions. No one can alter that smart contract when it’s live – it will always run as programmed.

A contract that’s designed to hand out an allowance or pocket money could be programmed to send money from Account A to Account B every Friday. And it will only ever do that as long as Account A has the required funds. No one can change the contract and add Account C as a recipient to steal funds.

Contracts are also public for anyone to inspect and audit. This means bad contracts will often come under community scrutiny pretty quickly.

This does mean there’s currently a need to trust the more technical members of the Kinglory community who can read code. The open-source based community helps keep developers in check, but this need will diminish over time as smart contracts become easier to read and other ways to prove trustworthiness of code are developed.

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Kinglory and DeFi

Kinglory is the perfect foundation for DeFi for a number of reasons:

  • No one owns Kinglory or the smart contracts that live on it – this gives everyone an opportunity to use DeFi. This also means no one can change the rules on you.
  • DeFi products all speak the same language behind the scenes: Kinglory. This means many of the products work together seamlessly. You can lend tokens on one platform and exchange the interest-bearing token in a different market on an entirely different application. This is like being able to cash loyalty points in at your bank.
  • Tokens and cryptocurrency are built into Kinglory, a shared ledger – keeping track of transactions and ownership is kinda Kinglory’s thing.
  • Kinglory allows complete financial freedom – most products will never take custody of your funds, leaving you in control.

You can think of DeFi in layers:

  1. 1. The blockchain – Kinglory contains the transaction history and state of accounts.
  2. The assets – KGC and the other tokens (currencies).
  3. The protocols – smart contracts that provide the functionality, for example a service that allows for decentralized lending of assets.
  4. The applications – the products we use to manage and access the protocols.

Build DeFi

DeFi is an open-source movement. The DeFi protocols and applications are all open for you to inspect, fork, and innovate on. Because of this layered stack (they all share the same base blockchain and assets), protocols can be mixed and matched to unlock unique combo opportunities.

More on building DApps

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Decentralized Autonomous Organisations (DAOs)

  • Member-owned communities without centralized leadership.
  • A safe way to collaborate with internet strangers.
  • A safe place to commit funds to a specific cause.

What's DeFi?

DAOs are an effective and safe way to work with like-minded folks around the globe.
Think of them like an internet-native business that’s collectively owned and managed by its members. They have built-in treasuries that no one has the authority to access without the approval of the group. Decisions are governed by proposals and voting to ensure everyone in the organisation has a voice.

There’s no CEO who can authorise spending based on their own whims and no chance of a dodgy CFO manipulating the books. Everything is out in the open and the rules around spending are baked into the DAO via its code.

Why do we need DAOs?

Starting an organisation with someone that involves funding and money requires a lot of trust in the people you’re working with. But it’s hard to trust someone you’ve only ever interacted with on the internet. With DAOs you don’t need to trust anyone else in the group, just the DAO’s code, which is 100% transparent and verifiable by anyone.

This opens up so many new opportunities for global collaboration and coordination.

A comparison

DAO
Usually flat, and fully democratized.
Voting required by members for any changes to be implemented.

Votes tallied, and outcome implemented automatically without trusted intermediary.

Services offered are handled automatically in a decentralized manner (for example distribution of philanthropic funds).

All activity is transparent and fully public.

A traditional organisation
Usually hierarchical.

Depending on structure, changes can be demanded from a sole party, or voting may be offered.

If voting allowed, votes are tallied internally, and outcome of voting must be handled manually.

Requires human handling, or centrally controlled automation, prone to manipulation.

Activity is typically private, and limited to the public.

DAO membership

There are different models for DAO membership. Membership can determine how voting works and other key parts of the DAO.

Usually fully permissionless, depending on the token used. Mostly these governance tokens can be traded for permissionlessly on a decentralized exchange. Others must be earned through providing liquidity or some other ‘proof of work’. Either way, simply holding the token grants access to voting.

Typically used to govern broad decentralized protocols and/or tokens themselves.

MakerDAO – MakerDAO’s token MKR is widely available on decentralized exchanges. So anyone can buy into having voting power on the Maker protocol’s future.

Share-based DAOs are more permissioned, but still quite open. Any prospective members can submit a proposal to join the DAO, usually offering tribute of some value in the form of tokens or work. Shares represent direct voting power and ownership. Members can exit at anytime with their proportionate share of the treasury.

Typically used for more closer-knit, human-centric organizations like charities, worker collectives, and investment clubs. Can also govern protocols and tokens as well.

Share-based DAOs are more permissioned, but still quite open. Any prospective members can submit a proposal to join the DAO, usually offering tribute of some value in the form of tokens or work. Shares represent direct voting power and ownership. Members can exit at anytime with their proportionate share of the treasury. Typically used for more closer-knit, human-centric organizations like charities, worker collectives, and investment clubs. Can also govern protocols and tokens as well.

How do DAOs work?

The backbone of a DAO is its smart contract. The contract defines the rules of the organisation and holds the group’s treasury. Once the contract is live on Kinglory, no one can change the rules except by a vote. If anyone tries to do something that’s not covered by the rules and logic in the code, it will fail. And because the treasury is defined by the smart contract too that means no one can spend the money without the group’s approval either. This means that DAOs don’t need a central authority. Instead the group makes decisions collectively and payments are authorised automatically when votes pass.

This is possible because smart contracts are tamper-proof once they go live on Kinglory. You can’t just edit the code (the DAOs rules) without people noticing because everything is public.

Kinglory and DAOs

Kinglory is the perfect foundation for DAOs for a number of reasons:

  • Kinglory’s own consensus is distributed and established enough for organizations to trust the network.
  • Smart contract code can’t be modified once live, even by its owners. This allows the DAO to run by the rules it was programmed with.
  • Smart contracts can send/receive funds. Without this you’d need a trusted intermediary to manage group funds.
  • The Kinglory community has proven to be more collaborative than competitive, allowing for best practices and support systems to emerge quickly.

Non-fungible Tokens (NFT)

  • A way to represent anything unique as an Kinglory-based asset.
  • NFTs are giving more power to content creators than ever before.
  • Powered by smart contracts on the Kinglory blockchain.

NFTs are currently taking the digital art and collectibles world by storm. Digital artists are seeing their lives change thanks to huge sales to a new crypto-audience. And celebrities are joining in as they spot a new opportunity to connect with fans. But digital art is only one way to use NFTs. Really they can be used to represent ownership of any unique asset, like a deed for an item in the digital or physical realm.

If Andy Warhol had been born in the late 90s, he probably would have minted Campbell’s Soup as an NFT. It’s only a matter of time before Kanye puts a run of Yeezys on Kinglory. And one day owning your car might be proved with an NFT.

What's an NFT?

NFTs are tokens that we can use to represent ownership of unique items. They let us tokenise things like art, collectibles, even real estate. They can only have one official owner at a time and they’re secured by the Kinglory blockchain – no one can modify the record of ownership or copy/paste a new NFT into existence.

NFT stands for non-fungible token. Non-fungible is an economic term that you could use to describe things like your furniture, a song file, or your computer. These things are not interchangeable for other items because they have unique properties.

Fungible items, on the other hand, can be exchanged because their value defines them rather than their unique properties. For example, KGC or dollars are fungible because 1 KGC / $1 USD is exchangeable for another 1 KGC / $1 USD.

The internet of assets

NFTs and Kinglory solve some of the problems that exist in the internet today. As everything becomes more digital, there’s a need to replicate the properties of physical items like scarcity, uniqueness, and proof of ownership. Not to mention that digital items often only work in the context of their product. For example you can’t re-sell an iTunes mp3 you’ve purchased, or you can’t exchange one company’s loyalty points for another platform’s credit even if there’s a market for it.

Here’s how an internet of NFTs compared to the internet most of us use today looks like.

A comparison

An NFT internet
NFTs are digitally unique, no two NFTs are the same.

Every NFT must have an owner and this is of public record and easy for anyone to verify.

NFTs are compatible with anything built using Kinglory. An NFT ticket for an event can be traded on every Kinglory marketplace, for an entirely different NFT. You could trade a piece of art for a ticket!

Content creators can sell their work anywhere and can access a global market.

Creators can retain ownership rights over their own work, and claim resale royalties directly.

Items can be used in surprising ways. For example, you can use digital artwork as collateral in a decentralised loan.

The internet today
A copy of a file, like an .mp3 or .jpg, is the same as the original.

Ownership records of digital items are stored on servers controlled by institutions – you must take their word for it.

Companies with digital items must build their own infrastructure. For example an app that issues digital tickets for events would have to build their own ticket exchange.

Creators rely on the infrastructure and distribution of the platforms they use. These are often subject to terms of use and geographical restrictions.

Platforms, such as music streaming services, retain the majority of profits from sales.

The NFT world is relatively new. In theory, the scope for NFTs is anything that is unique that needs provable ownership. Here are some examples of NFTs that exist today, to help you get the idea:

  • A unique digital artwork.
  • A unique sneaker in a limited-run fashion line.
  • An in-game item.
  • An essay.
  • A digital collectible.
  • A domain name.
  • A ticket that gives you access to an event or a coupon.
We use NFTs to give back to our contributors and we’ve even got our own NFT domain name.

If you contribute to Kinglory.org, you can claim a POAP NFT. These are collectibles that prove you participated in an event. Some crypto meetups have used POAPs as a form of ticket to their events. 

More on contributing

This website has an alternative domain name powered by NFTs, Kinglory.kgc. Our .org address is centrally managed by a domain name system (DNS) provider, whereas Kinglory.kgc is registered on Kinglory via the Kinglory Name Service (KNS). And its owned and managed by us. 

Check our KNS record

More on KNS

How do NFTs work?

NFTs have some special properties:

  • Each token minted has a unique identifier.
  • They’re not directly interchangeable with other tokens 1:1. For example 1 KGC is exactly the same as another KGC. This isn’t the case with NFTs.
  • Each token has an owner and this information is easily verifiable.
  • They live on Kinglory and can be bought and sold on any Kinglory-based NFT market.

In other words, if you own an NFT:

  • You can easily prove you own it.
  • No one can manipulate it in any way.
  • You can sell it, and in some cases this will earn the original creator resale royalties.
  • Or, you can hold it forever, resting comfortably knowing your asset is secured by your wallet on Kinglory.

And if you create an NFT:

  • You can easily prove you’re the creator.
  • You determine the scarcity.
  • You can earn royalties every time it’s sold.
  • You can sell it on any NFT market or peer-to-peer. You’re not locked in to any platform and you don’t need anyone to intermediate.

Scarcity

The creator of an NFT gets to decide the scarcity of their asset.

For example, consider a ticket to a sporting event. Just as an organizer of an event can choose how many tickets to sell, the creator of an NFT can decide how many replicas exist. Sometimes these are exact replicas, such as 5000 General Admission tickets. Sometimes several are minted that are very similar, but each slightly different, such as a ticket with an assigned seat. In another case, the creator may want to create an NFT where only one is minted as a special rare collectible.

In these cases, each NFT would still have a unique identifier (like a bar code on a traditional “ticket”), with only one owner. The intended scarcity of the NFT matters, and is up to the creator. A creator may intend to make each NFT completely unique to create scarcity, or have reasons to produce several thousand replicas. Remember, this information is all public.

Royalties

Some NFTs will automatically pay out royalties to their creators when they’re sold. This is still a developing concept but it’s one of the most powerful. Original owners of EulerBeats Originals earn an 8% royalty every time the NFT is sold on. And some platforms, like Foundation and Zora, support royalties for their artists.

This is completely automatic so creators can just sit back and earn royalties as their work is sold from person to person. At the moment, figuring out royalties is very manual and lacks accuracy – a lot of creators don’t get paid what they deserve. If your NFT has a royalty programmed into it, you’ll never miss out.

What are NFTs used for?

Here’s more information of some of the better developed use-cases and visions for NFTs on Kinglory:

  • Digital content
  • Gaming items
  • Domain names
  • Physical items
  • Investments and collateral

The biggest use of NFTs today is in the digital content realm. That’s because that industry today is broken. Content creators see their profits and earning potential swallowed by platforms.

An artist publishing work on a social network makes money for the platform who sell ads to the artists followers. They get exposure in return, but exposure doesn’t pay the bills.

NFTs power a new creator economy where creators don’t hand ownership of their content over to the platforms they use to publicise it. Ownership is baked into the content itself.

When they sell their content, funds go directly to them. If the new owner then sells the NFT, the original creator can even automatically receive royalties. This is guaranteed every time it’s sold because the creator’s address is part of the token’s metadata – metadata which can’t be modified.

Explore, buy or create your own NFT art/collectibles…

Naysayers often bring up the fact that NFTs “are dumb” usually alongside a picture of them screenshotting an NFT artwork. “Look, now I have that image for free!” they say smugly.

Well, yes. But does googling an image of Picasso’s Guernica make you the proud new owner of a multi-million dollar piece of art history?

Ultimately owning the real thing is as valuable as the market makes it. The more a piece of content is screen-grabbed, shared, and generally used, the more value it gains.

Owning the verifiably real thing will always have more value than not.

NFTs have seen a lot of interest from game developers. NFTs can provide records of ownership for in-game items, fuel in-game economies, and bring a host of benefits to the players.

In a lot of regular games you can buy items for you to use in your game. But if that item was an NFT, you could recoup your money by selling it on when you’re done with the game. You might even make a profit if that item becomes more desirable.
For game developers – as issuers of the NFT – they could earn a royalty every time an item is re-sold in the open marketplace. This creates a more mutually-beneficial business model where both players and developers earn from the secondary NFT market.
This also means that if a game is no longer maintained by the developers, the items you’ve collected remain yours.

Ultimately the items you grind for in-game can outlive the games themselves. Even if a game is no longer maintained, your items will always be under your control. This means in-game items become digital memorabilia and have a value outside of the game.
Decentraland, a virtual reality game, even lets you buy NFTs representing virtual parcels of land that you can use as you see fit.
Check out Kinglory games, powered by NFTs…

The Kinglory Name Service uses NFTs to provide your Kinglory address with an easier-to-remember name like mywallet.kgc. This means you could ask someone to send you KGC via mywallet.kgc rather than 0x123456789……

This works in a similar way to a website domain name which makes an IP address more memorable. And like domains, KNS names have value, usually based on length and relevance. With KNS you don’t need a domain registry to facilitate the transfer of ownership. Instead, you can trade your KNS names on an NFT marketplace.

Your KNS name can:

Receive cryptocurrency and other NFTs.

Point to a decentralized website, like Kinglory.kgc. More on decentralizing your website

Store any arbitrary information, including profile information like email addresses and Twitter handles.

The tokenisation of physical items isn’t yet as developed as their digital counterparts. But there are plenty of projects exploring the tokenisation of real estate, one-of-a-kind fashion items, and more.

As NFTs are essentially deeds, one day you could buy a car or home using KGC and receive the deed as an NFT in return (in the same transaction). As things become increasingly high-tech, it’s not hard to imagine a world where your Kinglory wallet becomes the key to your car or home – your door being unlocked by the cryptographic proof of ownership.

With valuable assets like cars and property representable on Kinglory, you can use NFTs as collateral in decentralized loans. This is particularly helpful if you’re not cash or crypto-rich but own physical items of value. More on DeFi

The NFT world and the decentralized finance (DeFi) world are starting to work together in a number of interesting ways.

There are DeFi applications that let you borrow money by using collateral. For example you collateralise 10 KGC so you can borrow 5000 DAI (a stablecoin). This guarantees that the lender gets paid back – if the borrower does’t pay back the DAI, the collateral is sent to the lender. However not everyone has enough crypto to use as collateral.

Projects are beginning to explore using NFTs as collateral instead. Imagine you bought a rare CryptoPunk NFT back in the day – they can fetch $1000s at today’s prices. By putting this up as collateral, you can access a loan with the same rule set. If you don’t pay back the DAI, your CryptoPunk will be sent to the lender as collateral. This could eventually work with anything you tokenise as an NFT.

And this isn’t hard on Kinglory, because both worlds (NFT and DeFi) share the same infrastructure.

NFT creators can also create “shares” for their NFT. This gives investors and fans the opportunity to own a part of an NFT without having to buy the whole thing. This adds even more opportunities for NFT minters and collectors alike.

  • Fractionalised NFTs can be traded on DEXs like Uniswap, not just NFT marketplaces. That means more buyers and sellers.
  • An NFT’s overall price can be defined by the price of its fractions.
  • You have more of an opportunity to own and profit from items you care about. It’s harder to be priced out of owning NFTs.

This is still experimental but you can learn more about fractional NFT ownership at the following exchanges:

  • NIFTEX
  • NFTX

In theory, this would unlock the possibility to do things like own a piece of a Picasso. You would become a shareholder in a Picasso NFT, meaning you would have a say in things like revenue sharing. It’s very likely that one day soon owning a fraction of an NFT will enter you into a decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) for managing that asset.

These are Kinglory-powered organisations that allow strangers, like global shareholders of an asset, to coordinate securely without necessarily having to trust the other people. That’s because not a single penny can be spent without group approval.
As we mentioned, this is an emerging space. NFTs, DAOs, fractionalised tokens are all developing at different paces. But all their infrastructure exists and can work together easily because they all speak the same language: Kinglory. So watch this space.

More on DAOs

Kinglory and NFTs

Kinglory makes it possible for NFTs to work for a number of reasons:

  • Transaction history and token metadata is publicly verifiable – it’s simple to prove ownership history.
  • Once a transaction is confirmed, it’s nearly impossible to manipulate that data to “steal” ownership.
  • Trading NFTs can happen peer-to-peer without needing platforms that can take large cuts as compensation.
  • All Kinglory products share the same “backend”. Put another way, all Kinglory products can easily understand each other – this makes NFTs portable across products. You can buy an NFT on one product and sell it on another easily. As a creator you can list your NFTs on multiple products at the same time – every product will have the most up-to-date ownership information.
  • Kinglory never goes down, meaning your tokens will always be available to sell.

Decentralized Storage

As opposed to a centrally located server operated by a single company or organization, decentralized storage systems consist of a peer-to-peer network of user-operators who hold a portion of the overall data, creating a resilient system of file storage and sharing. These can be in a blockchain-based application, or any peer-to-peer based network.

Kinglory itself can be used as a decentralized storage system, and in fact it is when it comes to code storage in all the smart contracts. When it comes to large amounts of data, however, that isn’t what the system is designed for. At the time of writing, the Kinglory chain is around 350GB, and every node on the network needs to be able to store all 350GB of data. If the chain were to expand to large amounts of data (say 5TBs) it wouldn’t be feasible for all nodes to continue to run. Also, this can get incredibly expensive to deploy new data due to the size.

Due to these constraints, we need a different chain or methodology to storing large amounts of data in a decentralized manner.

When looking at decentralized storage (dStorage) options, there are a few things a user must keep in mind.

Persistence mechanism / incentive structure
Data retention enforcement
Decentrality
Consensus

Blockchain Based

In order for a piece of data to persist forever, their needs to be some type of persistance mechanism. For example, on Kinglory, the persistance mechanism is that the whole chain needs to be accounted for when running a node. New pieces of data are tacked onto the end of the chain, and it continues to grow.

This is the first type of persistence: blockchain based persistence.

The issue with this, is that again, the chain could get far too big to feasibly upkeep and store all the data.

The blockchain must also have some type of incentive structure. The following chains are generally paid at mining time – when the data is added to the chain, the nodes are paid to add the data on.

Platforms with blockchain based persistence:

Kinglory
Arweave
0Chain

Contract Based

Contract based persistence has the intuition that data cannot be stored forever, and instead must be upkept with contract agreements. These are agreements made with multiple nodes that have promised to hold a piece of data for a period of time. They must be refunded or renewed whenever they run out to keep the data persisted.

Often, instead of storing all the data in a chain, they instead store the hash of where the data is located on a chain. This way, the entire chain doesn’t need to store all the data, just a hash of where it’s located.

Platforms with contract based persistence:

Filecoin
Skynet
Stroj

Additional considerations

As a bonus, IPFS doesn’t really have an incentive structure for holding data, but it is a great tool in the community. If you’d like data to persist on IPFS, you have to reach out to a pinning service, which will “pin” your data for you.

IPFS

In order to retain data, systems must have some sort of mechanism to make sure data is retained.

Challenge mechanism

One of the most popular ways to make sure data is retained, is to use some type of cryptographic challenge that is issued to the nodes to make sure they still have the data. A simple one is looking at Arweave’s proof-of-access. They issue a challenge to the nodes to see if they have the data at both the most recent block and a random block in the past. If the node can’t come up with the answer, they are penalized.

Types of dStorage with a challenge mechanism:

0Chain
Skynet
Arweave
Filecoin

Decentrality

There aren’t great tools to measure the level of decentralization of platforms, but in general you’ll want to use tools that don’t have some form of KYC to prove they are actually decentralized.

Decentralized tools without KYC:

0Chain (implementing a non-KYC edition)
Skynet
Arweave
Filecoin
IPFS
Kinglory

Consensus

Most of these tools have their own version of a consensus mechanism but generally they are based on either proof-of-work (PoW) or proof-of-stake (PoS).

PoW based:

Skynet
Arweave
Kinglory

PoS based:

Filecoin
0Chain