Announcements, Insights, News

How Klaytn & Kakao meet in Web3

TL;DR

  • Kakao subsidiaries have been contributing to growth of the Klaytn ecosystem as Governance Council Members since genesis.
  • GroundX has formed an NFT alliance – GRID, to help member entities launch NFT Projects on Klaytn.
  • The Klip team is exploring ways to integrate and offer Kakao service benefits to membership holders.
  • The Kakao Leverage TF is working on leveraging KakaoTalk UX/UI to solve user bottlenecks and inconveniences.

Since the production of the first genesis block, Kakao subsidiaries have been contributing to the growth of the Klaytn ecosystem as Governance Council members, securing the network as consensus node operators and by participating in the governance of key protocol decisions.

To further the cooperation with Kakao, the Klaytn Team established the Kakao Leverage Task Force. The Kakao Leverage Task Force works to explore and accelerate the integration of Klaytn based Web3 technology and functionality into existing Kakao services. 

Web3 co-operation initially began with the development and launch of the Klip Wallet in 2020, a joint effort between Ground X and the KakaoTalk team. The Klip Wallet was launched to much fanfare, becoming one the first messenger integrated crypto wallets in the world, offering a seamless user experience between messaging and crypto functionality, now boasting a user base of almost 2 million.

As the de-facto all-encompassing lifestyle mobile platform, Kakao has been exploring ways to bring rich Metaverse experiences to its ecosystem and mainstream users by combining its decades of experience in UX/UI with decentralized Web3 technologies like NFT’s.

To help facilitate Kakao’s exploration and Web3 objectives, the Kakao Leverage TF has been focusing its efforts in the following areas:

Mass Adoption through NFTs 

From a mainstream consumption perspective, NFT is considered one of the most accessible Web3 technologies. Klip – the only crypto wallet integrated into KakaoTalk, is being used to explore the potential of integrating user-owned NFTs with various KakaoTalk services, creating a digital playground where users will be able to engage directly with Klaytn based NFTs (KIP-17) within the context the KakaoTalk messenger.

To further this goal, Ground X has formed an NFT alliance – GRID, with the objective of helping member entities launch NFT projects within the Klaytn NFT ecosystem.

Klip Membership Service 

“What if we could group all Kakao service benefits in one seamless place?” 

The Klip team is exploring ways to integrate and offer Kakao service benefits to membership holders. Klip membership benefits will be enabled and managed via Web3 features and functionality like NFT’s and is expected to help mainstream users interact with the Klaytn blockchain in a seamless manner.

Payments in KLAY 

There is still a lot of room for improvement in the user experience of acquiring and using KLAY. The Kakao Leverage TF is working on leveraging KakaoTalk UX/UI to solve user bottlenecks and inconveniences, while also exploring various use-cases for KLAY; for example, the ability to purchase goods and pay for subscription services. Also, the TF is architecting a technical/institutional solution which could potentially be used by retail investors to visualize and manage both their digital and fiat / physical assets via KakaoTalk. 

In addition to the discussions above, Kakao and the Klaytn Team are joining forces to rejuvenate the developer ecosystem, with the aim of solidifying the Klaytn developer community and will produce joint content to raise public awareness of blockchain and Web3 technologies.

The Klaytn team and Kakao have a common goal of on-boarding all KakaoTalk users to the Klaytn ecosystem, and ultimately to help grow and expand the Kakao group of services and products to the rest of the world, with Klaytn at the frontlines leading the charge.


[3Q Klaytn Ecosystem Update]
The 3Q Klaytn ecosystem updates will cover key initiatives the Klaytn team is currently undertaking in our continued efforts to achieve an optimal and sustainable Klaytn ecosystem.