Cena Kava (KAVA)

What Is Kava (KAVA)?

Kava is a Layer-1 blockchain that combines the speed and interoperability of Cosmos with the developer power of Ethereum.

Kava was built from the ground up to optimize its resources for protocol growth, strengthened by its Cosmos EVM technology that enables maximum scalability, speed, security, and developer support.

Builders on Kava earn a share of Kava Rise's $750M developer incentive fund via the program's blockchain-based distribution method, designed to reward the top protocols every month based on usage.

Who Are the Founders of Kava?

Kava Labs is the primary contributing team to the Kava Network. The company’s mission is to establish the Kava Network as a top-five Layer-1 blockchain by driving properly empowering and incentivizing the developers that drive growth and usage for Layer-1 ecosystems.

Kava Labs was co-founded by Brian Kerr, Ruaridh O'Donnell, and Scott Stuart.

The current CEO of Kava Labs is Scott Stuart, a former professional poker player and serial entrepreneur. Scott served as the Head of Product for Kava Labs from 2017 to 2021, when he took over as CEO from Brian Kerr.

Brian Kerr previously worked as an advisor for several digital asset-focused companies, including Snowball and DMarket.

Ruaridh O'Donnell is an MSc Physics graduate and former engineer and data analyst at Levelworks.

Kava Labs has approximately 40 full-time employees distributed across North America, Asia, and Europe.

What Makes Kava Unique?

Seamless Interoperability: Kava provides seamless interoperability between Cosmos and the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) to enable developers to build in whichever environment they want without sacrificing access to users and assets.

Protocol Growth: The on-chain incentive program, Kava Rise, ensures that the best builders in the Ethereum and Cosmos ecosystems are properly rewarded for driving growth on Kava.

Optimized Scalability: Kava’s architecture enables the free flow of users, assets, and projects between Kava and the industry's most prominent ecosystems at scale, all powered by the lightning-fast Tendermint Core consensus engine.

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Check out Cosmos (ATOM) — the network that Kava's core architecture is based on and which enables the IBC protocol.

Avalanche (AVAX) is another Layer-1 blockchain that utilizes a subnet approach in delivering discreet interoperable execution environments.

Terra (LUNA) is also built using the Cosmos SDK and features native DeFi lending protocols.

Check out the CoinMarketCap Blog for the latest industry news and market updates.

How Many Kava (KAVA) Coins Are There in Circulation?

As of March 2022, there are ~158 million KAVA tokens in circulation, out of a currently uncapped maximum supply of tokens. Since KAVA is inflationary, the maximum supply increases over time.

All vesting KAVA has been unlocked, so there are no remaining investor or team unlocks. All newly emitted KAVA derived from inflation goes to developer incentives and staking rewards:

• 62.5% to developer incentives
• 37.5% to staking rewards

The KAVA token first launched in 2019 following several private sales and a Binance Launchpad initial exchange offering (IEO). In total, 40% of the initial KAVA tokens were sold to private sale investors, with 6.52% of the total supply was sold on Binance Launchpad — raising ~$3 million.

Of the remaining initial KAVA token supply, 25% was allocated to Kava Labs shareholders and the final 28.48% is assigned to the Kava Treasury — to be used for growing the Kava ecosystem.

How Is the Kava Network Secured?

Kava is built on Cosmos, and uses a Tendermint-based proof-of-stake (POS) consensus mechanism to ensure the integrity of the network.

This uses a network of validator nodes for confirming transactions. These validator nodes must put up collateral to take up the duty of validating transactions. If validators misbehave or fail to meet rigorous minimum requirements, their stake will be penalized — thereby incentivizing validators to remain honest and efficient.

Kava holders can run a staking node to earn KAVA rewards directly from the protocol. However, only the top 100 Kava nodes (also known as validators) are eligible to receive these rewards. Beyond this, KAVA holders can stake their tokens on various compatible exchange platforms, like Binance, Kraken, Huobi Pool, and in wallets like Trust Wallet, Cosmostation Wallet, and Keplr.

Kava's smart contracts have been audited by multiple independent blockchain and crypto security firms, including CertiK, B-Harvest and Quantstamp. To date, no vulnerabilities have been found.

Kava Governance

The KavaDAO is a fully decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) governing the Kava Network. KAVA stakers and validators secure and run the network; thus, their responsibility is to table and vote on proposals that affect the Kava Network.

These changes can take the form of smart contract modifications, adjustments to the global debt limit, the addition or removal of collateral assets, among other considerations.

Where Can You Buy Kava (KAVA)?

KAVA tokens can be traded on over a dozen exchange platforms, and there are now a wide variety of KAVA trading pairs available, the most popular of which include: KAVA/USDT, KAVA/BTC and KAVA/BNB.

As of March 2022, Binance is the most liquid exchange for KAVA tokens, whereas Kraken is the only exchange to offer KAVA/EUR and KAVA/USD trading pairs. To learn more about buying cryptocurrencies with fiat, see our comprehensive guide.