KILT Protocol was founded in 2018 by Ingo Rübe, CEO of BOTLabs GmbH, together with Hubert Burda Media, where he served as CTO from 2012 to 2017. Earlier Ingo worked as project director for the German publisher Axel Springer SE from 2006 to 2012. Ingo served on the board of directors of the Drupal Association from 2017-2020, and BOTLabs is a founding member of the International Association for Trusted Blockchain Applications (INATBA).

Recognising the potential of blockchain to restore autonomy and control over personal data, Ingo set out to create identity solutions that could be standardised and implemented by corporates and entrepreneurs worldwide.

In KILT, digital identity consists of two parts: a Digital Identifier (DID), and Verifiable Credentials (VCs) linked to the identifier. Identity is built by adding more credentials to the identifier.

Using KILT, a trusted authority (the Attester) will be able to issue documents (Credentials) which are then owned and controlled by the person (the Claimer) they are issued to. KILT never stores personal data on the blockchain; this data is in the Credential which is under complete control of the user. The blockchain is only used to store hash values.

Blockchain technology enables the user to prove the authenticity and validity of their Credential to anyone they decide to show it to using this hash. And the Attester has the ability to create a new hash to revoke the Credential if it is no longer valid.

KILT is building a permissionless trust infrastructure for real-world business cases that help individuals and entities prove and protect their online identity.

By offering accreditation in the digital world, where businesses can verify credentials and build trust, KILT is providing a base layer for verifiable credentials in Web 3.0.

It’s important to note the Kusama parachain provides key elements for KILT, including:

• Block finalization and network protection (an additional security level);
• Interoperability (interoperability between parachains, which enables KILT to utilize additional functionality like smart contracts and oracles;
• Ability to provide DIDs (Decentralized Identifiers) and Verifiable Credentials to other parachain projects via the Relay Chain, providing enormous network effects for KILT.

• Total supply at Token Generation Event (TGE): 150 million pre-minted KILT Coins.
• Initial circulating supply: 34 million.
• The remaining pre-minted coins will be gradually unlocked over a period of 6 to 60 months.
• Initial inflation will be around 5% per annum, dropping to 1% per annum within the first 6 years and then slowly moving towards 0%.

KILT launched as a decentralised parachain on Kusama in September 2021 with three major token utilities: payment, on-chain, and staking mechanisms for collators and delegators.

Regardless of whether KILT Protocol moves from a Kusama to a Polkadot parachain (as determined by community governance), there would be only one KILT network and one KILT Coin across both.

The KILT blockchain uses a variation on Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus called Limited Delegated Proof-of-Stake (LDPoS) to maximize chain security. This LDPoS system has two roles:

• Collators: hold the data of the blockchain, collecting transactions and building blocks. (Similar to validators on Kusama and Polkadot networks.)
• Delegators: back a trusted collator with their staked KILT Coins.

As a parachain on Kusama (and eventually Polkadot, depending on community governance), the security of KILT Protocol is provided by the Kusama Relay Chain. The blocks of transaction data verified by the collators on the KILT network will be passed to the Kusama validators to be finalized and become the state of truth.

The KILT token will be released in late 2021. Users will be able to purchase KILT by waiting for a listing on an exchange.

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For consumers: KILT provides a way to represent your identity without revealing things you prefer to keep private. It brings the old process of trust in real-world verifiable credentials (passport, driving licence, certificate, etc.) to the digital world, while keeping your data private and in your possession. Users have the option to store information and can choose what information they want to disclose and to whom.

For developers: KILT has an open-source JavaScript Software Development Kit (SDK) that does not require blockchain development experience to use. Developers can quickly spin up applications for issuing, holding and verifying credentials in order to create businesses around identity and privacy.

Read about Polkadot (DOT) and Kusama (KSM) - "Polkadot's wild cousin."

What is a Decentralized Identifier (DID)? Click here and find out.

What are Parachains? CMC’s tech deep dives are here to help.

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